...caused by the government spending too much and borrowing too much money. The economy collapsed causing the banks to be insolvent. Before the collapse banking was conservative. When a nation has insolvent banks belonging to the Euro zone make that problem much worse. There were silent funs on Greek banks, with capital flight; people are pulling their money out of the Greek banks and sending it elsewhere, making the Greek economy worse. The common currency zone escalates the problems. There are also capital and trade imbalances. Germany is exporting a great deal more than it imports, causing capital flows into Germany. Spain and Greece import more than they export so capital flow is out of the country. They need to become more productive at exporting, which is not always easy. In the 2000’s money flowed into periphery countries, borrowing rates were low and capital inflow brought rising standards of living. By 2010’s money was flowing out of the periphery countries and back into Northern Europe. Periphery economies were starved for investment borrowing at high rates. The problems are made worse by belonging to a common currency area. There is no exchange rate to adjust. The fiscal crisis came about because some governments in the Euro zone have run up bills that now need to be repaid. They spent more money than they have been taking in, in terms of tax revenue. Greece’s band spending behavior was the upfront problem that led to...
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...The Euro Debt Crisis: Greece’s and its Next Move Matthew Schrock Financial Markets & Institutions Dr. Victoria Geyfman December 6, 2012 “The Euro Crisis and Greece’s Next Move” The Euro currency, during its original preparation and issuance, had been seen with optimism. It was presumed that the new union of European markets would create a new economic power within Europe, matching it with other economic leaders such as the U.S. and other powers. At this point in history, the Euro seems to be on the brink of despair. The European Monetary Union had determined and established the prerequisite diplomacy and policy making to assure a newly created stable and integrated economy of Europe. The reality of this new currency and monetary union is far from the original optimistic outlook. Policy set forth in the original agreements and conditions of the European Monetary Union that had been established before its adoption had been treated without regard by countries. This disregard started with deceit from Greece but quickly became almost the status quo. Greece is known as the catalyst and a scapegoat within the views of the Euro debt crisis. Greece is on the brink of insolvency and others are following. Options are available in this time of uncertainty, whether they are conventional or not, that could result in Greece remaining within the Euro and accepting austerity or altering their status and participation within the monetary union. The decision that will be...
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... using the Euro as a functional currency. Contents Contents 2 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 2. INTRODUCTION 3 2.1. HISTORY OF INSOMNIA PLC 3 2.2. SCOPE OF BUSINESS 3 2.3. CURRENT EXPOSURES 4 2.3.1. TRANSACTION EXPOSURE 4 2.3.2. ECONOMIC EXPOSURE 4 2.3.3. TRANSLATION EXPOSURE 4 2.4. HEDGING 5 3. EFFECTS OF UK JOINING EMU ON INSOMNIA PLC 5 3.1. COST SAVINGS ON CROSS-BORDER TRANSACTIONS 5 3.2. STABILITY OF PRICES 6 3.3. PRICE TRANSPARENCY 6 3.4. OTHER EFFECTS 6 4. USING EURO AS A FUNCTIONAL CURRENCY OF INSOMNIA PLC 7 5. CONCLUSION 8 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY 9 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It has been found that UK joining EMU as well as accepting the Euro as a functional currency will bring more benefits to Insomnia plc than staying outside of the Economic and Monetary Union or continuing using Pound Sterling as a functional currency. Both of the choices will decrease the currency exchange rate fluctuation risk which was found to be the most significant to the company. Analysis were based mainly on academic articles, European Central Bank (ECB) publishing’s, and International Accounting Standards (IASs). 2. INTRODUCTION “The Economic and Monetary Union is an agreement between participating European nations to share a single currency, the Euro and a single economic policy with set conditions of fiscal responsibility. There are currently 27 member-states...
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...Economic Analysis of the Rise and Fall of Euro Zone Currency Journalist Alen Mattich wrote in the 17 September 2010 edition of Wall Street Journal regarding the economic conundrum facing the Euro Zone with the imminent default of Greece on their national debt. His article, entitled “Trust Greece…to Default,” outlines the failing monetary policy of the Greek government and the quazi-demands for a national bailout made by Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou. If the Greek economy collapses absent perpetuated bailout from other powers, the European universal currency will collapse. The intrinsically diverse European economies, ranging from moderate command-and-control orientation to heavy market influence, defy conglomeration and governance with a single currency. The uniform currency experience has ended in disaster. Because the Euro Zone effort to implement a homogenous monetary policy in a heterogeneous international body is economically untenable, the Euro as a currency will collapse. In 1986, European countries gathered together to initialize the ‘perfectly integrated competitive market economy’, using principles developed by economist Robert Mundell in the 1960s. These concepts emphasize liquidity of physical and financial assets, flexible interest rates, comparable business cycles and asymmetric fiscal policies for use in creating seamless interaction between international bodies within the economic area. This ‘Euro Zone’ exists as the pilot project of sorts for...
