Readers Question: The argument in Europe at the moment is whether the ECB should be able to buy bonds (new? old?) directly from governments as well as being able to buy old ones on the open market (“secondary market”?). Is it correct that in either case that the ECB would just the create Euros to …
Hello. You mention national debt and public sector debt. Are they the same? Yes, the official measures is the public sector net debt. Often people refer to this as the national debt. (there once was an official statistics called national debt, but this was discontinued quite a while back). However, when people talk of national …
Readers question: Nor do I understand how they can weaken their currency through government intervention, if they are not intervening. Is it only US that is complaining about the value of the Yuan? The main thing is that Chinese Central Banks, with the support of the Chinese government are purchasing foreign assets, such as US …
This graph illustrates the difference between actual GDP and potential GDP. It also indicates how much Real GDP growth has lagged behind potential growth. This means the US economy currently has substantial spare capacity. This is reflected by a rise in unemployment and factories operating below full capacity. The Real potential GDP illustrates the long …
Readers Question: When my class and I try to test the Marshall-Lerner condition it doesn’t always work. i.e. we assumed a country with just one export and one import and assumed their price elasticities added up to less than one. We gave each a price and quantity that led to a current account balance =0 …