Bertie's legacy

By: Alan Ahearne, Bruegel and NUI Galway

As Bertie Ahern's ten-year tenure comes to an end, so does Ireland's extraordinary economic boom.

House prices have 30-40% more to fall

By: Wolfgang Münchau

Here is an interview with me on CNBC on the housing market situation in western Europe and the US.

Sarkozy calls on ECB to publish minutes

French president proposes three point plan, which also includes a secretariat for the eurogroup and regular dialogue with the ECB; the European Commission wants to crack down on credit markets by forcing issuers to retain a stake of at least 10%; there has been a strong rise in European credit risk premia in the last month; the Irish prime minister Brian Cowen, meanwhile, will tell Sarkozy to back off over a second Irish referendum.

A tale of two countries

By: Wolfgang Münchau

France is reforming, Germany is not only not reforming, but anti-reforming, with new minimum and soon perhaps maximum wages. So why is everybody so optimistic about Germany, and so pessimistic about France?

Lessons from the 1970s

By: Wolfgang Munchau

There is no prospect of a global depression. Our single most important problem is the rise in inflation at a global level, which the world's largest central banks have underestimated. The situaiton is worst in the US where we are seeing a return to the Arthur Burns Fed.

Fiscal Stimulus: Is more needed?

By: Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Greg Hannsgen and Gennaro Zezza

According to the authors' calculation, the credit crunch implies a fall in private expenditure of about $100bn due to reduced household borrowing, and a fall of about $160bn in expenditure due to reduced nonfinancial business borrowing. The shock to output from the financial crisis will be around $260bn each quarter this year. A fiscal stimulus given in one period only, and taken away in the next, will hardly change the picture.

Global adjustment will be long and painful

By: Wolfgang Münchau

There are no multiple crises - there is only a single crisis, one of global macroeconomic adjustment. It is for that reasons that the finanical crisis is not yet over.