Once Upon a Time There Was an Interest Rate
The Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) meets on the upcoming Thursday. Despite explicit criticism especially from Germany, no one should expect higher interest rates in the medium term.
Statistical Nonsense of the Month
Walter Krämer, a professor of statistics, found out that the OECD had produced the statistical nonsense of the month: According to a recent study published in May 2015 the topmost 10% of all German employees earn 6.6 times more than the undermost 10%.
Distributive Effects of the German Hartz IV-Reforms
The activating labour market reforms of the German government at the beginning of the 21st century (Agenda 2010) were considered to be successful in reducing unemployment, especially long-term unemployment. But the majority of the media and also the majority of the German population consider this reform as socially unfair. While long-term unemployment fell from 1.7 to now under one million, people still believe, Hartz IV made Germany poorer. A new empirical study tells a different…
Could Deflation Reduce Consumption? Microeconomic Evidence
While the European Central Bank, governments and many economists complain about the danger of deflation a currently published microeconomic analysis from the famous Kiel Institute for the World Economy tells a different story.
Laissez-Faire Capitalism/Manchesterism: Truth and Myths
In fact manchesterism was more than just free market economy and free trade. Cobden, the leader of the popular manchester movement, engaged in reducing the misery of the poor and child labour.
Landesbanken: The Monster Is Still Alive
The key question is: why should the German regional states own a bank? It has cost and still costs the German taxpayer a great deal of money to invest in boats, planes and property, yet brings the taxpayer few advantages for the risks incurred. Given the strength of our economy, this poor performance still looks very strange.
European Banking Union
European banking union is the most important regulatory project in the European Union (EU).
Is Germany a Tax Haven?
This study is not worth the paper on which it is printed.
Liberal Foreign Policy: The Way Ahead
The Liberal Institute of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation is recently dealing with current challenges in foreign policy. One of the main projects is a book, entitled “Liberal Foreign Policy in the 21st Century.”
Book Review “Redefining the Poverty Debate” by Kristian Niemietz
Helping the poor to free themselves from poverty should not mean absolving the individual from all responsibility and nurturing a culture of victimhood, entitlement and dependency.
