Finance

This paper proposes a theoretically based and easy-to-implement way to measure the systemicrisk of financial institutions using publicly available accounting and stock market data.

Dubious transactions and flimsy accounting standards need scrutiny.

The unprecedented intervention by China’s authorities to backstop China’s stock market reveals widening policy tensions in China’s leaderships financial reform agenda.

The sharp and sudden plunge scared everyone. Can the Chinese government get control of the market?

The recent financial crisis has impressively illustrated the dangers of rapid credit growth in a painful way.

As I write this it would be appear that the Greek crisis is finally coming to an end. In this report I would like to discuss why the negotiations were so fraught and what an agreement actually means. In a nutshell, the EU sought to address matters with the same kinds of measures that had been tried in the past, while Greece argued that doing so would not make things any better—and would in fact make them far worse.

The Institute for New Economic Thinking has awarded $2 million in grants to fund 21 different projects as part of the latest round of its research grant program.

The financial crisis of 2008 was unforeseen to a significant extent. One reason is that the dominant academic theories influencing political decision makers ignore recent advances and instead rely largely on models and decision science dating back to the Second World War.

There is now a growing consensus among policymakers and academics that a key element to improve safeguards against financial instability is to strengthen the “macroprudential” orientation of regulatory and supervisory frameworks.

The Eurozone crisis has been wrongly interpreted as either a crisis of fiscal profligacy or of deteriorating unit-labour cost competitiveness (caused by rigid labour markets), or a combination of both.

The thunder from the Greek “No” vote in the referendum on Sunday, July 5 continues to roll around the world.

A survey on behalf of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung indicates that German economists are much more American in their thinking than is presumed – with a rising trend.

It is a shame that Greece was unable to manage its finances and is now slipping into chaos. But this outcome was inevitable and could not be permanently averted with loans from the international community.

It is time for Greece to make a daring leap and adopt its own currency, says Ifo President Hans-Werner Sinn. “The drachma should be introduced immediately as a virtual currency,” Sinn said in Munich.

The ECB has decided to maintain its current level of emergency liquidity to Greece (ECB 2015). By refusing to extend additional emergency liquidity, the ECB has decided that Greece must leave the Eurozone. This may be a legal necessity or a political judgement call, or both. Anyway, it raises a host of unpleasant questions about the treatment of a member country and about the independence of the central bank.