The mirage of the British economy
LONDON | By Víctor Jiménez | The image of the Bank of England’s monetary policy Committee, which met in early July to not issue any decision on interest rates, was at the same time historic and false.
In Europe
Europeans and the euro
MADRID | By Álex García.
Just 8 percent of Greece’s 1.27 mln registered unemployed receive benefits
ATHENS | Via Macropolis | One of the consequences of Greece’s crisis often overlooked is that the vast majority of the country’s unemployed do not receive benefits as they would in many European Union countries. In a report on Monday, Ta Nea newspaper visited this story and found that the numbers are even more alarming than most would imagine.
Spain: internal devaluation progresses and employment improves
LONDON | By The Corner | The Spanish Tax Agency published on Monday its monthly statistics on large enterprises. Experts at Barclays explain that among others, the May data show that wages dropped 0.3% y/y (sa and wda) for these firms. The average monthly wage increase in Jan-May period was -0.2% y/y, which coincides with the average monthly salary growth increase since the main 2012 labour market reform in Spain.
Where is the success of the painful internal devaluation policy?
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | The Spanish government has the statistics of the major firms in Spain, whose turnover amounts to more than €6 million, and uses the data to figure out where the economy is going. I don’t think this is a trustworthy source –although it is interesting- because businesses have a bigger self-financing capacity: they are not in need of banking credit to survive.
When MPEs do find common ground
MADRID | By Álex García.
German budget consolidation under threat by its own Länder
BERLIN | Alberto Lozano | While German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble preaches public budget consolidation all around the Eurozone, some Länder don’t seem to be taking his prescriptions seriously. Their deficits continue to grow in 2014 and moving away from the zero deficit goal in 2020 as required by the country’s constitution.
ECB to issue minutes, move to six-week schedule
ZURICH | By The Corner | As expected, the ECB did not unveil any new policy measures on Thursday. Although the Bank maintains an easing bias, it signalled that it wants to wait and see how the monetary stimulus delivered last month unfolds. UBS’ base case scenario remains that ECB rates will stay on hold for the foreseeable future and that QE will not be deployed. The key news from ECB’s meeting was more of a technical nature.
Greece prepares to tap bond markets again
ATHENS | By Macropolis | After tapping markets in April for the first time in four years, Greece is considering another bond transaction, which could take place as early as next week, according to reports. The first bond issue on April 10 was a 3-billion-euro, 5-year note in a syndicated sale that was heavily oversubscribed. The yield was 4.95 percent.
No matter what, non-residents bet on French debt
MADRID | The Corner | While markets are expressing their concerns about the French economy, institutional investors seem quite comfortable about the Hexagone’s situation: the debt share of non-residents is 57.3 %, according to Eurostat. Finland and Latvia are the top choices with 81.6 % and 80.0 % of their debt owned by non-residents. Check the graph above.