Category: Global Economy

Germany Vol.11 (Conglomerate / Manufacturing – Siemens)


https://twitter.com/ParkElectrical/status/1072142406026477568


Massachusetts Vol.4 (corporations)

Massachusetts4 countyMassachusetts6 citiesMassachusetts5 coloniesMassachusetts7 Köppen


U.S. National Liberal Arts Colleges Vol.1


Germany Vol.8 (Finance)


Germany Vol.7 (Finance)


https://twitter.com/BMF_Bund/status/1005426954454163456


France Vol.10 (Automobile)

France33 2011 PSAFrance34 CorriDoorFrance35 NissanAuchanFrance36 EUproject


https://twitter.com/GroupePSA_EN/status/1072854337574064129


https://twitter.com/GroupePSA_EN/status/1068150992494039047


https://twitter.com/Groupe_Renault/status/1072131572587995137


France Vol.4 (Finance)

France7 13-Regions


https://twitter.com/BF_Nordics/status/1070979469190545410
https://twitter.com/TheVolawatcher/status/1069666244113129473


France Vol.3 (Finance)

France4
France3 chemical-parks
France2 resources_1972
France1 Paris


https://twitter.com/EIB/status/991974269675597826


Texas Vol.7 (Rice University)


2018 Nobel Economic Sciences Laureates (Professors William Nordhaus and Paul Romer) Vol.4

William D. Nordhaus | @nberpubs
William D. Nordhaus | IDEAS @stlouisfed
Revisiting the social cost of carbon (02/14/2017) | William D. Nordhaus @PNASNews
Climate Clubs: How to Prevent Free-Riding in International Environmental Agreements (Fall 2014) | Dr. William Nordhaus, Yale University @theNASEM
Views of William Nordhaus on Carbon Pricing | Carbon-Price.com
Paul M. Romer | @nberpubs
Paul Michael Romer | IDEAS @stlouisfed
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty: In the 1990s, Paul Romer revolutionized economics. In the aughts, he became rich as a software entrepreneur. Now he’s trying to help the poorest countries grow rich—by convincing them to establish foreign-run “charter cities” within their borders. Romer’s idea is unconventional, even neo-colonial—the best analogy is Britain’s historic lease of Hong Kong. And against all odds, he just might make it happen. (July/August 2010) | SEBASTIAN MALLABY @TheAtlantic
Paul Romer: Why the world needs charter cities (08/24/2009) | @TEDTalks
Paul Romer: A Theory of History, with an Application (05/18/2009) | @longnow


2018 Nobel Economic Sciences Laureates (Professors William Nordhaus and Paul Romer) Vol.3


https://twitter.com/abhishekn/status/1049470877044101120


https://twitter.com/delong/status/596820309816123394


2018 Nobel Economic Sciences Laureates (Professors William Nordhaus and Paul Romer) Vol.2


https://twitter.com/AustinFrerick/status/939899975110217728


2018 Nobel Economic Sciences Laureates (Professors William Nordhaus and Paul Romer) Vol.1


California Vol.7 (corporations)


https://twitter.com/eBayForBusiness/status/1035278580203352064


https://twitter.com/99Only/status/1027930802359861249


https://twitter.com/Nasdaq/status/1023959979001368582


US Policy Changes Vol.99 (Trade: NAFTA)


https://twitter.com/RTMcFadyen/status/1035984290108989440


https://twitter.com/tylerwhat16/status/1035557794777366530
https://twitter.com/TriciaMoon21/status/1036080195978051584


US Policy Changes Vol.98 (Foreign Policy Vol.14: Turkey’s lira crisis)

Excerpts are on our own.

