UK finance body lands co-operation deal with colossal Chinese bank The government has been keen to promote business ties with China since at least the beginning of the current coalition – today’s visit by Premier Li Keqiang has been no exception. TheCityUK today signed a memorandum of understanding with a massive Chinese government bank, with a little help from the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office [...]
IMF says Fed could keep rates at zero for much longer Fed chair Janet Yellen has suggested that the first US rate hike could come six months after the end of tapering quantitative easing (QE) – this would land in roughly April 2015. But the staff of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) say today that with a muted inflation outlook and full employment still some [...]
How hard will Japan’s sales tax hike hit growth? In March, I said that it could be the most important economic event this year. But how has Japan's sales tax hike gone so far? Japan has effectively created a fiscal shock, providing its own test of the ability of monetary policy to offset the impact. Noah Smith, who was initially skeptical of Japan's new [...]
Wolfson Prize: The most weird and wonderful ideas for garden cities June 4, 2014 Lord Simon Wolfson's annual economics prize goes to the best suggestion to solve some major challenge – previously, it's been a potential British exit from the EU, and this year, it's for designs of a garden city. The five shortlisted finalists were announced this morning, and the winner will get the £250,000 prize. There were [...]
The Spanish King that told Hugo Chavez to shut up June 2, 2014 King Juan Carlos I of Spain, whose abdication was announced today, has been a slightly more relaxed monarch than Queen Elizabeth II. For example, it’s difficult to imagine the British monarch giving Steven Gerrard a big hug after winning a tournament for England, not that there’s much experience of that to go on. But [...]
How rich are Help to Buy users? May 29, 2014 Today the Treasury released their figures on the use of the controversial Help to Buy scheme – specifically for the second (mortgage guarantee) part of the policy. It has been used 7,313 times so far – but Berenberg’s Rob Wood notes that the figures lean heavily towards more recent months. Only 818 mortgages were [...]
The likely economic consequences of Thailand’s coup May 22, 2014 Thailand’s military has declared a coup d’etat in the country, in the wake of political turmoil. Not much can said for the insistence all of two days ago that the action was definitely not a coup. Thankfully, so far the coup does not appear to be particularly violent. Though in recent years [...]
India’s Modi is being put on a pedestal – and he’s got a long way to fall May 20, 2014 Indian businesses are jubilant about the result of the Indian election, which returned Narendra Modi as the country’s next Prime Minister – MNI’s business sentiment indicator shot up from 61.9 in April to 67 this month (the highest in two years), when it became clear that Modi would take the crown. Anything above 50 signals [...]
What could shock the Bank of England into hiking rates this year? May 14, 2014 The Bank of England's latest inflation report is out today – it's largely a steady-as-she-goes update from Threadneedle Street, but nestled at the back the Bank presents a potential upset to their forecast, which could prompt a rate hike sooner than markets expect. The Bank’s outgoing deputy governor, Charles Bean, said that any estimate [...]
Is there a silver lining for Japan’s dreadful confidence numbers? May 12, 2014 Grim figures on the Japanese economy were released early this morning – the country’s cabinet office showed April's economic sentiment plunge to the lowest level in a year and a half. The decline was massive – from March’s robust 57.9 to just 41.6 this month (with scores above and below 50 representing improvement and decline [...]