Franklin Templeton and Ukraine

The FT covers its large bond position in Ukraine here.

IMF 2014 Spring Meetings

The three major reports have tons of interesting material

Philippe Legrain on the so-called “banking union”

Calling something a banking union does not make it so; Philippe Legrain joins the ranks of people like Colm McCarthy and Wolfgang Münchau pointing out that this is an emperor without clothes.

Doublespeak of the day

According to the Irish Independent, Minister Noonan was worrying in public last night about the shortage of family homes in the Dublin area. But he also apparently said:

“We need to get property prices up another bit.”

To which the only possible response is: “why”?

If you are stuck in a malfunctioning currency union and can’t devalue, then don’t you want to get all costs down as much as possible, especially if they are going to feed into wage demands? Why interfere with the market in this particular case?

Irish Economic Association Annual Conference Programme

This year’s IEA will take place on May 8th and 9th in the CastleTroy Park Hotel, Limerick. The ESR Lecture will be given by Prof. Rachel Griffith, while Prof. Jordi Gali will give the Edgeworth Lecture. The conference is full of strong papers from a diverse set of scholars.

The full programme is here.

Registration for the conference is through the exordo site. Early registration costs 95 euros and includes dinner on the 8th. There is a much lower price for student delegates at 25 euros.

Bookings for accommodation should be made directly through the CastleTroy Park Hotel, quoting “IEA2014” for a discounted room price.

I’m looking forward to seeing you there in a few weeks.