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Stock Market & Economic Analysis
Browsing All posts tagged under »Macroeconomics«
The Economic Issues Raised by Possible Scottish Independence
On 5th May 2011, the first time since devolution in July 1999, the Scottish National Party won a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood. One of the key manifesto promises of the party is to hold a referendum on Scottish independence before 2016. While political commentators have begun discussing the potential political […]
The Bizarre Nature of The Chinese Real Estate Construction Boom
April 11, 2011
China, as we all know, is a booming economy, having experienced GDP growth of above 6% per annum for each of the last 20 years. The conventional wisdom is that this growth has been driven by the low-value manufacturing exports (mainly of consumer goods) that have been sold to the West. However, the data tells […]
Property Pain In Spain
April 6, 2011
While spending the past weekend in the Costa del Sol holiday resort of Puerto Banús, I couldn’t help noticing many signs that the local economy still seems to be in the doldrums. While there wasn’t any shortage of people drinking, eating and partying, many owners of big-ticket items appear to be struggling. Puerto Banús is, […]
In Support the Bank of England on Monetary Policy
March 28, 2011
While reading the Office for Budget Responsibility‘s United Kingdom Economic and Fiscal Outlook – March 2011 over the weekend (yes, I had that much fun), I noticed the chart below: It shows the difference between the current rate of UK inflation (CPI) and an estimate of inflation had sales taxes (VAT and excise duty on […]
A Hors d’œuvre Ahead of Today’s Non-Farm Payroll Numbers
February 4, 2011
Just prior to the release of the US non-farm payroll numbers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics later today, I thought it would be useful to take a look at this data series from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc, a major outplacement company in the United States. As we can see, during the last four […]
How to Solve the Eurozone Government Debt Crisis
November 30, 2010
The bulk of the financial troubles in the Eurozone – at least those which have become apparent thus far – have occurred in the so-called “peripheral” states, ie. small countries that are in huge financial difficulties when viewed individually (ie. Greece, Ireland, Portugal), but are small enough to be rescued by their larger brethren in […]
The Emerging Split on the Bank of England’s MPC
September 29, 2010
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (“MPC”) has maintained interest rates at current 0.5% level since March 2009 and its Asset Purchase Programme (a.k.a. quantitative easing) at £200bn since November 2009, the consensus amongst the committee members is now beginning to break down, creating uncertainty regarding the future direction of monetary policy. One member […]
How High Government Debt Destroys GDP Growth
August 26, 2010
Cristina Checherita and Philipp Rother of the ECB have recently published an empirical study looking at the effect of high government debt on GDP growth, snappily entitled “The Impact of High and Growing Government Debt on Economic Growth: An Empirical Investigation for the Euro Area“, in which they find that: “This means that, on average […]
July 18, 2011
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