The independence of the European Central Bank (ECB), seemingly guaranteed by its statutes, is presently under attack. The ECB has been led to acquire large amounts of government debt of the weaker euro zone members, both to help contain their interest costs and to help protect the solvency of banks throughout the zone that hold their debt. This paper presents a model of a dependent central bank that internalizes the government’s budget constraint. Using a Barro-Gordon framework, the model embodies both the desire to stimulate output and to provide monetary financing to governments.

Aleph Blog outlines why he believes "behemoth" companies (i.e. firms with a market value greater than $100 billion) trade at relatively compressed price to earnings ratios: For Behemoth companies to achieve large earnings growth, they have to find monster-sized innovations to do so. Those don’t come along too regularly.

ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan discusses ECRI's recessionary outlook, Gross Domestic Income, and how economic growth doesn't really "muddle along" at sustained low rates.