Trump Is the First President to Get Turkey Right: Good riddance to the so-called strategic relationship between Washington and Ankara. (08/13/2018) | STEVEN A. COOK @ForeignPolicy
… Then there is the detention of Pastor Andrew Brunson in Turkey since October 2016. This has become a flashpoint between the two countries this summer, especially after Ankara seemed to renege on a deal for his release. But Turkey is also holding between 15 and 20 U.S.-Turkish dual citizens—including a NASA scientist—on trumped-up terrorism charges. Three Turkish employees of the U.S. Embassy have also been arrested. They are being used as bargaining chips to force the United States to hand over Fethullah Gulen, a green card holder who Ankara accuses of masterminding the failed July 2016 coup, and/or to secure the release of a Turkish banker convicted in a New York court of aiding the elaborate scheme to help Tehran get around multilateral sanctions. …
Of course, the United States has an interest in a healthy Turkish economy, if only to prevent the meltdown of the lira from affecting other emerging markets’ currencies. … …Albayrak plans to pursue fiscal discipline, help companies most affected by the lira’s slide, and, contrary to rumors, the government will not seize foreign exchange deposits — good news for foreign investors. At the same, the minister stated that the volatility of the lira was unsupported by the underlying economic data, thus it is clear Turkey is under “attack by the biggest player of the global financial system.” He means the United States.
… Since at least 2013, Erdogan has been telling Turks that when the day of reckoning comes for the Turkish economy, it will be someone else’s fault. If Turks are suffering, then it could not possibly be the responsibility of a government led by someone who believes high interest rates cause inflation (which is exactly backward), but rather the result of the nefarious machinations of the “interest lobby,” Zionists, and the always useful “foreign forces.” Because Erdogan has made the economy a nationalist issue, seeking help from the IMF is politically risky. …encourage his constituents to exchange dollars and euros into lira. …
… It should be clear by now that there is no strategic relationship. Turkey and the United States have different interests and priorities. The lists of grievances on both sides reflects that fact. The fallout is not a function of the unique personalities and worldviews of the American and Turkish presidents, but rather at a fundamental level is the result of a changing world in which Washington and Ankara no longer share a common threat. …
… Perhaps the controversy over Pastor Brunson and the way the Turkish government has responded to the lira crisis will be a clarifying moment, highlighting what should be clear by now: Turkey is no longer an ally or partner.

Capital Outflows and Sudden Stop (w Report; 08/14/2018) | @medium
…which kinds of capital inflow stop during the period? In the 2017 World Bank policy paper “Are capital flows fickle? Increasingly ? and does the answer still depend on type? ” Barry Eichengreen, Poonam Gupta, and Oliver Masetti have tried to investigate how different kinds of capital flows behave during a sudden stop. …
The most rapid capital outflow, however, is in that the authors categorized as ”Others.” Included in others are flows through the banking sector (loans, deposits and banking capital), loans raised by the private sector, and trade credits. …

Erdogan Faces a Challenge He Can’t Easily Bully: Turkey’s Economy (08/13/2018) | Carlotta Gall @nytimes
… “The interest-rate hikes and budget cuts will be painful,” said Atilla Yesilada, an Istanbul-based consultant at Global Source Partners…
“It is the fundamental view of the true populist,” explained Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Istanbul-based Center for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies, also known as E.D.A.M. …
Turkey has always had a strong bureaucracy, modeled on the French system, with a senior bureaucrat, called an undersecretary, in every ministry, assisted by deputy undersecretaries. Those positions have been eliminated and the civil servant positions replaced with deputy ministers appointed by Mr. Erdogan. …
…the polarizing nature of Mr. Erdogan’s rule, which has increasingly pushed out people who are seen as ideologically or politically opposed to his Justice and Development Party…
…the purges of 150,000 public employees since the failed coup of 2016. …
Mr. Albayrak, 40, holds an M.B.A. from Pace University in New York, and worked as the United States representative for Calik Holdings, a Turkish construction and trading company known for its close links to the government.
… Mr. Yesilada called for a hefty interest rate hike of at least 5 percentage points and said that a “handshake with the United States is an absolute minimum.” …

European bank CDS showing no contagion (PDF; 13/08/2018) | @CanaccorGenuity
… Turkish debt-to-GDP is about half of what Greece’s was at the beginning of the European Debt Crisis. The fear in the marketplace is that the historic drop in the Turkish lire makes non-Turkish debt unaffordable to service, which could lead to a contagion effect on European banks with significant exposure to Turkey. …
… The Turkish currency crisis provides an excellent excuse for a temporary pullback, but thus far has shown no reason for us to adopt a more intermediate-term defensive position.

