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Economics focus It wasnt us (18 March 06:39) |
| Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke still do not believe monetary policy bears any blame for the crisisTHE desire to rescue a damaged reputation is a powerful motivator. That is one conclusion t... |
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Private equity in Japan The waiting game (18 March 05:12) |
| There are lots of private-equity funds in Japan, but very few deals“PRIVATE equity is the garbage can of corporate Japan,” laments the boss of one fund with more than $1 billion ... |
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Productivity growth Slash and earn (18 March 05:12) |
| Productivity has surged in America and slumped in Europe. Neither trend can lastLIKE physical fitness or a healthy diet, productivity is a worthy goal that can require an unappetising change... |
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The Lehman report Beancounters in a bind (18 March 05:12) |
| Banks’ professional advisers come under scrutinyIF SUNSHINE really is the best disinfectant, the 2,200-page report into Lehman Brothers’ downfall by its court-appointed bankruptc... |
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Financial reform in America The hand of Dodd (18 March 05:12) |
| The Senate bill is finally publishedCHRIS DODD, the soon-to-retire chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has staked his legacy on overhauling America’s financial regulations. If he... |
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Hotel finance You can check out any time you like (18 March 05:12) |
| Hotel owners and operators have their banks over a barrelFEW industries are as adept as hotels at providing tempting offers—a well-stocked minibar, for instance—that lead to regr... |
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Municipalities and derivatives Cities in the casino (18 March 05:12) |
| A derivatives farce makes its way to court in Milan. Others are sure to followONE of the great advantages of financial innovation, it was often said, was that risk would end up going to thos... |
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Buttonwood Less debt more charm (18 March 05:12) |
| Private-equity managers face a difficult outlookTHE locusts went hungry in 2009. The private-equity industry, the bete noire of many a European politician, managed just $81 billion of buy-ou... |
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Correction Bank administrative costs (11 March 04:13) |
| The administrative costs per $1m lent by the World Bank and the International Development Bank during 2009 were $20,600 and $15,314 respectively, not $19,000 and $26,833 (“Cap in hand&... |
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Chinese local-government debt Shell game (11 March 04:13) |
| Beijing signals a crackdown on borrowing by local governmentsENDLESS arcane pronouncements spew forth from China’s bureaucracies. But some matter much more than others. In recent weeks... |
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Labour markets Distemper (11 March 04:13) |
| Temporary work may dim future employment prospectsIS ANY job better than no job? Some research has suggested that unemployed workers should take up any job they can get, including temporary ... |
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Economics focus The inflation solution (11 March 04:13) |
| The merits of inflation as a solution to the rich world’s problems are easily overstatedIT HAS long been considered a scourge, an obstacle to investment and a tax on the thrifty. It se... |
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MetLife buys Alico Snoopy sniffs an opportunity (11 March 04:13) |
| AIG reluctantly hands its crown as America’s global life insurer to MetLifeANOTHER week, another opportunity for AIG’s rivals to expand at the American insurer’s expense. D... |
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Spanish banks All talk no walk (11 March 04:13) |
| A financial system in suspenseTHAT old Spanish stereotype of putting things off until manana still applies today. For nearly two years bankers have been talking about the need to restructure... |
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Savings and the poor A better mattress (11 March 04:13) |
| Microfinance focuses on lending. Now the industry is turning to depositsIT IS hard for people in the rich world to imagine what it is like to live on $2 a day. But for those who do, the prob... |
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Microinsurance Security for shillings (11 March 04:13) |
| Insuring crops with a mobile phoneONE of the things holding back agriculture in developing countries is the unwillingness of farmers with small plots of land to invest in better seed and fer... |
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Sovereign debt and the euro All for one (11 March 04:13) |
| Eurocrats offer up half-baked ideas to prevent a future sovereign-debt scareNOW that Greece has given in to pressure from its peers for a more austere budget, the euro zone’s policy br... |
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Buttonwood Apocalypse not now (11 March 04:13) |
| The alarming future for Japan's financesCASSANDRA’S curse was that her warnings would never be believed. Doom-mongers in the Japanese government-bond market have suffered a milder fate... |
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Economics focus On deaf ears (04 March 04:47) |
| Does India’s government pay any heed to its economic advisers?ECONOMISTS like nothing better than giving advice to governments. But why do they, of all people, imagine that anyone list... |
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Prudential buys AIA Grand Pru (04 March 04:47) |
| The insurance industry’s biggest-ever acquisition has prompted the largest-ever rights issue: AIG and Prudential are both playing for huge stakesINSURANCE is a pretty stodgy business. ... |
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Buttonwood Race to the bottom (04 March 04:47) |
| Countries compete to weaken their currenciesONCE upon a time, nations took pride in their strong currencies, seeing them as symbols of economic and political power. Nowadays it seems as if t... |
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Multilateral development banks Cap in hand (04 March 04:47) |
| A difficult time for a fund-raising spreeA SENIOR World Bank official describes its efforts to secure an additional $3 billion-5 billion in paid-in capital as a “once-in-a-generation i... |
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Financial inclusion A FAB idea (04 March 04:47) |
| Should every child receive a bank account at birth?YOU come into the world with nothing, the saying goes. A new campaign proposes to change that by giving every newborn child in the world an... |
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Sovereign-debt ratings The grim rater (04 March 04:47) |
| Countries don’t like bad news about their creditworthinessWHEN the subprime crisis broke in 2007, credit-rating agencies were among the first groups to take the blame. Critics argued t... |
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The Federal Reserve Back from the Fed (04 March 04:47) |
| The central bank loses a vice-chairman but starts to regain its standingTHE Federal Reserve, accused by critics of monetary and regulatory malpractice, has seen its standing plummet. The Hou... |
