EU Enlargement - Evaluating the Impact
Many of Europe’s newer member states have outperformed established EU countries since they joined the single market in 2004 and 2007. And as a result there has been a process of convergence in average living standards and improved employment opportunities. Europe’s new nations have injected extra dynamism into the region despite inevitable teething problems along the way.
For students revising aspects of EU enlargement here is a streamed version of a presentation I gave to a Tutor2u event in London a few weeks ago
A streamed version of the presentation is available here
PDF Handout of the presentation
Related news issues
Germany expects influx of Polish workers (BBC news, April 2011)
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AS and A2 Macro Revision: The China Effect
This is a new eight-page revision briefing note for students taking AS and A2 macroeconomics courses on developments in the Chinese economy and their impact on the UK and the wider global economy. Fans on our Facebook page voted for it and we will be adding some more revision briefings in the next week based on the votes and preferences on the page! What is happening in China and in China’s changing economic relationships around the world is and will continue to have a profound impact on the UK and European Economy - this revision briefing looks at some of these connections. Download it here in pdf format
Revision_China_Effect_2011.pdf
read more...»A2 Macro: Twin Deficits
Here is a revision note on the economics of twin deficits. Twin deficits refer to a situation where an economy is running both a fiscal deficit and also a deficit on the current account of the balance of payments. The revision note is available for download as a pdf file.
Twin_Deficits.pdf
Australia Booming Ahead
The Australian Government released unemployment figures showing the rate of unemployment falling ot 4.9%. This figure is lower than previously expected and is now now influencing the value of the exchange rate in Australia. The article makes reference to the possible implications on the interest rate in the economy over the coming months to counteract.
Task: The article in the Australian Times could be used as a revision lesson for AS or Year 1 IB Economists to review the links between different macroeconomic variables.
read more...»OCR F585 June 2011: A Brain Drain from Spain?
High unemployment, declining real wages and worsening employment prospects might be causing a surge in net migration out of the Spanish economy. The economic and social consequences of high unemployment figures prominently in the OCR F585 stimulus material for the June 2011 exam. One in five under the age of 30 in Spain is unemployed, and a staggering 64% of those age 16 to 19 are unemployed. Youth unemployment rates in Spain are higher than both Egypt and Tunisia
Official data shows that 118,000 people left the country in the two years to April 2010 - many of them heading to Germany where economic growth is strong and unemployment rates are falling. There is also growing evidence of younger Spaniards heading to Latin America. 30,000 Spaniards moved to Argentina between June 2009 and November 2010 — an 11 per cent increase over that period. Some 6,400 went to Chile — a jump of 24 per cent in the same timeframe — and 6,800 headed for Uruguay, an increase of 16 per cent.
If the brain drain effect gathers momentum consider some of the possible consequences for the Spanish economy.
Canadian Press: Portuguese, Spaniards seek new lives in old colonies as they face dead-end future at home
Spanish jobless level hits another record high (April 29th)
Focus on Ireland’s Economy
Ireland is an economy suffering an economic, financial and political crisis. Her freedom to operate an independent macroeconomic policy is constrained by her membership of the single European currency and there are many who doubt that Ireland will be able to achieve a sustained recovery without some form of debt default. Our charts below track some of the key macroeconomic indicators for the Irish economy and below them we have gathered together recent blogs on Irish economic issues.
read more...»A2 Macro: Back to Roubini - a Year On!
Almost a year ago I headed to the LSE to hear Nouriel Roubini launch a new book “Crisis Economics”. The notes that I took at the time are reprised below and reading through them again, I am struck by just how accurate the Roubini assessment was of where the next phase of the financial and economic crisis would move. Many of the remarks are relavant to students preparing for the OCR F585 paper for June 2011 and also for other A2 macro students wanting some evaluative comments on the international economic crisis.
I have repeated my comments from the May 2010 blog and they appear below. There has been some minor editing and I have supplemented the blog with some charts drawn from the team at Timetric.
read more...»OCR F585 June 2011: New articles on the Spanish economy
As preparation for the OCR F585 June 2011 economics paper here are some new articles on the Spanish economy - which features heavily in Extract 3 of the pre-release stimulus material. Our toolkit is available from here.
read more...»ECB breaks rank and raises interest rates
The European Central Bank has become the first of the four major central banks to lift policy interest rates since the start of the global financial crisis. This decision came on the same day as Portugal applying for emergency support in a bail out that might be worth Euro 80 billion. David Blanchflower, a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee has called the move “a big mistake” hinting that Spain - where more than 80% of mortgages are on variable interest rates - is more vulnerably to financial distress than many are prepared to admit.
