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Saturday, May 4

4th May - Weekender Linkfest



The Weekender! Europe, economics, markets, regulation. Note the Berkshire weekend! (added links to this on Sunday)


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EUROPE
Brussels blog round-up for 27 April – 3 MayEuropp / LSE
A dreary May Day, the ECB cuts rates, and could Spain become the Florida of Europe?

Southern Europe’s Problem: Poor EducationPIIE
A little noticed fact about the economic turmoil in southern Europe is that Portugal and Italy, two of the countries struggling the most, had minimal growth even during the seven good pre-crisis years of 2001–07. The most overlooked common problem of the four Southern European countries—Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece—is that they are all hampered by little education and the poor quality of the education system.


Visit could set IMF against TreasuryThe Telegraph
A delegation of senior economists will this week arrive from the IMF to conclude its annual review of the UK economy.

Threat to the eurozone is as strong as everThe Telegraph
The eurozone economy has contracted every single quarter since the end of 2011. During the first three months of 2013, the region's GDP shrank by a punishing 0.6pc, having fallen at a similar pace the quarter before.

Blueprint for a deep and genuine EMUEC (pdf)
Conference on 7-May (Tuesday) Debating the future economic, monetary, banking and political union


France and Germany: A tandem in troubleThe Economist

Italy’s new government: Unanswered questionsThe Economist

Charlemagne: After austerity, what?The Economist

  SPRING FORECAST
Spring 2013 forecastEuropean Commission
The EU economy – slowly recovering from a protracted recession

The economic winter continuesFree exchange / The Economist
The outlook has darkened in the northern core economies of the single-currency club as well as in the southern periphery.

Humorists At The European CommissionKrugman / NYT

  THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK
ECB: A Three-Way Split?WSJ
Other central banks publish minutes that show how this or that official exercised the power vested in him or her by the public. Not so the European Central Bank.

Draghi Likely To Keep Euro WeakWSJ


Free exchange: Broken transmissionThe Economist

ECB has lost control of interest rates in periphery

Europe’s credit crunch: Mend the money machineThe Economist
Small businesses’ troubles in periphery are the next step in crisis
 
ASIA
The Japanese ExperimentProject Syndicate
Mohamed A. El-Erian: Weeks into Japan's paradigm shift in economic policy, optimism that the country may end a quarter-century of economic stagnation is balanced by fears that the authorities' new approach may make things worse. And, while debate naturally focuses on Japan's internal maneuvers, the tipping point may lie abroad.


MARKETS / TRADING
Which is a Better Inflation Hedge, Gold or Houses?The Big Picture
If you want to be hedged against the risk of a pickup in inflation, you would be better off buying houses than gold.

Weekend Sentiment SummaryShort Side of the Long

You Don’t Really Understand the Carry Trade, Do You?Mark Dow

Goldman: "0% Upside For S&P 500 To Year End"ZH

Another Week in the BooksBespoke
Though the number of companies that have reported this season nearly doubled from 855 up to 1,655, the percentage of companies that have beaten earnings estimates this season remained the same at 59%.

128 Years of Dow ComponentsThe Big Picture
Want to know what has been in the Dow Jones Industrials over the past century and change? Click thru for an interactive chart that shows the full history of the Grandpappy all of indexes.

Weekend Reads for InvestorsCFA Institute
The Rising Influence of Activists, Africa, and Twitter

Filtered Market Statistics and Technical Trading RulesNAAIM (pdf)

Technical analysis as behavioral financeHumble Student

What We're Reading ~ Hedge Fund LinksMarket Folly

Book Bits | 5.04.13The Capital Spectator

Measuring the 'reach for yield'voxeu.org
Fixed-income investors that have targets based on imperfect risk measures are tempted to take on additional risk to raise their portfolio yields. This column argues that when yields are low such ‘reaching for yield’ may be especially attractive. New research that quantifies reaching-for-yield for corporate-bond investors shows that insurance companies, which are regulated based on broad ratings categories, assume additional risk by selectively overweighting risker bonds within categories. There is evidence that this distorts pricing and issuance.
  BUFFETT
Live Blog: Berkshire Hathaway’s 2013 Shareholder MeetingNYT
Live Blog: Berkshire Hathaway’s Annual MeetingWSJ

Berkshire Annual Meeting: Warren Buffett’s HighlightsWSJ

Rare Interview with Charlie MungerMarket Folly
This weekend is Berkshire Hathaway-palooza and as a part of that, CNBC sat down with Charlie Munger for a rare interview that we wanted to highlight. (37-minutes video)

On Questions to BuffettAleph blog
I’m going to comment on three articles written before Buffett’s party.  I am not picking on these because they are dumb.  I am picking on them because they are brighter than most, but still don’t get Buffett.