How serious is Turkey’s lira crisis and what are the implications?: The options as the country’s economic growth displays the classic signs of overheating (13/08/2018) | Larry Elliott @guardian
… now displaying the classic signs of overheating: a large trade deficit, a construction boom and soaring debt. Financial markets have taken fright at inflation, rising at an annual rate of more than 15%, and have been selling the Turkish lira, which is down by 45% against the US dollar since the start of the year. …
The direct impact of what looks like an inevitable recession in Turkey would be relatively small because, despite a population of 80 million and strong growth in recent years, the country accounts for only 1% of global GDP. …
… Turkey’s problems are particularly acute because it has more than $300bn of dollar-denominated corporate debt, which is getting more expensive to finance by the day. However, other countries – such as Mexico and South Africa – also took advantage of low US interest rates in the years after the financial crisis to borrow heavily in dollars and saw their currencies coming under pressure. …
… only two things will halt the lira sell-off: a substantial rise in official interest rates (already above 17%) or the announcement of an emergency package of financial support from the International Monetary Fund – or, if things continue to deteriorate, both together. …

What the Turkish lira crisis means for President Erdogan’s hold on power: Erdoğan built his supporter base by promising economic stability. Can he withstand a crisis? (14/08/2018) | YÖRÜK BAHÇELI @NewStatesman
… Erdoğan is known to have been opposed to higher interest rates throughout his leadership, labelling them “the mother and father of all evil” dictated by an “interest rate lobby”. In his earlier years, however, officials around him were able to convince him to allow them to act in line with market demands, while he was also bound by IMF requirements. But once IMF programmes came to an end and interest rates fell following the great recession, Erdoğan was able to become more vocal and staunch in his opposition to higher rates. …

Russia backs non-dollar trade with Turkey, no promise of help amid lira crisis (w Video; 08/15/2018) | Andrey Ostroukh and Tuvan Gumrukcu @reuters @YahooFinance
… “I am confident that the grave abuse of the role of the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency will result over time in the weakening and demise of its role,” Lavrov said, echoing statements made by President Vladimir Putin.
However, Lavrov did not announce any immediate commitment to drop the dollar in trade with Turkey or provide it with financial aid, leaving observers guessing if the two countries, both hit by U.S. sanctions, have agreed on any bilateral deal.
“They will likely just give warm words to Turkey, looking to exploit the situation and stir things up for the U.S. and the West,” said Timothy Ash, senior strategist at BlueBay Asset Management. …

‘Clear risks of contagion’: European markets drop as Turkey’s lira crisis spreads around the world (08/13/2018) | Will Martin @businessinsider @YahooFinance
… “Because of the high participation of foreign banks and portfolio investors in Turkey, there are clear risks of contagion,” Hasnain Malik, a strategist who is the head of equity research at Exotix, said in an email.
Capital Economics warned in a note on Friday that Spain, Italy, and France were likely to be the worst hit by the Turkish currency crisis because of the exposure of their banking systems. But the analyst house said the impact would be relatively limited because of the limited size of the Turkish economy.

Turkey lira crisis: Six things you need to know: A breakdown of the events, causes and effects, as Turkey’s currency collapses amid a diplomatic row with the US. (w Videos; 08/14/2018) | @aljazeera
… On Monday, the Indian rupee suffered its worst one-day fall – at more than 1.5 percent – hitting a record low of 69.9 rupees to $1. …
The South African rand has also taken a hit this week as a result of the Turkish developments, falling 10 percent before stabilising on Monday – down to a two-year low against the dollar. …

Turkey lira: Ankara to boycott US electronic goods (14/08/2018) | @BBC
Asian shares stumble as markets shrug off Wall Street relief bump; Hang Seng down 1.5% (08/15/2018) | @CNBC
Turkey Lira: Shock graph showing how Turkey CRISIS is deepening when pitted against euro (08/14/2018) | Matt Drake @Daily_Express


US Policy Changes Vol.97 (Foreign Policy Vol.13)

https://twitter.com/policypodcasts/status/1024737870542712832


Brittle Times for the Transatlantic Relationship (PDF; in large part in German) | Cathryn Cluver Ashbrook @ Atlantik-Brucke


Belfer Center Experts on U.S. Withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal (05/08/2018) | Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, Matthew Bunn, Chuck Freilich, Hassan Ahmadian, Martin B. Malin, Steven E. Miller, Payam Mohseni, Ernest J. Moniz, Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, Nawaf Obaid, Gary Samore, Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall, William H. Tobey @BelferCenter


A timeline of the Trump administration’s actions on Russia (07/26/2018) | @BrookingsInst


Kazakhstan Must Look Beyond the Belt and Road | Philippe Le Corre


Belfer Center Experts Offer Insight on U.S.-North Korea Summit


UK Vol.122 (Post-EUref #Brexit Vol.40)

