May 20, 2016 | European Economy, Monetary Policy
An ongoing theme we kept coming back to throughout 2015 in the eurozone is that monetary policy tends to either too hot or too cold for the core or periphery. The ECB’s attempts to fight deflation and reflate the periphery have fuelled increases in German mortgages...
Apr 22, 2016 | European Economy
One of the aims of loose monetary policy is to boost lending. The theory is lower rates and greater availability of liquidity will encourage lending and borrowing, which in turn will boost economic activity. Unfortunately, an increased supply of loans does not...
Jul 29, 2015 | European Economy
For all of Spain’s entrenched structural issues (as we detailed in our April thematic, Spain – Still a Hole in Europe’s Balance Sheet), leading economic data continues to point towards a cyclical recovery in Spain. Real M1 is growing at 15% YoY, consumer confidence is...
Jul 15, 2015 | European Economy
The ECB’s commitment to extra loose monetary policy through forward guidance and QE has resulted in the euro to becoming one of the darlings of the funding currencies. US corporates such as Nike, Apple and Coca-Cola have taken advantage of a weak euro to raise the...
Jul 7, 2015 | European Economy
If you ignore the ongoing Greek sideshow, rarely has European money growth been as accommodative as it is today. Europe has enormous structural problems of too much debt, an inflexible currency and an ageing population, but cyclical factors are very positive. Leading...
Jun 29, 2015 | European Economy, Featured, Framework, Whitepaper
At the start of 2012, Variant Perception’s research team wrote a paper on the best way to break up the euro. A lot has happened since this paper was written. However, it still provides a clear, solid analysis of the problems leading up to the current situation....
Apr 24, 2015 | European Economy, Monetary Policy
The sharp devaluation in the euro and the rapid acceleration in economic activity will mean short-term inflation dynamics in the eurozone will soon start surprising to the upside. In this context it is important to remember that the only justification for ECB...
Mar 23, 2015 | European Economy
The euro is not an optimal currency area, and monetary policy will be either too hot for the core or too cold for the periphery. Today, monetary policy is too hot for Germany, where we see rising house prices due to a monetary policy that has been geared at the...
Jan 19, 2015 | European Economy
The ECB’s loan demand surveys (which lead by about 12 months) have been suggesting higher credit growth ahead for some time (top chart) and there are signs that this may finally be occurring. The bottom chart shows that overall eurozone deposits rose in November,...
