zombies

Unlike the Fed the ECB Leaves Euro Area Banks Unprepared for the Downswing

Guest monetary policy , , ,

Gunther Schnabl and Thomas Stratmann

Ten years after the outbreak of the global financial crisis, banks in the euro area have not recovered. The Euro Stoxx Financials is 65% below the pre-crisis peak, whereas the S&P Financials has come close to the pre-crisis level.  The different fate of financial institutions is due to different monetary and regulatory crisis therapies of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Fed. Continue reading →

Ten Years After Lehman (2): Bubbles Galore & Zombies

Guest economic history, Economics, Financial Markets, History of Economic Thought , ,

by Edward Chancellor*

In 1776, the English man of letters Horace Walpole observed a “rage of building everywhere”. At the time, the yield on English government bonds, known as Consols, had fallen sharply and mortgages could be had at 3.5 percent. In the “Wealth of Nations”, published that year, Adam Smith observed that the recent decline in interest had pushed up land prices: “When interest was at ten percent, land was commonly sold for ten or twelve years’ purchase. As the interest rate sunk to six, five and four percent, the purchase of land rose to twenty, five-and-twenty, and thirty years’ purchase.” [i.e. the yield on land fell from 10 percent to 3.3 percent].

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