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...An arbitrage is best defined as ________ 2. When interest rate parity (IRP) does not hold there are opportunities for _____ 3. Suppose you observe a spot exchange rate of $1.50/€. If interest rates are 5% APR in the U.S. and 3% APR in the euro zone, what is the no-arbitrage 1-year forward rate? 4. Suppose you observe a spot exchange rate of $1.50/€. If interest rates are 3% APR in the U.S. and 5% APR in the euro zone, what is the no-arbitrage 1-year forward rate? 5. Suppose that the one-year interest rate is 5.0 percent in the United States; the spot exchange rate is $1.20/€; and the one-year forward exchange rate is $1.16/€. What must one-year interest rate be in the euro zone to avoid arbitrage? 6. An Italian currency dealer has good credit and can borrow €800,000 for one year. The one-year interest rate in the U.S. is i$ = 2% and in the euro zone the one-year interest rate is i€ = 6%. The spot exchange rate is $1.25 = €1.00 and the one-year forward exchange rate is $1.20 = €1.00. Show how to realize a certain euro-denominated profit via covered interest arbitrage. 7. Suppose that the one-year interest rate is 5.0 percent in the United States and 3.5 percent in Germany, and the one-year forward exchange rate is $1.16/€. What must the spot exchange rate be? 8. If the annual inflation rate is 5.5 percent in the United States and 4 percent in the U.K...
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...SUMMARY OF THE EURO CRISIS – OVERVIEW OF EVENTS TILL DATE The Euro Crisis had its making in the US financial crisis of 2008-09. Before 2008, Euro Zone nations had been borrowing indiscriminately owing to low interest bonds available due to being part of Euro Zone. Also, they were banking on their high growth rates to pay back those loans. However, as a result of US financial crisis, growth slowed down, resulting in slowing down of tax revenues. Meanwhile, the interest on loans was accruing. Combined, these factors led to huge fiscal deficits. Greece was the first country to feel the heat due to high budget deficits. When new government came into power in Greece in 2009, it announced that previous government had fudged about the fiscal deficit, and showed it to be lower than it actually was. It was found that Greece’ debts actually exceeded the size of its economy. Seeing the higher risks associated with giving loans to Greece, lenders started asking for higher returns not only from Greece, but from other heavily indebted countries – Ireland, Spain and Portugal. The four countries are together referred as PIGS. Unlike Greece, in Ireland, government kept its spending in check but ended up in debt by guaranteeing the liabilities of banks which lost their money in property bubble burst. The high lending costs for Greece coupled with the high debt made the fears of Greece defaulting on loans real. Since the banks of Germany and France had exposure to 15% of Greece’s debt, defaulting...
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...THE EURO CRISIS The entire global attention is currently focused towards the ongoing crisis in the Euro zone. The present article seeks to simplify and logically explain the crisis which has engulfed PIIGS. Q1) What does the term PIIGS stand for? Ans. PIIGS stands for Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. The current Euro crisis started in Greece and has now finally spread to Italy. In fact, there is a worry that ultimately it will slowly engulf the entire Euro zone and that there will be sovereign defaults. Q2) What is a sovereign default? Ans. Sovereign default occurs when a country defaults on the loans it has taken and is unable to repay them as per the originally decided terms. Sovereign default is considered catastrophic as the lenders normally have to make huge sacrifices. Q3) How did the crisis originate in Greece? Ans. Greece had a very liberal social security program for its citizens. Govt aided healthcare, education, pensions etc. which were heavily subsidised as the Greek Govt was bearing the major part of the expenditure. The Greek Govt went on a borrowing spree to finance its expenditure leading to the current debt position which looks unsustainable. It is feared that there will soon be a contagion effect. Q4) What is the contagion effect? Ans. Contagion is derived from the word “contagious” which means to spread. The worry is that this alarming situation would spread to soon other Euro regions leading to many sovereign defaults. Already pain is being...
