The latest collection of briefing papers for the European Parliament’s Monetary Dialogue with the ECB are available here. One set of papers (including one by me) discuss bank and sovereign debt resolutions (this paper is the source of my comments here on senior bank bonds). The other set discuss the issue of Eurobonds.
A big question for Ireland is the extent to which tight credit conditions will restrict economic recovery. This new IMF paper looks at the cross-country evidence.
Summary: Recoveries that occur in the absence of credit growth are often dubbed miracles and named after mythical creatures. Yet these are not rare animals, and are not always miracles. About one out of five recoveries is “creditless”, and average growth during these episodes is about a third lower than during “normal” recoveries. Aggregate and sectoral data suggest that impaired financial intermediation is the culprit. Creditless recoveries are more common after banking crises and credit booms. Furthermore, sectors more dependent on external finance grow relatively less and more financially dependent activities (such as investment) are curtailed more during creditless recoveries.
George Kopits (former chair of the Hungarian Fiscal Council) will give a talk in TCD on March 22, 12.30-2 in IIIS seminar room on “Rules-Based Fiscal Framework: Rationale, Experience, and Good Practices”.
All welcome!
Bio:
George Kopits is former chair of the Fiscal Council, Republic of Hungary—elected unanimously by Parliament in February 2009. During 2004-09, he was a member of the Monetary Council, National Bank of Hungary.
Kopits began his professional career in 1968-74 at the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Treasury Department. In 1974, he joined the International Monetary Fund, where he served as assistant director until 2003. In the Fund’s European Department, his assignments included surveillance of major Mediterranean and Eastern European economies. In 1990, he was appointed group leader in the Task Force on the Soviet Economy. In the Fiscal Affairs Department, he coordinated several projects for the Executive Board, and contributed to the design and monitoring of Fund-supported adjustment programs.
In addition to involvement in fiscal and monetary policymaking in Hungary and the United States, Kopits headed technical assistance missions on various economic policy issues to Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mexico, Peru, and Ukraine. Also, he was invited to give technical advice to the authorities of Argentina, China, Colombia, India, Israel, Korea, Nigeria, Thailand, United Kingdom and Venezuela.
Kopits has held visiting academic appointments at Bocconi, Budapest, Cape Town, Johns Hopkins, Siena, and Vienna universities. Currently, he is on the adjunct faculty of the Central European University. He authored more than fifty publications. Kopits holds a Ph.D. in economics from Georgetown University. He was an NDEA fellow, and was awarded the Heller Farkas and Popovics prizes for contributions in economics and finance. He is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
His ICMBS speech is here.
PrimeTime tonight has a special programme on default issues, with a number of interviews with international and domestic commentators. Ian Kehoe previews the show in this blog post.