Buffett maps out hopes for Berkshire without himReuters
Warren Buffett on Saturday gave the most extensive comments to date about the future of Berkshire Hathaway Inc after he is gone, saying he still expects the conglomerate to be a partner of choice for distressed companies.

Berkshire Hathaway's Annual Meeting 2013BB


ECONOMICS
  FISCAL POLICY
Lessons on Fiscal Policy Since the RecessionEconomix / Reuters

Self-defeating austerity shocksvoxeu.org
Europe’s austerity-first approach has triggered research-based efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of debt-reduction strategies. This column, based on a US empirical study, suggests that an ‘austerity shock’ in a weak economy may be self-defeating. Public-debt reduction historically occurs gradually amid improved growth. If policymakers, firms and households respond as in the past, we should expect lower deficits amid higher growth and, eventually, decreasing debt ratios.

Fiscal consolidation: At what speed?voxeu.org
Olivier Blanchard, Daniel Leigh: The debate about fiscal consolidation reduces too often to shouting matches about the value of fiscal multipliers, or about the existence of a critical debt-to-GDP ratio. This does not do justice to what is a complex choice, depending on many factors. Our purpose in this article is to review the relevant factors at play and allow for a richer discussion.


Blanchard on Fiscal PolicyMainly Macro

What we need is a rule that obliges governments to switch from consolidation to stimulus at or near the ZLB. Otherwise, the next time a large crisis hits (and Romer plausibly suggests that could be sooner rather than later), we will have to go through all of this stuff once again.

Playing Whack-a-Mole With Expansionary AusterityKrugman / NYT

There’s Even Bigger Problems in the Reinhart & Rogoff Thinking…. – PragCap

  MONETARY POLICY
Where to exit to? Monetary policy implementation after the crisisECB
Speech by Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the 15th Geneva Conference on the World Economy: “Exit strategies: time to think about them” Geneva, 3 May 2013

Can And Should The Fed Battle Bubbles?EconoSpeak
Probably not very much, even though critics have blamed expansionary monetary policy in the past for exacerbating both the dot.com bubble of the late 1990s and the more recent and more destructive housing bubble whose collapse (and related derivatives markets) precipitated the Great Recession. 

Richard Koo On The Ineffectiveness Of Monetary ExpansionZH

Monetary Policy's Jurassic Park Problem at the Zero Lower BoundThe Next New Deal

  REGULATION
Preventing The Next Catastrophe: Where Do We Stand?iMFdirect
The financial sector as a continued source of shocks. The question, then, is what to do.

IMF Conference--Financial Structure: The IssuesIMF

A New Fed Thought for ‘Too Big to Fail’ Banks: Shrink ThemDealBook / NYT
Daniel K. Tarullo, a governor at the Federal Reserve, described a measure aimed at requiring the biggest banks to hold extra capital. Many might prefer to become smaller banks instead.

Tarullo’s speech on capital and regulationalphaville / FT
Fed governor Dan Tarullo’s speech Friday on bank capital and regulation could well invigorate the same amount of public discussion as Jeremy Stein’s speech on the role of monetary policy and asset bubbles did.

The Lessons of the North Atlantic Crisis for Economic Theory and PolicyiMFdirect


Around The Tax-Avoiding World In 53 MinutesZH
 


FINNISH
Uskoo ken tahtoo: virallisesti Suomi hyötyy kriisistäJan Hurri / TalSa
Suomen julkinen velka paisuu kaksinkertaiseksi ja budjettitalous kyntää uutta alijäämää minkä ehtii. Vienti tökkii ja vaihtotasekin vuotaa. Talous takkuaa ja työttömien suomalaisten määrä kasvaa kymmenien tuhansien vuosivauhtia. Mutta väliäkös vitsauksista – virallisesti "Suomi on hyötynyt kriisistä valtavasti".

Koska tulee 100 000 euron seteli?Jukka Hankamäki

Suomen vienti vaikuttaa myytiltäHenri Myllyniemi / Piksu

Draghikin turhautuuHenri Myllyniemi / US Puheenvuoro