Barely any European unicorns: What can the EU do?
by Alexander Fink, Fabian Kurz, Translation by Anna-Maria Kohnke 2 September 2020 0
Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb: these are only few of the numerous companies which have fundamentally changed our lives with new technologies in recent years. While their business models differ, none of the stars come from Europe. Apart from the serial entrepreneurs at Rocket (...)
The economics behind Altman’s warning
by Leonardo Baggiani 26 August 2020 0
Edward Altman is professor emeritus at NYU’s Stern School of Business and director of credit and debt market research at the NYU Salomon Center. He is also the creator of the Z-score: a heuristic index to assess the credit worthiness (and likeliness to default) of companies. The Z-score is built (...)
Why Rutte is good for Italy
by Samuele Murtinu 12 August 2020 1
Last month, after a long exhausting discussion, the European countries reached an agreement on the European Union’s budget, and especially on the Recovery Fund. This latter includes around €312 billion of grants for Member States and €360 billion of loans. Under the hard pressure of the so (...)
The EU Recovery Plan
by Sergio Beraldo 5 August 2020 0
After many days of fierce bargaining, the EU political leaders have eventually achieved an agreement about the magnitude of the stimulus package deemed necessary to restore sound conditions for the European economy. The deal was expected. A fiasco would have badly shaken financial markets (with (...)
Significant progress: healthcare in poor countries
by Alexander Fink, Fabian Kurz, Translation by Anna-Maria Kohnke 29 July 2020 0
Coronavirus has spread quickly across the globe. As a result, healthcare systems in several industrialised countries have been pushed to and beyond the verge of collapse. The virus has now also reached poorer countries in Africa. Although it spreads rather slowly there and hits a younger (...)
PERSPECTIVES FOR CENTRAL BANKING QE
by Leonardo Baggiani 22 July 2020 0
Central banks are exploring new monetary policies. Unconventional ones, of course. The Bank of England (BoE) has recently announced one of such attempts. Although the main concern remains how to manage a negative-interest-rates environment, BoE Chief Economist A. Haldane most interestingly (...)
Is the European Central Bank implementing surreptitious debt monetization?
by Sergio Beraldo 8 July 2020 0
There are situations in which people are all but obliged to act differently from what they preach. The latest example was provided the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) Christine Lagarde. In mid-March, she declared that the European Central Bank «is not here to close spreads». By (...)
Pricey, Pricier, Pharmaceuticals in the US
by Alexander Fink, Fabian Kurz, Translation by Anna-Maria Kohnke 1 July 2020 0
Five years ago, a US American hedge fund bought the distribution rights for Daraprim, a drug to cure AIDS. Overnight, the price went from $13.50 to $750.00. This price increase caused huge public outrage. Yet, high prices for pharmaceuticals are rather common in the US. No other healthcare (...)
An option for the EU: blow up debt inside a bunker
by Leonardo Baggiani 24 June 2020 0
The economic consequences of Covid-19 will be heavy: a significant portion of production came to a halt for weeks, and international value chains were disrupted. Governments will increase expenditure massively in order to hand out subsidies and respond to unemployment, while tax revenues will (...)
Term limits for better governance?
by Alexander Fink, Kalle Kappner, Translation by Anna-Maria Kohnke 3 June 2020 0
The next elections to the German Bundestag have been moved up to autumn 2021. At that moment, Angela Merkel will have served as chancellor for 16 years. As opposed to Helmut Kohl in the 1990s, she does not seek re-election. Nevertheless, her tenure – which has been extraordinarily long for a (...)