Daniela Gabor and Jakob Vestergaard Last week, the European Commission launched its Action Plan for a European Capital Markets Union (CMU). By European standards, this ‘most significant EU proposal for the last […]
Putting the Capital Markets Union on stable foundations
Is China causing fragmentation of post-1945 global financial system?
Letter by Robert Wade and Jakob Vestergaard, published in Financial Times yesterday (30/3-2015): Philip Stephens says that China’s plans for an Asian infrastructure bank, a Brics bank and a New Silk Road […]
Stress tests now as tough in Europe as in the US? Not exactly
Some of the largest banks have been in touch to complain about the recalculations of Europe’s stress test data that I published last week. Not a big surprise that they would. But I’ve accepted […]
Unpacking Europe’s banking stress-tests: German and French banks at the brink of insolvency
Smoke and mirrors apart: it is France and Germany that have by far the largest equity funding shortfalls among Eurozone banks.* Further, the aggregate equity funding shortfall for European banking is much larger than the […]
European banking misery: pretending rather than mending, does no favours to lending
Today marks the operational start of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), charged with supervision of European banks. A milestone paving the way for the SSM was the comprehensive assessment of European banking, […]
Russia Reeling: Pushing a Fragile Economy Off the Cliff?
Putin’s political ambitions may come at high cost to the Russian economy. Current tensions between Putin and Western leaders, and the fear of tighter sanctions, are already causing trouble. The Russian government announced […]
Brazil’s Bolero: Can Real Estate Bubble Be Tamed, Without Real Economy Collapse?
With odds at 3:1, Brazil is favorites to win the World Championship in football this summer. Investors, on the other hand, will play Brazil cautiously this year, the Financial Times predicts. Why? […]
Europe’s Financial Transaction Tax: Back on the Table, but Only a Shadow of What it Was
The European tax on financial transactions (FTT) is back on the table. Last week, both Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel said it; they want an agreement among the 11 participating EU countries […]
Macroprudential Policy: the New Black in Central Banking
The practice of central banking finds itself in an existential dilemma. Keeping interest rates low is seen as necessary to keep recession and deflation at bay, but cheap money may well cause […]
Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place: the Eurozone Blues
In early February, the German Constitutional Court concluded that the program which saved the Eurozone from impending collapse, less than two years ago, violates the German constitution. The so-called ‘Outright Monetary Transactions’ […]
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