The macroeconomic data coming out of Estonia in recent weeks are truly shocking even in the context of the ten percent annual drop in GDP for 2009 that most observers are now forecasting. Perhaps the most evocative number of all is not the 27% year on year drop in industrial output registered in Jan...

It all started as an idle conversation in the loo. The next thing The National Bank of Hungary (NBH) and the Hungary’s Financial Supervisory Authority (PSZÃ�F) had to come out in public to declare that they were closely monitoring the status of the financial system, adding that from what they ...

by Claus Vistesen and Edward Hugh Most sports coaches - irrespective of whether they work in soccer, baseball, rugby or even American football - have playbooks; small books or pads filled with notes, decision rules and strategies for each and every possible situation they can envision. Of course, in...

Here follows a bit of demographic speculation. It’s guesswork right now, but we’ll know in a year or two if I’m right. Interesting Fact #1: birthrates tend to drop during recessions, and the drop tends to correlate with both the severity of the recession and the speed of its onset....

Spanish unemployment shot up again in February to 3.48 million in February, whilst consumer confidence took another knock amidst fears Spain’s jobless would now hit 4 million as early this summer, and maybe 4.5 million, or nearly 20% of the workforce. Right, this the latest in my monthly repor...

“Saying that the situation is the same for all central and eastern European states, I don’t see that……you cannot compare the dire situation in Hungary with that of other countries.” Angela Merkel, Brussels, Sunday “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy famil...

Well if you want to set off a further wave of speculative contagion, here exactly is how to do it: European Union Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said “there are risks in the banks� of eastern, southern and central Europe. “The assets of these subsidiaries of foreign banks are be...

Well reading the press this morning it would be fairly easy to reach the conclusion that nothing really happened yesterday in Brussels, and that a great opportunity was lost. The latter may finally be true, but the former most certainly is not. Let’s look first at what was not decided on Sunda...

It appears that many of us have had quite a bit of a weekend these past few days. Sitting here in Barcelona’s airport on my way home from a whistestop visit I can happily look back at some very nice dinners and conversations in the company of friends and colleagues as well as the odd stroll down L...

He’s at it again. Last year he was busily trying to worry us all that inflation was set to get completely out of hand among the 16 countries who make up the eurozone. Now the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, is hard at it on another tack and is busying himself tryin...