By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | In Spain, the fall in the housing prices is intensifying and that is a reason to rejoice. Last July, the average housing price fell 11.2%, but the granting of mortgages went down by 21% in the first half of the year. It is obvious that the owners may not feel comfortable with these decreases, but the truth is that as housing prices keep on…
The seemingly dead weight of the peripheral economies continues to mark a divide within the common currency region. The overall picture, unavoidably, registers the cut. GDP fell by 0.2% in both the euro area and the EU during the second quarter of 2012, compared with the previous quarter. Also according to flash estimates published by Eurostat Tuesday, in the first quarter of 2012, growth rates were zero in both zones. Compared with…
The Corner continues with its summer series of interviews about the future of Europe seen by international experts. Today, New York University Economics Professor Lawrence White gives his take. He has been with New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business for more than 30 years. His primary research areas of interest include financial regulation, antitrust, network industries, international banking and applied microeconomics. He is coauthor of Restoring Financial…
By CaixaBank research team, in Barcelona | After the first six months of the year, it’s time to think about the current situation of the economy and its prospects for the second half of the year. There are two main lines along which the euro area’s activity is running. Firstly, the consensus that its institutional design is not enough to tackle the challenges posed by the current crisis. The absence…
By CaixaBank research team, in Barcelona | The slowdown in the recovery of the labour market is the factor that best explains this slump in consumption. In May, 69,000 net jobs were created, a very modest figure that follows on from the bad figures for April. Similarly, the hours worked and weekly wages also fell. The recovery is too slow and the level of employment prior to the crisis is…
NEW YORK | Their outlook remains negative, but there is some brightness in the horizon, the agency reckons. Standard and Poors will not cut Spain’s rating because it believes the country has done its homework, showing a strong commitment to economic and fiscal adjustment. It will continue to receive support from its European partners and the ECB and therefore its debt will remain below 80 percent of GDP beyond 2015….
MADRID | Three years have passed since the US took hold in mid-2009 of something of an economic recovery. The green in the green shoots has been paler than first thought, though. JP Morgan analysts in Spain released today a note saying that, by GDP per capita standards, we are witnesses of the weakest rebound the US has lived since World War Second. In the JP Morgan chart, populations has…
“I don’t think ultimately that the Europeans will let the Euro unravel, but they are going to have to take some decisive steps,” US President Barack Obama said in a fundraiser event Monday night held in a New York high end hotel. Only four months before the U.S. election, Euro worries are inevitably playing a major role on this side of the Atlantic. Any worsening in the Euro zone situation…
Economist Ricardo R. Reis expects “better policymaking from the European authorities now.” Originally from Portugal, Reis teaches at Columbia University, he is a former graduate from the London School of Economics and Harvard Ph.D and has worked extensively on inflation dynamics and monetary and fiscal policy, including evaluation of fiscal stimulus programs. He gives his take on the current economic turmoil for our readers in the first of a summer…
The European Commission announced Friday it had temporarily approved a bridge recapitalisation via the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) for Alpha Bank, EFG Eurobank, Piraeus Bank and National Bank of Greece. The injection of public capital will be provided under EU State aid rules to ensure the entities’ financial stability. But, at the same time, the Commission said it had also opened four in-depth investigations to examine whether the measure…