The ECB is starting to move their policy interest rates towards normal levels - but this tightening of monetary policy starts with the Euro Area suffering 10 per cent unemployment - it takes a hawkish central bank to start increasing the cost of borrowing money when one in ten people in the currency union is out of work and when the Euro has already been appreciating against the US dollar threatening the strength of an export-led recovery for the currency union. The ECB was forced to reverse a rate rise in the autumn of 2008 when the financial crisis took hold. Might they have to do the same sometime this summer?
It seems that the ECB has confirmed that the Euro Area will now experience a two-speed currency union for the next few years with Germany leading a group of fast-growing countries and the debt-ridden periphery (the PIIGS) condemned to grow more slowly and suffer the impact of a period of painful fiscal austerity.
Eurozone interest rate rise explained (BBC news)
Guardian: Portugal bailout analysis: Is Spain next for EU help? - video
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EU Economics - Portugal Reaches for Bail Out
Portugal has requested an emergency bail out from the European Union to address it’s sovereign debt crisis. It becomes the third Euro Area economy to require help from European partners in the wake of bail outs for Ireland and Greece.
The move came after the Portuguese government was forced to pay an interest rate of more than 5% for borrowing money for just one year and in the expectation of the European Central Bank raising policy interest rates in the near future. The Portuguese economy has a major state-sector debt crisis as our Timetric chart below shows. And the economy has been performing poorly for several years with rising unemployment and a steep fall in relative living standards. Already several of Europe’s new economies (including Slovenia and the Czech Republic) have overtaken Portugal in terms of income per capita (PPP adjusted). Portugal’s long-term credit rating was downgraded by Moody’s by one notch to Baa1 earlier on this week.
BBC: EU austerity drive country by country
Independent: Portugal seeks €80bn bailout as third nation falls to eurozone crisis
Guardian: Portugal’s bailout was all but inevitable
Bloomberg: Goldman Sachs Says Portugal Is Last Euro Nation to Seek Bailout
Independent, Sean O’Grady: If Spain fails, it will be too expensive to save
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Focus on Poland
Poland is the largest of the central and eastern european countries (CEECs) to have entered the European Union Single Market in the recent enlargement process. And her macroeconomic record during and after the global financial crisis stands comparison as one of the best of the twenty seven EU member nations. Recession has been avoided and the economy is set to continue a long run of economic growth that is (slowly) bringing about a rise in relative living standards and a sustained fall in unemployment. The Guardian newspaper has been running a series on New Europe and this set of articles focuses on some of the challenges and opportunities facing Poland as Europe seeks to drag itself into a durable recovery phase.
Guardian - New Europe - Focus on Poland
Larry Elliott: Poland’s past and future mix in Gdansk, the start of the road to the 21st century
OECD Report on the Polish economy
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Prospects for the UK Economy - Madrid Presentation
The updated presentation on prospects for the UK economy that we delivered in Madrid yesterday is available here as a streamed presentation and also as a downloadable pdf handout. All of the data charts are up to speed and we have included some comments on the importance of context for AS and A2 students (in particular) when discussing UK developments in the context of external events and shocks in the international economy.
PDF handout of the presentation
Tracking the effects of the recession on GDP
An excellent resource for Unit 2 and Unit 4 macroeconomics. Vishnu Padmanabhan from Timetric has this excellent look at the impact of the recession on real GDP growth in OECD countries. Which countries did best and worst in the recession? It turns out that Australia, Poland, Israel and South Korea were the countries least affected by the crisis and all avoided a full-blown recession - experiencing instead a soft landing. Here is Vishnu’s article. Our own growing selection of Timetric charts can be found by scrolling down to the bottom of this blog entry.
The OECD has just produced their annual review of Going for Growth - a largely supply-side look at policies designed to promote long-term growth in productive potential in the world economy. Details can be found here.
AS Macro Key Term: Relative deflation
The term “relative deflation” is generally used to describe an economy with an inflation rate, which has not necessarily descended into negative territory, but is markedly lower than comparable economies. Over time, a low relative rate of inflation can lead to an improvement in price competitiveness in international markets, assuming that there has not been a compensating change in the exchange rate between two countries.
In our data example shown below we track consumer price inflation in Ireland, Spain and Germany. For most of the period shown, the annual rate of inflation in Germany was substantially lower than two of her partners in the European single currency area - this is an example of relative deflation.
read more...»Timetric: Unemployment in the US Economy
One of the most keenly awaited macro statistics in the USA is the monthly data on employment and unemployment. For some time there have been fears that the huge fiscal and monetary policy stimulus programs seem to have been having little effect on the jobless rate.
