Ben Broadbent and Kevin Daly at Goldman Sachs have released a new study examining how the composition of fiscal adjustment packages affects the overall economic impact of fiscal tightening: you can read it here.
Author: Philip Lane
The ECB has issued its opinion on the government’s plans to restructure the CBFSAI – you can read it here.
English-language versions of some of the report into Iceland’s financial crisis are now available here.
Update: this Powerpoint file contains the main points. Plenty of lessons for Irish readers.
Update: A panel of philosophers considered the ethical failures during the Icelandic boom and bust: the one-page summary is here.
Bob Aliber will give a talk on this topic in TCD next Friday April 16, 12.30-2 in Room 3051 of the TCD Arts Block – all welcome. Most recently, he had a prominent role in predicting the banking crisis in Iceland, which built on his long research career in the analysis of asset bubbles and crises.
Biography:
Robert Z. Aliber is Professor of International Economics and Finance at the Booth Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago emeritus. He has written extensively about currencies, international monetary and banking relationships, and financial crises and the credit bubbles. He brought out the fifth edition of Charles P. Kindleberger’s Manias, Panics, and Crashes, (Palgrave, 2005) and is completing the sixth edition. His book the The International Money Game (Basic Books, 1972) first appeared in 1972, and the seventh edition is scheduled for publication in 2010. Other publications include The Multinational Paradigm (MIT Press, 1993) and a book on personal finance, Your Money and Your Life (Basic Books, 1984). A sequel, Your Money and Your Life All Over Again, (Stanford University Press, 2010) is scheduled for publication in 2010. He has consulted to numerous organizations including the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. He has testified before committees of Congress, and lectured extensively in the United States and abroad. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University.
The proposed agreement with the public sector unions is intended to facilitate public sector reform. In addition to reform in the delivery of public services, the reform agenda may also be interpreted as extending to reforming the role of the public sector in the process of policy development. In this regard, Brendan Tuohy recently contributed an interesting reflective article in the Irish Times, while there is also a critique of the Department of Finance by Eddie Molloy in today’s edition.
In thinking about how policymaking can be improved in Ireland, I invite the readership to offer their views on how policy development can be improved, especially in terms of the advisory role played by civil servants and other public sector policy officials.