The German Finance Minister Wolgang Schauble has been a strong advocate of austerity, supply side reforms and ‘sound money’ policies. (i.e. sticking rigidly to inflation targets). Generally, this has been the preferred approach of Europe to the ongoing debt crisis and recession of the past few years. Recently, he has claimed that the European economy …
Another few graphs to look at the impact of the UK budget deficit on bond yields and interest payments. Government net borrowing for 2012-12 excluding Royal Mail pension fund transfer and Asset Finance Programme (AFP – the proceeds from Q.E) Government borrowing vs debt interest payments The very large deficits have had little impact on …
This website is managed by Tejvan Pettinger (born 1976, UK). He lives in Oxford where he works as an Economics teacher (A-Level students) He has also published five books on economics. Background Bradford Grammar School Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University PPE (2:1) (1995-99) CV Examiner and Team Leader Edexcel exam Board (2001-2007) Has contributed articles …
Forward guidance is when the Central Bank announces to markets that it intends to keep interest rates at a certain level until a fixed point in the future. The aim of forward guidance is to influence long term interest rates and market expectations. For example, the Central Bank might want to boost economic activity by …
My Q: can you see any reason the ECB can’t do a version of QE for Greece? Not necessarily the US/UK way of buying bank bonds and hoping; there may be other ways? But if they could do it somehow, interest-free, so that the new money gets out into the economy, with the proviso that …
Despite a shrinkage in manufacturing and widening trade deficit, the IMF have hinted that the UK economy is beginning to emerge from one of the longest periods of economic stagnation / recession on records. They marginally increased their forecast for UK growth to 0.9% for 2013. Does the recent good news give hope to the …
By the end of 2013, the UK government will have implemented 52% of planned fiscal consolidation. The IFS report that most of this fiscal consolidation has come through taxes. In coming years, we will see the impact of cuts to the benefit budget. Only 58% of the total cuts to benefit spending have been implemented, …
There is mixed evidence about the success of the Funding for Lending scheme Firstly, there is evidence that credit is still tight and firms are struggling to gain finance. Since last August, £1.8bn of credit has been drained out of the system At the same time, up to 40 lenders have accessed the £16.5bn in …