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...Reactions I. Local market reactions II. European market reactions III. Effects on US and world markets. 5. Conclusion 6. Bibliography 1. INTRODUCTION The Italian crisis that rocked the Euro zone at the beginning of this quarter was sudden, yet, not really sudden. There have been signs, but the leaders were unperturbed, so it was business as usual until the eventual breakout, like an epidemic, now threatening to consume not only Italy, but the Euro zone and by extension, the European Union.[1] The Greek economic debacle was one of the clearest signs that all was not well within the zone, but, of course, the general consensus was that Greek was too small to ignite any serious panic within the zone. If at all anything was going to happen, the general belief was that it will not affect the core of the European economy, and as such, to my understanding, not worth any preparation or broad based actions by the European Central Bank (ECB). But today, all of that has suddenly changed with the Italians taking their turn at the economic turntable. It is not clearly understood that even the mighty do sometimes fall. Italy is the third largest economy in the Euro Zone, only behind Germany and France; a blow to the Italian economy is surely a blow to the Euro Zone (EZ). This is the truth that has unfolded in the past three months or so, but the drama seems not in a hurry to end anytime soon. In this paper, I will be examining some of the causes of the current crisis...
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...2 2.0 The Establishment of the Euro Zone and the introduction of the Euro 2 3.0 Key Causes of the European Financial and Economic Crises 3 4.0 The Start and Progression of the European Debt Crisis 5 5.1 Greece 6 5.2 Portugal 6 5.3 Italy 7 5.4 Spain 7 5.5 Ireland 8 5.6 Iceland 9 5.0 Measures Taken (so far) to Combat the Debt Crisis (European Level) 10 6.7 European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). 10 6.8 European Financial Stabilization Mechanism (EFSM). 10 6.9 ECB interventions. 10 6.10 Brussels Agreement. 11 6.0 Implications of the European Debt Crisis: For the European Union 12 7.0 Implications of the European Debt Crisis: For the Global Economy 13 8.0 Implications of the European Debt Crisis: For Global Politics 14 9.0 Implications of the European Debt Crisis: For Pakistan 15 10.0 Implications of the European Debt Crisis: For the Welfare State 16 11.0 Solutions for the European Debt Crisis 16 12.11 Eurobonds. 16 12.12 Restructuring of Eurozone. 18 1.0 Overview: With a nominal GDP of $16,242 Billion in 2010 (20% of global GDP), the European monetary union is not only the world’s largest economic block, but also the foremost integrated economic and political association of nations in history. The economic crisis the Euro Zone currently faces is unique in all of...
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...“The euro was a bad idea from the start. Now it is only a matter of time before the Eurozone falls apart.” Introduction: The international financial crisis in United States in 2008 is not over, then the sovereign debt crisis broke out in Euro Zone, the world economy is going through a difficult period of adjustment, especially euro area reached the point of exhaustion. According to this, some economists hold opinion that the Euro Zone was a bad idea from the start, now it is only a matter of time before the Euro Zone falls apart. This essay aims to analyze the positive and negative effects of Euro and finally to illustrate that the existence of the Euro Zone is necessary and correct. The advantages for the Euro Zone members Firstly, the most significant advantage is that the unified currency will greatly promote the mobility of goods and factors of production between the member states in European, which will further increase the resource allocate efficiency, create a robust competitive environment. Nowadays, the openness between euro members is increasing rapidly. According to the statistics of World Bank in 2011, the mutual exports between EU members accounts for 10%-25% of its output. In addition to this, the use of euro will reduce the costs in international trade among EU countries and transaction costs for collecting, processing, and analyzing the foreign exchange rates. Moreover, although there is a unified market within the European Union before the Euro Zone has been...
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...Does the current institutional framework of the Euro-zone favour the maintenance of macroeconomic stability in that area? The Euro-zone is an economic and monetary union that currently has 17 members. These 17 members have established the Euro as their official currency, which has as main consequence that the monetary policies are under the command of the European Central Bank. The main advantage of this is that they have a fixed exchange rate, so they don´t have to face the international volatility of the currency market. However as their monetary policies depend on the European Central Bank, loosing effectiveness in their own fiscal and monetary policies, making it harder to face economic crises, especially when you have a weak economic framework, which was the case of Spain. If all the economies where homogeneous then it would be easier to apply the policies, but as each member is very different we have a problem due to the macroeconomic disparity among the members. If the recession occurs at the same time, it is easier to develop the monetary policies, and even if in some countries there is recession and in others not, the asymmetry can be accommodated through the members, however due to the huge disparities among countries it is not that easy. The recent crises have increased the awareness of the huge disparities that we can find in the members. These differences, which relays on the diversity of the members, have risen the question of the viability of the Eurozone...
