Some European Refoms

The WSJ reported yesterday on two interesting developments:

  • the adoption of a new approach to measure the output gap, which attributes more of the current downturn to cyclical factors – here
  • the advocacy of pan-European banks as a way to mitigate regional crises – here

(see also its “Insider’s Travel Guide to Dublin here.)

Ethical Reasoning and Economic Thought

Last week President Higgins delivered a lecture as part of the Ethics for All series in DCU.  The text can be read here.

Boom, Bust, Recovery: Forensics of the Latvia Crisis

Olivier Blanchard and colleagues presented a paper on this topic at the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity Panel – here.

Quarterly national accounts

Ireland’s second quarter national accounts have just been released. Full details are here.

On a quarterly basis GDP was up 0.4% and GNP was down 0.4%. As Colm McCarthy is forever pointing out, our quarterly data are highly volatile and not too much should be read into a single set of figures. On an annual basis GDP was down by a little more than 1%, and GNP was essentially flat. Ireland is still bumping along the bottom. But, because of the mad way in which recessions are officially defined, the headlines this lunchtime are of Ireland “exiting recession”.

A proposal for the dismantling of the Eurozone

Via Eurointelligence, here is a link to a working paper issued by the Polish Central Bank, which proposes the dismantling of the Eurozone under the direction of the ECB. (Not sure I’d trust them with the job, myself.)