As we can see from the charts below there are tentative signs that a more durable economic recovery is setting across the Atlantic. The unemployment rate has fallen to a two year low, employment in private sector businesses is expanding and the steep fall in manufacturing employment seems to have come to an end (for now). Getting unemployment down is crucial for Obama with the next Presidential electoral campaign in view. And it is also important for the wider health of the world’s biggest economy.
One of the really striking things about the recent recession and weak recovery has been the dramatic increase in the mean duration of unemployment in the USA compared to previous bouts of cyclical unemployment. My third chart in this blog looks compelling and suggests that it has been really hard for those who have lost their jobs in the wake of the global financial crisis and the subsequent recession to find fresh work. Long-term unemployment is a structural problem in the labour market and it becomes harder to resolve as the length of time spent out of paid work grows month by month.
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OCR F585 June 2011: Competitiveness
One important aspect of the OCR F585 stimulus materials for June 2011 is the economics of competitiveness within the single currency zone - the Euro Area. A conventional view is that some of Europe’s peripheral countries (notably the PIIGS) have become uncompetitive because they have allowed their producer prices, consumer prices and relative unit labour costs to rise. This - in the absence of a compensating exchange rate depreciation - has made their manufacturing and service industries relatively more expensive leading to a deterioration in trade balances, slower growth and stagnating living standards.
read more...»Pacific Peso Reaches 29 Year High!
For a currency that used to have the tag of the “Pacific Peso”, these are heady days for the Australian dollar. The external value of the dollar has reached a 29-year high as the Aussie dollar continues to appreciate on the global currency markets. Our Timetric charts follow the Australian dollar against the US dollar and also sterling.
This is a good mini case study on the factors that determine the value of a currency when it is allowed to float freely in foreign exchange markets
1/ The Australian economy is growing relatively strongly - increasing the expected returns from foreign investment in the economy
2/ Policy interest rates are relatively high (4.75%) - attracting inflows of hot money - short term banking flows that seek the best risk-adjusted rate of return
3/ Trade - the Australian economy has enjoyed a resurgence in the value of exports, notably from selling minerals and liquid natural gas to fast-growing developing countries in Asia
4/ Changing sentiment in the market - foreign exchange market speculators seem to be buying the Australian dollar as a safe haven investment instead of Japanese Yen
In simple terms the expected yield to investors prepared to buy Australian dollars is pretty high - for example compared to that on offer in Japan. This is causing a strong market demand for the Australian dollar
read more...»Why is the Yen appreciating?
BBC Business News has an excellent report and supporting video which assesses why the Yen has strengthened following the sad disasters besetting Japan.
An example of how financial flows impact on exchange rate volatility. The normal suspect, currency speculation, may not be the major driver here.
Or are speculators ‘gambling’ that repatriation of funds to finance reconstruction means the Yen will rise in value so ‘buy cheap, now’ and ‘sell later, dear’?
And how can the world’s central banks respond? And why?
Much to debate in class
read more...»Focus on Spain
I will be developing a series of data charts and links to other resources in this blog for students and teachers who want to use developments in the Spanish economy as part of their macro studies. The economy is a member of the single European currency but widely regarded as experiencing deep structural problems and facing a tough adjustment process in the years ahead. At the bottom of the blog we link to recent articles on the Spanish economy. The OCR F585 June 2011 paper focuses on Spain as one of the countries experiencing difficulties within the Euro Area.
May 2011
Migrants pushed towards exit by Spanish jobs crisis (BBC)
April 2011
Spain economy gets IMF vote of confidence
Spanish jobless level hits another record high
March 2011
Spain pledges additional measures to strengthen economy
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Global supply chain threatened by Japanese disaster
One aspect of globalisation is that manufacturers source their supplies from around the world. This will depend on the comparative advantage those countries have developed in producing various types of components. Japan produces about 30% of the global output of ‘flash memory’ used in electronic cameras and smartphones, and about 15% of the DRAM memory used in PCs. If something happens to disrupt that supply chain, as is clearly the case after the horrific events in Japan, there will be global effects.
read more...»House Price Rollercoaster
This is a terrific visualisation of what has happened to US house prices since the late nineteenth century - we ride the rollercoaster based on data from the Case Shiller index.
And if you want the latest Case Shiller data on US house prices - based on the 20 city survey, then click on the Timetric charts below .... hold onto your hats, the Florida property price data in particular looks pretty scary
read more...»Focus on Japan - Human Catastrophe, Economic Risks
The terrible news coming out of Japan reminds one of the fragility of human life in the face of overwhelming natural forces. The thoughts of everyone at Tutor2u are with the people of the region affected by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
The narrow economic impact of the natural disaster will take many months to calibrate - Japan is one of the richest countries in the world and ought to have the resources to cope with the immediate aftermath. But her macro-economy has been weak for many years - the country has been struggling to shrug off a lost decade of slow growth and - more recently - one of the deepest recessions in her post war history.
