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Sunday, February 10

10th Feb - Weekender: Economics & Markets




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ECONOMICS
International financial markets and bank funding in the euro areaBIS
Euro area funding markets were severely disrupted by adverse feedback effects between the weaknesses of sovereigns and banks…funding structures that seem stable in normal times can turn highly unstable during episodes of financial market stress. This applies in particular to financing obtained from foreign sources, which may be especially sensitive to shocks in recipient countries. Moreover, the strong link between sovereigns and banks has underscored the importance of fiscal prudence and, in the European case, the need for greater financial integration in the euro area.

100 Startling Facts About the EconomyThe Motley Fool

Great Graphic: Global GiniMarc to Market
Inequality vs. generational income mobility

  CAPITAL CONTROLS, LIQUIDITY
Capital Controls: A Normative AnalysisFED
Our results suggest that restricting international capital flows through the use of these taxes can be beneficial for individual countries, although it would limit cross-border pooling of risk…possibility of costly "capital control wars" and thus to significant gains from international policy coordination.

Capital Flows: too much of a good thing?qfinance
The damage that "hot money", ie surges of incoming capital, can wreak on the fiscal policies of a domestic economy has been proved time and

Understanding Global LiquidityBIS (pdf)
The results suggest that global liquidity conditions are largely driven by three common factors and can therefore not be summarised by a single indicator. These three factors can be identified as global monetary policy, global credit supply and global credit demand.

Liquidity chartedalphaville / FT

  CENTRAL BANKING
Blogs review: The Monetary Regime and the drawbacks of NGDP targetingbruegel
After qualifying the idea as “powerful” and raising expectations of a possible future adoption, the Bank of England governor-designate Mark Carney reversed course and said that he was “far from convinced” by the idea in front of the Treasury select committee yesterday. While he didn’t lay out precisely the intellectual reasons for that change of heart, we’ve tried to put together some of the reasons put forward against NGDP targeting.

NGDParty-poopingalphaville / FT
Whatever the dangers of inflation expectations being permanently de-anchored by the introduction of NGDP level targeting in general, there are two reasons to believe that those dangers are particularly high for the UK:
  
Keeping bubbles in perspectiveFree exchange / The Economist
Mr Stein's most recent speech focused on the problem of credit-market overheating…There is no question that the central bank approach to financial stability in the decades prior to the crisis was underdeveloped and unsatisfying. But while I hope Mr Stein continues to push forward this discussion, I think it's critical to keep the "bubble question" in perspective.


Should the Fed pop bubbles by raising interest rates?Wonkblog / WP
“While monetary policy may not be quite the right tool for the job, it has one important advantage relative to supervision and regulation–namely that it gets in all of the cracks,” Stein said.


Global House Price Fluctuations: Synchronization and DeterminantsIMF

What is the attraction of helicopter money?mainly macro
As I have said in the past, helicopter money is either a plea for fiscal expansion - which is good, but why not call it that - or a policy for above target future inflation, which may also be good but why not call it that too? However perhaps I am being politically naive - maybe it is the only way we can get governments at the moment to undertake fiscal expansion.

Monetary Shortcuts, Fiscal ChallengesEconoMonitor
Since 2008, all major advanced economies have seized monetary policies to cope with challenging debt crises. The massive monetary expansion is deferring vital structural reforms in the advanced world and posing new risks to the emerging world.

  CURRENCY WAR
Bretton Woods IIIProject Syndicate
Sanjeev Sanyal, Deutsche Bank's Global Strategist: In the last 60 years, the US has underpinned global growth by running persistent current-account deficits. Under the Bretton Woods system, the US ran deficits that enabled war-torn Europe and Japan to rebuild. In return, Europe funded the US deficits. The system broke down when European countries, particularly France, decided to stop funding those deficits. But the economic model persisted, with Asian economies stepping in to finance the US deficits, while using the US market to grow rapidly. China is the latest and largest beneficiary of the economic model dubbed “Bretton Woods II.”

Currency Wars Over Before They Begin?Tim Duy’s Fed Watch
If Japanese policymakers really intend the depreciation of the Yen be limited to 90, then the supposed currency wars may already be near an end.

  GROWTH
Is Economic Growth Really Ending?Worthwhile

A Post-Growth World?Project Syndicate
Long-term growth considerations, while recognized as crucial, seem distant from the here and now of financial repair and restoration of confidence. But a realistic assessment of growth prospects is precisely what is needed right now to design appropriate and feasible policies.

How to Guestimate Housing Direct Contribution to GDP GrowthForbes

  BANKING & REGULATION
Why Do Banks Get Away With Murder?The Daily Beast
Big banks have copped to heinous crimes that have cost citizens billions of dollars. And it just keeps happening. Daniel Gross on why the madness never ends—and no one goes to jail.
  
The Trouble with Wall Street The shocking news that Goldman Sachs is greedyNew Republic
Michael Lewis reviews the book Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story

Michael Lewis wants to break up the big banks. So do a lot of other people.Wonkblog / WP
Lewis isn’t alone…so why senate resists?

Erkki Liikanen: The future of central banking - proposed bank structuresBIS (pdf)
Speech by Mr Erkki Liikanen, Governor of the Bank of Finland and Chairman of the High-level Expert Group on the structure of the EU banking sector, at a conference on "The future of central banking", Copenhagen, 30 January 2013.

Back to the futures?Free exchange / The Economist
Historically, futures exchanges have been very effective at preventing the failings of individual traders from hurting others. That is one reason why America’s Dodd-Frank law introduced new rules for over-the-counter (OTC) swaps designed to make them more like futures.

Too Big to Fail Too Hard to Fix Amid Calls to Curb BanksBB

UK prepares new law to break up errant banksReuters
British banks that fail to shield their day-to-day banking from risky investment activities could be broken up, finance minister George Osborne said on Monday, bowing to political pressure to come down harder on reckless lenders.

The State of Regulatory Reform in 2013Thomson Reuters


MARKETS
2013 Earnings Are Now Forecast To Be Less Then 09 Projections In 2007ZH
Goldman’s charts

Correction? Watch the cyclicals!Humble Student

Beware of the biasButtonwood / The Economist
Investors may have developed too rosy a view of equity returns

Sharp reversal in EUR sentimentSober Look

What We're Reading: Hedge Fund LinksMarket Folly

Improving Commodity Strategies with Momentum and Term StructureTurnkey Analyst
With significant annualized alphas of 10.14% and 12.66% respectively, the momentum and term structure strategies appear profitable when implemented individually. With an abnormal return of 21.02%, a novel double-sort strategy that exploits both momentum and term structure signals clearly outperforms the single-sort strategies

No One Remembers When Bonds Went Truly BadBusinessweek

Notes From CSIMA 2013: Columbia Investment Management Conferencemarket folly

Meet the 105-year-old stockbroker…Daily Mail
…who started work a year before the Great Depression… and is STILL trading (Dec 2011)

Update: Recent Research Supporting the Value of Technical AnalysisPhil Pearlman