By CaixaBank research team, in Barcelona | In spite of an improvement in the economic climate in February and March, available indicators point to stagnation in the first quarter of 2012, representing a slowdown compared with the 0.2% quarter-on-quarter expansion in GDP posted in the last quarter of 2011. We have kept to our forecast of very modest growth for the whole of 2012 due to the situation of some…
WASHINGTON | “Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin, it does not work,” had already said Allan Meltzer in 1969. Pittsburgh's Carnegie-Mellon University teacher and author of the monumental History of the Federal Reserve is the same conservative who advised John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Under Clinton's presidency he was in charge of a U.S. Congress committee that essentially claimed the end of the World Bank on the basis…
A curated selection of links we hope can enlighten us all; some come from our corner, some do from other corners of the net. And as always, our comment widgets are anxious to get your suggestions. How a company becomes a listed company like, let’s say, Facebook Can London pay for the Olympic Games? We give you Mr Hollande Don’t miss how much Africa is growing Hollande tax makes London look…
More tourists so far than last year, but a downward move in traditionally important markets for Spain’s tourism sector. The accumulate figures this year from January to April indicate a rise of 1.1 percent in foreign tourists, with a total of 13.7 million, coming to Spain comparing to the same period in 2011. But April brought a fall in numbers by 4.5 million or 1.7 percent less foreign tourists in contrast…
Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | It’s the talk of the town. The euro zone desperately needs to become a fiscal union and, voilà, everything will be sorted. But I wonder: how do we get there? Have a look at the chart below, which reflects fiscal pressure levels in core Europe economies and in some of the peripherals’. What do we see? We clearly spot the huge differences among them (which are…
Just because most European languages attach a semantic Spartan-like element to the term austerity, it doesn’t follow that austerity must obviously be a more consistent policy than, let’s say, a profligacy programme. Common ancient history aside, the increasing doubts about the German and French economies doing well in spite of the stress the euro zone is going under, tells us that austerity plans currently in place in euro peripheral States were not thoroughly…
Taxpayers may be under the impression that their pockets have suffered an increasing attention from their countries’ administrations. They are right to complain. The average standard VAT rate in the EU has risen strongly since 2008. In 2012, the standard VAT rate varies from 15.0% in Luxembourg and 17.0% in Cyprus to 27.0% in Hungary and 25.0% in Denmark and Sweden, data from the 2012 edition of taxation trends in the European…
LONDON | If you haven’t heard of it, you have simply not been on planet Earth: Grexit was the trendiest word this week, but for the wrong reasons. Would Greece exit the euro zone, shuttering prospects of an approaching global economic recovery? The matter was not whether the Hellenic nation could stand the heat coming from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which assured the…
MADRID | Markets have been plunged into utter chaos by the Greek political deadlock and the prospect parties staunchly opposed to the EU bail out plan may have the upper hand in the incoming elections. Panic has also been driven by light comments picturing Greece’s eviction from the euro as an anodyne and somehow inevitable event. Such a bullish appraisal does not emerge from Anglo Saxon analysts so much inclined to…
It was Germany, with a 0.5 percent growth of GDP in the first quarter of this year, that helped the euro zone avoid enter technical recession territory. GDP remained stable in both the euro are and the EU during January to March of 2012 compared with the previous quarter, according to flash estimates published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. Compared with the same quarter of the previous…