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Against the background of a severe economic crisis in the eurozone, one is surprised to find a member of the euro area that is actually showing good economic performance. This member is Estonia. In terms of so-called real gross domestic product (GDP) the average yearly rate of growth in Estonia stood at 8.4 percent in 2011 against overall eurozone

There were a lot of commentaries regarding the Ireland and Iceland 2008–2012 financial crises. Most of the commentaries were confined to the description of the events without addressing the essential causes of the crises. We suggest that providing a detailed description of events cannot be a substitute for economic analysis, which should be based

[Editor’s note: Bernanke has further loosened the Fed’s monetary stance. As economist Frank Shostak explains, this action is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how wealth is created and can only make things worse.] On Wednesday December 12, 2012 Fed policy makers announced that they will boost their main stimulus tool by adding $45 billion

At the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in San Diego (January 4–6, 2013), Harvard professor of economics Benjamin Friedman said, The standard models we teach simply have no room in them for what most of the world’s central banks have done in response to the crisis. Friedman also advises sweeping aside the importance of the

According to Ben Bernanke, pulling back on aggressive policy measures too soon would pose a real risk of damaging a still-fragile recovery. The Fed chief is of the view that, for the purposes of financial stability, a continuation of the central bank’s aggressive stimulus, conducted through purchases of Treasury and mortgage securities, remains

Many economists and financial commentators believe that in the unregulated market of the internet economy, new forms of money can be created that bypass central-bank and government supervision. The latest development is the emergence of a new electronic means of exchange, Bitcoin (BTC). Bitcoin was launched on January 3 2009 by its inventor, a

According to European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sees no risk of inflation in the United States. According to Nowotny, Bernanke had given a “very optimistic” portrayal of the US outlook. “They see absolutely no danger of an expansion in inflation,” Nowotny said. Bernanke had said US

Bruce Bartlett recently lamented in The New York Times that given the current state of economic affairs we need more Keynesian medicine to fix the US economy. According to Bartlett, the core insight of Keynesian economics is that there are very special economic circumstances in which the general rules of economics don’t apply and are in fact

Recently various commentators have been warning Euro-zone policymakers that they needed to boost stimulus policies in order to avoid a Japanese-style lost decade. To support their case, they point to the years 1991 to 2000. The average growth of real GDP in Japan during that period stood at 1.2 percent versus the average growth of 4.7 percent

According to most commentators, reducing monetary stimulus and winding down the balance sheet of the Fed without major economic disruptions is going to be a major challenge for US central bank policy makers. On Wednesday, June 19 Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, said that given an improved outlook on the economy, the US central bank may moderate the