The release is here.
The data for the Non-Financial Accounts are here.
The data for the Financial Accounts are here.
Category: Uncategorized
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”
More Kenmare-related fare (sorry I couldn’t resist). This time it’s from Don Walshe and Dermot O’Leary of UCC and Goodbody Stockbrokers, respectively. I attended this talk and the paper they produced is just now online at Finfacts as a Goodbody note. The pdf is here. The data they provide is really useful to guide our discussions on debt and deleveraging in the Irish banks, especially (for me anyway) sections 3 and 4 on balance sheet dynamics. O’Leary and Walshe argue for a slower deleveraging process to help aid growth in the economy. From the piece:
The goal of an export-led growth strategy is the correct one, and appears to be yielding some benefits already, but the external strategies of fiscal consolidation in developed economies puts this under threat. Indeed, the external trilemma of policy autonomy, fixed exchange rates and capital mobility, close off some of the traditional routes to achieving an acceleration of export growth and/or real debt reduction.
Ireland wants to reach a destination whereby it will have a smaller private debt level, a smaller banking system and stable public finances. That is the story of stocks. How it gets there, outside of default, is determined by flows. This paper shows that the current policy course is inconsistent with the achievement of all three goals in a reasonable timeframe and sustainable way. With private sector deleveraging largely outside of domestic policy control and political imperatives pushing for fiscal consolidation, we view the slowing of banking sector deleveraging as a way to ease the damaging circular dynamic that is currently taking place in the Irish economy. Further European assistance will be needed to achieve this, but the policy recommendations laid out here are unlikely to be exclusively beneficial to Ireland if they were implemented.
A quick note on comments. I’ve gotten a few complaints discussions aren’t being kept (roughly) on topic, so I’ll be a bit more aggressive in deleting comments that don’t add to a discussion on debt and deleveraging in the Irish economy.
Landon Thomas features the views of Peter Mathews in this NYT piece.