Trade Post-Brexit (PDF) | Herbert Smith Freehills


The Impact of Hard Brexit on Polish Exports (w PDF; 06/07/2018) | Jakub Borowski, Jakub Olipra & Paweł Błaszyński @sciendo_


https://twitter.com/Doozy_45/status/965876705297563648


A hard Brexit could see the EU lose – 2.3 billion worth of pork exports | Farmers Guardian
Hard Brexit: a threat for Italian food exports (13/07/2018) | @italianfood_net
Hard Brexit would mean more and cheaper British fish – but there’s a catch (24/04/2018) | @dpcarrington @guardian


Hard Brexit and the Supply Chain – Effects on German automotive suppliers (PDF; January 2018) | Deloitte


UK Vol.121 (Post-EUref #Brexit Vol.39)


MODELING IRISH UNIFICATION (PDF; 11/17/2015) | KLC Consulting


Theresa May’s cancelled Cabinet sleepover suggests she’s plotting a soft Brexit (06/27/2018) | Thomas Colson @businessinsider
Boris Johnson just resigned over Brexit talks. Prime Minister Theresa May could be in trouble. (07/09/2018) | @ZeeshanAleem @Vox


US Policy Changes Vol.96 (Economy)


https://twitter.com/HBAGK/status/1004062454748532736


‘I’m going to stay at it’ (w Video; 04/10/2018) | Joseph Lawler, Arthur C. Brooks @AEI
Under US housing policies, homeowners mostly win, while renters mostly lose (07/10/2018) | Jenny Schuetz @BrookingsInst
Housing in the US is too expensive, too cheap, and just right. It depends on where you live. (06/21/2018) | Cecile Murray and Jenny Schuetz @BrookingsInst


US Policy Changes Vol.93 (Foreign Policy Vol.10)


Taking History as a Mirror (w PDF; June 2018) | Neil Thomas @BelferCenter


Trump’s focus on China trade: Right target, wrong approach (06/14/2018) | Ryan Hass @BelferCenter


Ukraine fears falling victim to Trump-Putin ‘grand bargain’ (11/11/2016) | Neil Buckley and Roman Olearchyk @FT


Predictions Vol.2 (FIFA World Cup 2018)

Here are reports, articles, tables, et al. on predictions of the FIFA World Cup 2018.

Investing and football: Special edition – 2018 World Cup in Russia (PDF; May 2018) | UBS
p10: What investors can learn from successful football teams – Agility. Balance. Calm. …
p18: Table 1
UBS ran 10,000 simulations of the World Cup — and one team is the head and shoulders above the rest (06/14/2018) | BusinessInsider

The World Cup and Economics 2018 (w PDF) | Goldman Sachs
PDF
p7: Russia
p11: Belgium
p12: Brazil
p15: Croatia
p18: England
p19: France
p36: Sweden
p39: Uruguay
pp40-42: World Cup trends viewed through a (light-hearted) economic lens
Goldman Sachs Predicts The 2018 FIFA World Cup Champs Using AI | LEGAL GAMBLING – AND THE LAW –
cf.
The World Cup and Economics 2014 (PDF) | Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs has predicted the winner of Euro 2016 — and it isn’t England (06/06/2016) | Will Martin @BusinessInsider

Machine learning predicts World Cup winner: Researchers have predicted the outcome after simulating the entire soccer tournament 100,000 times. (06/12/2018) | MIT Technology review
Andreas Groll at the Technical University of Dortmund …

Probabilistic forecasts for the 2018 FIFA World Cup based on the bookmaker consensus model (PDF) | Achim Zeileis, Christoph Leitner, Kurt Hornik @ University of Innsbruck eeecon

Bisnode predicts the winner of the world cup 2018 will be… (PDF)

2018 World Cup Predictions | FiveThirtyEight

Download a free World Cup 2018 Excel spreadsheet for predictions & sweepstakes | Ben Green @101greatgoals

World Cup Betting Odds: Win Market | oddschecker

World Cup 2018: Brazil still best bet in outright winner odds (04/07/2018) | Tony Kelshaw @bwin

WORLD CUP 2018 PREDICTIONS | @fbpredictions


US Policy Changes Vol.92 (Quantitative Easing)

(The below excerpt is on our own.)