Does the third largest but most indebted government in the world have any fiscal freedom to react? What will happen in the short term to industrial production, energy and food supplies and her export sectors?
Earthquakes have a special power to create hugely damaging economic consequences. Japan suffered losses of 10 trillion Japanese yen in the 1995 Kobe quake, 2.5 percent of the country’s GDP the previous year. Over time a rebuilding process will help to stabilise economic activity but there is an opportunity cost of having to devote scarce resources to rebuilding. The Japanese economy has endured a period of relative stagnation in part because many Japanese companies have out-sourced their manufacturing production to China and other countries where unit labour costs are lowest.
I have produced a series of charts below tracking some of the recent key changes in macroeconomic indicators for Japan and linked to some news coverage and audio-visual resources on how the earthquake may affect the Japanese economy
Hamish McRae: The cost of catastrophe and unrest is huge in both human and economic terms
BBC News (Feb 2011): Japan is no longer the world’s second largest economy
BBC News (Nov 2010): Japan grapples with deflation and demographics
BBC news: (Nov 2010): G20: Currency War and Japan
Guardian: Japan’s economy heads into freefall after earthquake and tsunami
Telegraph: Japan shuts down as economic fears grow
Timetric: Unemployment Rates for Selected Countries
In this Timetric chart blog we look at unemployment rates for a selection of country groups - these automatically updated charts will track what is happening to the standardised jobless rates for clusters of countries starting with one that includes the Euro Area, Germany, USA, UK and Japan. The second chart is the unemployment rates in the so-called PIIGS - Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain
read more...»Dambisa Moyo - How the West was Lost
Dambisa Moyo’s talk at the RSA available here focuses on some of the long term structural problems facing Western Economies in general and the USA in particular. She argues that there are three crucial ingredients in economic growth - better capital, the quantity and quality of the workforce plus improvements in productivity
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Ireland - Mass Unemployment and Shrinking GDP
We know that Ireland is in deep economic and financial trouble. Our Timetric chart will keep pace with what is happening to Irish real national output and their unemployment rate (measured as a % of their labour force). And in the links below you can connect to recent blog posts on Ireland - one of the countries inside the Euro Zone that faces a huge sovereign debt crisis that may take years to resolve.
Here is the chart
read more...»A virtuous circle of recovery - Paul Krugman
A hat tip to Larry Spence for flagging up this super piece from Paul Krugamn in the New York Times. His focus is on the dynamics of an economic recovery and the risks of fiscal austerity tipping the US back into recession.
“As families have repaired their finances, they have increased their spending; as consumer demand has started to revive, businesses have become more willing to invest; and all this has led to an expanding economy, which further improves families’ financial situation…....... The clear and present danger to recovery, however, comes from politics — specifically, the demand from House Republicans that the government immediately slash spending on infant nutrition, disease control, clean water and more.”
More here on How to Kill a Recovery
read more...»Unemployment in Germany and Spain
For many years Germany was criticised for persistently high unemployment rates and an inflexible labour market. But having weathered the worst of the steep contraction in global manufacturing output and trade in 2009 the German economy is being propelled forward by a strong surge in export sales. Unemployment is falling and for the first time in recent memory, the official jobless rate in East Germany is now lower than the state of California!
The US-China Trade Deficit
The US trade gap with China hit a record $273.1 billion in 2010 raising fresh fears of a deteriorating trade relationship between the world’s two biggest economies. But a quick look behind the figures suggests that the US economy is enjoying a surge in exports a major stimulus to their recovery hopes.
The raw data is that US goods exported to China totaled $91.9 billion in 2010 while imports from China rose 24 percent to $364.9 billion. In fact that represents a rise in the value of US-China exports in 2010 of more than 31%.
And the true scale of the trade imbalance with China is likely to be much smaller than the conventionally published data suggests.
David Smith on Shifting Sands in the Global Economy
David Smith from the Sunday Times was on fine form in his talk to the Global Economy Student Enrichment event at Fulham yesterday. I have some brief notes below on some of his key themes and the pdf version of his presentation can be downloaded from the link at the bottom of the blog
read more...»WTO finds Boeing guilty of using illegal subsidies
This is one of the longest running disputes in trade history. Europe and the US have been fighting for more than six years over each other’s subsidies for large passenger aircraft in the duopolistic battle between Boeing and Airbus. Now the World Trade Organisation has found that Boeing received at least $5bn (£3.1bn) in illegal subsidies and was only able to launch its 787 Dreamliner with such support. Airbus has als been found to be in breach of receiving illegal state aid. Reuters provides useful background here.