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The balance of economic power East or famine (25 February 04:46) |
| Asia’s economic weight in the world has risen, but by less than commonly assumedTHE idea that the world’s economic centre of gravity is moving eastward is not new. But the global... |
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Correction Financial risk (25 February 04:46) |
| The default rates in chart 3 of our special report on financial risk (“The gods strike back”, February 13th) were for asset-backed securities, not CDOs made up of those instrumen... |
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Short-selling rules Shackling the scapegoats (25 February 04:46) |
| American regulators approve long-awaited restrictions on short-sellingTHE main cause of the financial crisis may have been reckless optimism, but the pessimists are hardly being hailed as he... |
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Chinese banks Hole sale (25 February 04:46) |
| Capital calls by Chinese financial institutions elicit questionsTHE bill for China’s bank-lending spree is coming due. An announcement on February 23rd by China’s fifth-largest l... |
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Interest-rate risk Surfs up (25 February 04:46) |
| Banks’ next big problem appears on the horizonHOWARD ATKINS, the chief financial officer of Wells Fargo, a big American bank, recently said that he does not lose sleep worrying about i... |
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Buttonwood The very long view (25 February 04:46) |
| For investors, much depends on when you put your money inIT IS all too easy, given today’s 24-hour news cycle, to become obsessed with short-term movements in financial markets. But in... |
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Secondary buy-outs Circular logic (25 February 04:46) |
| Private-equity companies look to each other to solve their problemsIF YOU are looking for a way out, don’t forget the way you came in. For private-equity firms that want to sell portfo... |
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Emerging-market sovereign debt Risk redefined (25 February 04:46) |
| The new problem with Asian sovereign debt—scarcityELEVEN months ago Indonesia’s government paid almost 12% to raise long-term money on the international capital markets, while Am... |
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Economics focus Low definition (25 February 04:46) |
| Trustbusters want to put less emphasis on market definition when assessing mergersWHAT line of business are you in? It is hard for a lot of people to answer this question with a straight fac... |
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Buttonwood Naked self-interest (18 February 04:12) |
| Politicians blame the speculators againA LITTLE boy was arrested yesterday for saying that the European emperor had no clothes. “This kind of speculation only causes panic and should b... |
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Sovereign-debt worries Domino theory (18 February 04:12) |
| Assessing the risk that Greece’s woes herald something far worseHOW far is it from Athens to America and which countries lie on the way? That may sound like an esoteric geography quest... |
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The European Central Bank German shepherding (18 February 04:12) |
| The head of the Bundesbank, Axel Weber, emerges as slight favourite to become the ECB’s next chiefCYNICS have a rule about European appointments: the most qualified contenders never ge... |
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European bank results The brighter side (18 February 04:12) |
| Bad debts are peaking and pay is falling at Europe’s banksTWO years ago banks began to include tables in their results announcements that were designed to reassure investors that their... |
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Economics focus Disciplinary measures (18 February 04:12) |
| In a guest article, Daniel Gros of the Centre for European Policy Studies (pictured left) and Thomas Mayer of Deutsche Bank argue the case for a European Monetary FundTHE difficulties facing... |
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Japans fragile economy Kabuki economics (18 February 04:12) |
| A set of positive indicators hides troubling realitiesPICK a number, any number. Statistics released this week show that the Japanese economy staged a vigorous rebound in the fourth quarter ... |
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Cooling the property market Slow Canada (18 February 04:12) |
| The government tries to rein in the housing marketCANADA has had an easier time than most during the recent global recession, in part because of a conservative and well-regulated banking sys... |
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Capital controls Fundamental questions (18 February 04:12) |
| The IMF changes its mind on controls on capital inflowsLEFTOVER piles of slushy snow from the heaviest snowfall in over a century make it hard to take sharp turns on the roads of Washington,... |
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Settling trade disputes When partners attack (11 February 04:08) |
| China will test the WTO’s dispute-settlement systemIN 2009 China overtook Germany to become the world’s largest exporter. Exactly half the trade disputes that were filed at the W... |
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Economics focus Mix message (11 February 04:08) |
| Barack Obama’s advisers lay out some steps to a rebalanced economy. Others are out of his handsFEW things have frustrated Washington’s punditocracy more than the search for ̶... |
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Buttonwood Shaky foundations (11 February 04:08) |
| The recovery in British house prices is built on sandFALLING house prices were the trigger for the financial crisis, so it should be good news that they have stabilised, in America and Brita... |
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Debt sustainability Not so risk-free (11 February 04:08) |
| Which countries have the biggest problems?MARKETS have suddenly woken up to the idea that not all government debt is risk-free. There is a long and not very honourable history of sovereign d... |
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Financial regulation in America Another fine mess (11 February 04:08) |
| Bipartisan talks break down in the Senate as time gets tightWITH health-care reform stalled, the White House would dearly love to see Congress approve an overhaul of financial regulation. Bu... |
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Sovereign risk and the banks The safety-net frays (11 February 04:08) |
| Governments used to worry about their banks. Now the reverse is also trueA SENIOR HSBC executive reminisces fondly about the day he was parachuted into Latin America, a decade or so ago, to ... |
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Financial psychology Fair dues (11 February 04:08) |
| Employees sniff out unfairness when money is involvedIF YOU can count your money you don’t have a billion dollars, opined Jean Paul Getty, an oil magnate. You may feel peeved for other... |
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Buttonwood Stimulating debate (04 February 04:11) |
| The markets, and developed economies, are too dependent on government actionAS JANUARY goes, so goes the year. That old stockmarket saying does not augur well for 2010, given that the MSCI W... |
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