Economy

An answer to this rather broad question is one of the issues that formed the subject of Alexander Fink´s presentation during the discussion forum on the topic of “East German Transformation and German Public Finance” organised by Liberalni Institut on Wednesday, March 14, 2012.  Before we are able to even tackle this question, it is […]

Will Germany open its arms to the call from new French leader Francois Hollande for growth supporting measures instead of pure austerity imposed by the Sarkozy-Merkel duo? That was the key question at the European Union summit held in Brussels last week. Taking a decisive step in ramping up the European effort for containing for the […]

About the Greeks beating German-looking pensioners and Greek members of parliament playing black metal, while Merkel is happy to gamble with their lives. About fiscal pact, which is good in one country and bad in another one, about reducing debt with the help of magic and about American budgetary hockey game, which ended 99:0. After […]

As finance ministers sat together at the Ecofin meeting last week, the future of the Eurozone was at stake, with Greek political deadlock casting a shadow of darkness over its own euro existence. Greek President Karolos Papoulias was going to ask politicians last Tuesday to stand aside and let a technocratic government be formed to […]

In recent years, the Baltic States have been showcased as an austerity success story. While the whole world has seen countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal struggling to reduce their public spending, Lithuania has been hailed as an austerity example. Lithuanian success in public spending cuts has been widely acknowledged; yet simultaneous tax increases […]

According to the Lithuanian Free Market Institute’s (LFMI) annual calculations, Tax Freedom Day in Lithuania has moved earlier in the calendar and will fall on May 20

Voters decided if they still want to live on others‘ money. Savings or growth? A false dilemma with irresistible sex appeal to politicians. The Golden Dawn in Greece. Why Hugh Hendry is concerned about his assets in Europe? In Spain thr nationalization of banks‘ debts is launched – will they manage to break record annual deficit […]

As Wen Jiabao walks into the press conference room, lights focus on him and the applause accompanies his steps. Then, with his voice slightly cracking he said: “Journalist friends, this will be my last National People’s Congress press conference“. Wen Jiabao is the sixth serving prime minister of the People’s republic of China and ranks […]

In most recent years a famous graph, showing how deep the recession is in the UK and what is the path of recovery, appeared periodically. The graph is made by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) and compares the profile of the worst recessions in the UK over the past 100 years. […]

The aging Estonia and Europe need to accept that the state has to earn and save before it can spend and must remain within its limits both financially and functionally, writes Jürgen Ligi, the Minister of Finance. Right now, large English language news channels could bear the common name ‘eurozone crisis’ and they could all […]