For Ed everything is always about demographics. For Kevin Drum and others everything is always about energy. Other people have decided that productivity is so high that unemployment is inevitable, or that all consumption is now welfare reducing. Still others that the Chinese are our rightful masters – submit! although poor old Europe runs a [...]

Central and Eastern European economies aren’t doing well. German IFO business confidence tanks, on expectations of poor export orders. These two facts are related. It’s been said before that the central core of economics failed to predict the great recession (or damn, can’t we call it a depression already? It’s been four years and it’s [...]

As the heat wave which has been hanging over Southern Europe for the last couple of weeks steadily eases off there is little sign that any of the warm air which is disippating is reaching the chilled motors of the European and Chinese economies. The results of this months flash PMI readings are at best [...]

As an economics blogger, I am not an expert on international humor, but today’s sad news got me thinking. Germans insist – mostly unsuccessfully – that “German humor” is not the least bit oxymoronic, the rest of the world just doesn’t seem to understand it. Which is why the prejudice will probably live on. One [...]

The latest round of EU GDP data, brought to light a reality which many who have been closely following the economies of Eastern Europe already suspected: that the heavily export dependent economies in the region would almost inevitably be dragged down by the rapid slowdown in Europe’s principal economic motor, the German economy (see this [...]

I don’t know why the FT Brussels blog thinks it’s surprising that the Portuguese economy is showing signs of life, or at least non-catastrophe, while the “German growth engine” is slowing down. This shouldn’t be complicated – a current account surplus increases GDP, a deficit reduces it, and globally, current accounts must sum to zero. [...]

A few months ago, Larry Summers was reported to have made some comments regarding rules of thumb he used to distinguish between useful and not-so-useful economic papers when he was working in government: He had a fairly clear categorisation for which ones were likely to be useful: read virtually all the ones that used the [...]

“While the impact of service-sector liberalization and privatizations may be positive on medium-term growth, the budget cuts are likely to have quite negative effects on the short-term GDP dynamic. We expect Italian GDP growth to slow to close to zero in 2012 and 2013.” Giada Giani, Citigroup According to one anonymous German official speaking off [...]

Looking back over the last 18 months of Europe’s debt crisis, European Central Bank Executive Board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi recently invoked Winston Churchill’s famous quip, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they’ve tried everything else.” Europeans too, he assured his audience would also get it right, eventually. [...]

“But the go-ahead Estonians are already scenting the next challenge. Should the single currency crumble, they are determined to be on the inside track for any new German-centred “super-euro”. Goodbye “eastern Europe”; welcome to the “new north”.” Edward Lucas, writing in The Economist Estonia’s economy put in another sterling performance in the second quarter of [...]