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Saturday, November 16

16th Nov - Weekly Links #4178


Using a central bank as a blunt instrument to force government spending is not a good idea.
When Lagarde was asked why Europe is either close to a recession, or in recession, she responded that the problem is U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, not any of the policies Europe has pursued.
Lagarde has also weighed in on so-called green bonds, or debt financing to fight climate change. She is in favor of using the ECB’s balance sheet to purchase them. A laudable goal, but a political one nonetheless.


Bloomberg: Macron’s Vision of European Security Is Half-Baked
His ideas are based on a flawed long-term view of Russia and a short-term one of the U.S.
Macron sounds bold, strategic, even prophetic at times — but his geopolitical judgments aren’t indisputable or even universally attractive. Most of all, they’re unproven. Waiting seems more attractive at this point than feverishly developing an expensive, politically iffy project. It’ll take much more than his eloquence to make Europe’s geopolitical repositioning a reality.

The French president’s grand talk on migration curbs is less ambitious than it appears. His lurch into right-wing rhetoric could easily backfire.
The U.K. example is instructive. Prime Minister David Cameron’s failed promise to cut net yearly migration to the “tens of thousands” led directly to the Brexit vote. Taking back control is an alluring promise to voters, but the cost of failure is high.

The race for tech supremacy between the U.S. and China has driven Europe to look for “data sovereignty.” It can’t win a head-on battle in this field.
Still, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if this trend led to France and Germany collaborating more — laying the groundwork for more ambitious spending — and to Brussels doing what it does best: setting the rules of engagement for tech companies everywhere. Digital commissioner Margrethe Vestager is already demanding tougher enforcement of data protection laws and taking a consistently muscular approach to antitrust violations by the Silicon Valley and Seattle giants. It’s not sovereignty, but it’s a start.

ECB forum on central banking, conference proceedings

Exchange rate pass-though to export prices is higher in economies which participate more in global value chains, and that exchange rate pass-through to import prices is lower in economies whose trading partners participate more in global value chains.  Quantitatively, our estimates imply that the rise in global value chain participation can account for about 50% of the decline in exchange rate pass-through to import prices since the mid-1990s.

These factors add up to a conclusion often voiced by Draghi, who has increasingly called on governments to undertake fiscal action

The European policy system is not equipped to address what lies between these two cases. A recession that is neither particularly mild nor exceptionally severe would quickly test its limits. Failure to respond would risk reopening socioeconomic scars and reviving political tensions. Policymakers should concentrate on possible options beyond the confines of the current framework.

Early in the new millennium, the EU’s eastward expansion, transatlantic rifts and a mild economic climate together produced a wave of grandiose claims about the European model’s sunny future. Books with titles like “The European Dream” and “Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century” hit the shelves. A convention of grandees drew up a blueprint for the EU called a Constitution for Europe. But then the blueprint was rejected at two referendums, economic crisis set in, the euro zone started to wobble, migration soared and the union ended the decade much less struttingly than almost anyone had predicted.

On vaikeaa uskoa, että nykyisen rahapolitiikan mahdolliset kielteiset seuraamukset olisivat keskuspankeissa jääneet ymmärtämättä tai tiedostamatta […] Melko tavallinen ja mielestäni uskottava näkemys tästä on, että tietoista päätöstä ei sittenkään ole tehty. Läntiset keskuspankit, vakuuttuneina osaamisestaan, yksinkertaisesti pitkittivät liikaa toimenpiteitään finanssikriisin taltuttamiseksi.