Macroeconomics and Finance

A correspondent sends us to a column of Paul Krugman's that asserts that "nobody understands debt". Fair enough. To my mind, this line stands out:

And because foreigners tend to put their U.S. investments into safe, low-yield assets, America actually earns more from its assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors.

As a seminar focusing on China’s monetary policy, we’ve always been interested in the use of monetary instruments by People’s Bank of China (PBoC). In this posting, we’d like to wrap up the core elements of our past discussions on PBoC instruments.

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[The following guest post is by John Whittaker, from whom we have learned much of what we know about how the European payments system works.  See his terrific papers here and here, both of which reward close study.  He has been looking over the last couple Money View posts, and the comments to those posts, and has this to say.] Read more

The ECB has always been the protagonist of the eurozone crisis story. At times it has seemed the arch-villain, coldly standing on principle even as the financial system crumbles around it. At other times it has seemed the hero in waiting, ready to step in at the eleventh hour to bring a moral-hazard-free end to the turmoil with its unlimited balance sheet.

What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that the plot is taking a twist. The question is no longer whether the ECB is villain or hero, but whether it exists at all. (And today's collateral eligibility expansion doesn't resolve the question.) Let me explain. Read more