Author: Philip Lane

The “Maastricht Letter” provides a lot of detail concerning the government debt dynamics  – available here.

The statement is here.

The government’s statement is here and specifies some changes to the MOU:

There were a number of changes agreed to the Memorandum of Understanding, which include:

• As already set out by Minister Noonan: “Initial resolution funding for Credit Unions of €250 million will be made available from the Exchequer in quarter 4 2011″ – which will be based on a principle of recoupment over the medium term via a levy under the Central Bank and Credit Institutions (Resolution)(No.2) Bill 2011 (when enacted).

Credit union legislation to be published by quarter 2 2012.

The fiscal responsibility bill to be published by quarter 1 2012.

The release is here.

The data for the Non-Financial Accounts are here.

The data for the Financial Accounts are here.

This new ECB Occasional Paper is available here.

ABSTRACT
This paper explains the various concepts of government debt in the euro area with particular emphasis on its size and composition. In terms of size, the paper focuses on different definitions that are in use, in particular the concept of gross general government debt used in the surveillance of the euro area countries, the total liabilities from the government balance sheet approach, and the net debt concept which subtracts government financial assets from the liability side. In addition, it discusses “hidden debt” in the form of implicit and contingent liabilities. In terms of composition, the paper provides information about euro area government debt broken down by maturity, holder or the currency of issue. All these indicators illustrate a sharp increase in government debt in most euro area countries as a result of the crisis. This in turn has several policy implications: (i) the growing government debt ratios need to be stabilised and put on a downward path which improves market confidence; (ii) fiscal surveillance needs to put more emphasis on government debt indicators than in the past; (iii) government financial assets could play a role when analysing solvency issues; (iv) implicit and other off-balance-sheet government liabilities need to be carefully monitored and reported; (v) the gross debt concept should remain the key basis for fiscal surveillance in the EU and for the Excessive Deficit Procedure in particular; (vi) beyond the size of government debt its composition is also a key factor behind public finance vulnerabilities.

On Tuesday October 25th, Trinity College Dublin will host a public roundtable on the European Debt Crisis, as part of the Policy Institute’s 2011-2012 Henry Grattan Lecture Series. This event will take place 4pm-5.45pm.  The event is free – all welcome.  Please let Helen Murray at Policy Institute know if you plan to come along (policy.institute at tcd.ie).

Co-hosted by the IIIS, this will feature some very good international experts:

• Mike Dooley (UC Santa Cruz)
• Peter Boone (LSE)
• Jean Pisani-Ferry (Bruegel)
• Ciaran O’Hagan (Societe Generale)

More details are available here.

Before the public policy event, there will also be a IIIS research workshop on October 25th from 12-3 in the IIIS seminar room, with presentations by

• Mike Dooley, TBA
• Alan Ahearne and Guntram Wolff, “The Debt Challenge in Europe”
• Kristin Forbes and Frank Warnock, “Capital Flow Waves: Surges, Stops, Flight and Retrenchment“
• Philip R. Lane and Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, “External Adjustment and the Global Crisis”