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...Accession into a monetary union has implications that reach far below the surface of the requirements outlined by a simple agreement or membership criteria. While there are undeniable benefits to some member states, great sacrifices must be made before, during, and after the integration process which eventually render a nation powerless over its monetary policy. Currently, every European nation is faced with the question of whether to join European Monetary Union; however, the eagerness with which new member states join is paralleled by the resistance of several holdouts to adoption of the common currency. With the unprecedented growth rate of the Euro-zone over the past decade and the number of nations currently making the required policy adjustments, core members need to be aware of the motivating factors fueling the growth in the number of new member states. The European Union is experiencing an adverse selection scenario in which nations seeking increased stability are willing to make the sacrifices that membership entails while the redistributive effect of wealth from existing to new relatively poorer member states is an implicit benefit of the current system. When Paul Henri Spaak of Belgium, Christian Pineau of France, Joseph Luns of the Netherlands, Antonion Segni from Italy, Joseph Bech from Luxemburg, and Konrad Adenauer from the Republic of Germany signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957 creating the European Economic Community(EEC), their long-term objective was the...
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...analysis the movements in value of the Euro against the pound since January 2008 Introduction The value of Euro varies with time by a floating exchange rate against British Pound (GBP). Hence, the exchange rate influenced the value of Euro against GBP and law of one price is assumed. Theories such as the relative Purchasing Power Parity and the fisher effect illustrate the impact of the inflation and the interest rate between two countries on the value of the currency. The asset market model is also another instrument to analyse the movement of a currency. The constraints of using these models are those theories all assumed perfect efficiency of market and the increasing role of global capital flows is ignored. Therefore they are relatively useful to predict the rates in the future which are demonstrated in part two. The following analysis is based on economic factors such as the economic status of the Euro area and the United Kingdom (UK) and the decision made by the Bank of England (BoE) and the European Central Bank (ECB). The investor confidence (Market Psychology) is also below. They affect the value of euro significant, as they vary the supply of and demand for Euro. The value of Euro against British Pound (GBP) increased throughout the three years. The Euro rose from 0.7416 to 0.8507 over the three decades. Euro was 0.7416 at the beginning of 2008, which was its weakest point in these three years. Moreover, the strongest point of Euro relative to GBP is 0.9785 on December...
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...made with the treaty of Rome. Right now, 47 years later, the euro is a fact, with a monetary system that prevails over all the countries of the euro-zone, with a policy that was originally based on satisfying growth, low to no inflation, low unemployment and lower and more stable prices, as well as elimination of conversion fees, deeper financial markets, and lower volatility therein. It has been successful in accomplishing most of those objectives, even though some are openly disputed. Whether the euro as a whole is successful remains to be seen, since the question if the euro-zone in itself is suitable for monetary union is left largely unanswered. Two criteria are met with, and two are not. The key success factor now and in the future will be the policy of the ECB, which is dual; fight of inflation at the expense of economic growth or vice versa. How long the policy of the ECB can count on the trust of its members depends largely on movements in the world economy, the financial markets and the ability of policy makers to shroud the efforts in political correctness. ii. Table of contents i. Executive Summary p. 2 ii. Table of Contents p. 3 iii. Preface p. 4 1. Euro History p. 6 2. The European Monetary System p. 7 3. The early nineties currency crisis p. 8 4. Convergence program p. 10 5. Launch of the euro as a currency p. 12 6. The benefits of the euro p. 16 7. European Central Bank Policy and promises p. 23 ...
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...Liquidity as Rates on Hold”-By Jana Randow & Andre Tartar – October 10, 2013 Prepared By: Varanth Boyadjian • Sahag-Grag Pailian • Shant Kupjian • Outline: * Introduction * The European Central Bank (ECB) * Body * Summary of the Article * Analysis * Monetary Policy of the ECB * Interest Rate * The Impact of Interest Rate on: * Inflation * Liquidity * Gross Domestic Product (GDP) * Unemployment * How to Ease the Liquidity * Print more Euros (€) * ECB Buying of Government Bonds * New Governmental Institutions * Decrease of Reserve Requirements * ECB Buying Corporate Bonds * Recommendations * Bibliography Introduction: The European Central Bank (ECB): The European central bank was formed in Frankfurt, Germany in 1988. The ECB is responsible for the monetary system of the euro currency and it consists of 17 European countries. The European central bank works with the other national banks of each of the European Union members to formulate monetary policy that helps maintain the euro’s purchasing power. The responsibilities of the ECB are to formulate monetary policy, conduct foreign exchange, hold currency reserves and authorize the issuance of bank notes, among many other things. The European central bank and the national central banks constitute the Euro system, the central...
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