The Fed’s Yield-Curve-Control Policy (w PDF; 11/29/16) | Owen F. Humpage @ClevelandFed

…some may follow the example of Japan, which recently added a new long-term interest-rate target to its short-term target to give itself “yield-curve control.” …combining yield-curve control with quantitative easing when government borrowing needs are substantial can create constraints on monetary policy that are not easily removed.

… The Bank of Japan currently sets its short-term policy target—a rate paid on bank reserves—at –0.1 percent and now promises to cap its long-term target rate—that on 10-year government bonds—at approximately zero for the time being. …

The ultimate objective of recent quantitative easing programs in Japan, the United States, and elsewhere has been to lower long-term interest rates when policy rates are at their effective lower bound. …

… The Fed’s experience, however, suggests that combining yield-curve control with quantitative easing when government borrowing needs are substantial can create constraints on monetary policy that are not easily removed. Moreover, a central bank’s heavy involvement in a market can distort the behavior of private market participants to the detriment of market efficiency.

Wartime Yield-Curve Control
… The economy had been recovering from the 1937–38 recession, and by late 1941, output had caught up to where it likely would have been had the Great Depression never occurred. Likewise, the unemployment rate fell sharply in 1941, but some slack remained in the labor market at the start of 1942. …

… Gold had generally been flowing into the United States since Franklin D. Roosevelt devalued the dollar in 1934. …commercial banks held record levels of excess reserves in 1940, and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) fretted that reserves “had risen beyond the System’s power to restrain an inflationary credit expansion should one develop” …

Figure 1.

In early 1942, … the Fed agreed to peg the Treasury-bill yield at 0.375 percent, to cap the critical long-term government bond yield at 2.5 percent… Setting interest rates in this manner, however, allowed the Treasury to expand bank reserves by issuing more securities than the public wished to hold when yields reached their caps, because the Fed then had to purchase them. …

…no one really knew if this yield-curve-control policy would work. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, the only official with authority to announce the program to the public, never did so. He seemed to prefer a quantitative (excess-reserves) target. …

To tamp down measured inflation and inflation expectations, the Roosevelt Administration began introducing limited price controls as early as May 1940… The controls remained in place until November 1946…

… Excess reserves… continued to fall through mid-1944.

Under its yield-curve-control program, the Fed bought $20 billion worth of Treasury securities or approximately 10 percent of the debt that the Treasury issued between March 1942 and August 1945…

Figure 2.

The Accord
…bond holders would liquidate their government securities, forcing the Fed under its yield-curve-control policy to create reserves… By 1945, banks’ holdings of government securities equaled more than half of their total assets, and a substantial proportion of these matured beyond five years…

… The Treasury believed that it could not possibly finance its unprecedented levels of public debt at reasonable interest rates without the Fed’s continued participation in the government-securities market…

… In 1950, an inflation scare associated with the Korean War and growing congressional support for the Fed’s position led to a Treasury–Fed accord in March 1951, largely freeing monetary policy from its subordinate status vis-à-vis the Treasury’s debt-management operations…

Collateral Damage
… Moreover, the FOMC had directed its trading desk to maintain orderly conditions in government securities markets…

Federal Reserve Chairman William McChesney Martin… feared… by creating a “disconcerting degree of uncertainty” about when, how much, and where on the yield curve the Fed might intervene…

Martin believed that the Fed’s frequent interventions in the longer-term government securities market during and immediately after the war had robbed the market of its “depth, breadth, and resiliency,” … Martin wanted to confine open market operations to the short-end of the yield curve—preferably Treasury bills. …

… Many economists observed that the connection between changes in short-term rates and long-term rates—the link “bills preferable” relied on—was generally weak and often not dependable. They contended that open market operations in longer-term securities offered a viable mechanism for affecting the yield curve’s shape, which was as important as the level of interest rates. …

… Nevertheless, the Fed remained wary of the political consequences of appearing to interfere with the Treasury’s debt-financing operations and from 1954 through mid-1975 engaged in “even keel” operations. …

Passé?
… Yield-curve control gave the Treasury substantial influence over monetary policy and highlighted the major effect that monetary policies had on the cost of financing the government’s huge debts.

… The Bank of Japan has greatly expanded its portfolio of government bonds and has become a major factor in the government bond market, much like the Fed in 1945. …


US Policy Changes Vol.90 (Trade)


US Policy Changes Vol.83 (G7 Canada, Trade, et al.)