Readers question: Would Independent Scotland be better with the Pound, Euro or an independent currency? What are the risks for each scenario? Scotland using the Euro If Scotland use the Euro there will be some benefits from having a shared currency with the rest of the Eurozone. Scottish business and personal users will have lower …
Useful post from Paul Krugman about a comparison between the French and UK recoveries. It stems from comments by a Conservative cabinet minister that ‘the French economy is being run into the sand.’ For those who can’t get past the NY Times paywall, I’ll post the two graphs here. UK and France since 2010 The …
Readers Question: would you be able to comment on what the Labour party’s latest proposal to break up the banks to create competition? I can see some reasons that relate to safe guarding possible failures of large banks which can prove costly if the government are needed to bail them out. However, in terms of …
I have quite a few readers in India, so I’d like to have a brief look at the Indian economy and it’s prospects for the coming year. After spending so much time looking at the (rather depressing) economics of austerity in Europe and UK, it makes a welcome change to look at a developing economy …
After faltering for several years, the UK economy shows signs of real recovery, with rising spending, investment, exports and even manufacturing growth. At the start of 2014, there seems to be a virtuous circle of falling unemployment, falling inflation, and rising GDP. After one of the longest and deepest recessions on record, these signs of …
Readers Question: As the FED is talking about tapering and at the same time keeping interest rate low. How can they both go together? Tapering will raise yield as bond prices go down in absence of any freak buying. And interest rate will chase yield this causes interest rate to climb up. Fed Tapering means …
A look at the relationship between inflation and unemployment and whether there is a trade off as suggested by Phillips Curve.
The European Union is facing the prospect of a serious bout of deflation (or at least, very low rates of inflation / disinflation) Deflation occurs when prices fall. But, very low rates of inflation are considered to raise problems associated with deflation. In the Eurozone, the main index of inflation has fallen to 0.7% – …