Author Archives: Edward Harrison

About Edward Harrison

I am a banking and finance specialist at the economic consultancy Global Macro Advisors. Previously, I worked at Deutsche Bank, Bain, the Corporate Executive Board and Yahoo. I have a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA in Finance from Columbia University. As to ideology, I would call myself a libertarian realist - believer in the primacy of markets over a statist approach. However, I am no ideologue who believes that markets can solve all problems. Having lived in a lot of different places, I tend to take a global approach to economics and politics. I started my career as a diplomat in the foreign service and speak German, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish and French as well as English and can read a number of other European languages. I enjoy a good debate on these issues and I hope you enjoy my blogs. Please do sign up for the Email and RSS feeds on my blog pages. Cheers. Edward http://www.creditwritedowns.com

Cyprus’ Bank Deposit Bail-in

Ed Harrison here. I haven’t been on NC in a while now but Yves asked me to cross-post this one because the issue is important. Let me note here that Tyler Cowen asks some troubling questions on this. And Ed Conway raises some good issues as well. I recommend reading those posts too. Below is […]

Money, the financial system and the Federal Reserve

Edward Harrison here. We seem to be moving forward with this discussion on monetary policy, banking, and reserves. Things seemed to be veering wildly off track but I have seen a huge number of good comments in the last 24 hours. Now, John Carney does a good job of summarising some of the initial forays […]

The Grexit is coming sooner or later

One more post today, this time on Europe. I wrote this outline for Italy in November before the ECB’s Italian job. I didn’t and still don’t see an Italian exit or default as a baseline. However, a Greek exit for the eurozone has been my baseline for a number of months. Citigroup’s Willem Buiter has […]

What the Mortgage Deal Reveals About The Obama Administration

Edward Harrison here. I was reading Yves’ excellent post on The Top Twelve Reasons Why You Should Hate the Mortgage Settlement and I thought about a post I wrote a year ago on what this was all about. I am re-posting this post verbatim below but I just want to say a few words first. […]

The Chinese Growth Story

This came in overnight via the FT. China’s economy expanded 8.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, extending a slowdown that began at the start of 2011 and is expected to continue into 2012. That’s a full percentage lower than Q1 2011. So clearly the Chinese economy has slowed in reaction to […]

Germany is already in a recession too

Edward Harrison here. Happy New Year to Naked Capitalism readers. You’ve probably seen this from early in the morning: Germany printed a negative GDP growth number for Q4. Here’s what I said earlier today at Credit Writedowns about this news. As I predicted in a message to Credit Writedowns Pro subscribers on Monday, statistics have […]

Wray: Krugman has shined the headlights on the crucial currency issuer-currency user difference

Edward Harrison here. The post by Randall Wray below is an interesting one because it points out how the world has changed since the end of the gold standard and why the sovereign debt crisis is centered in the euro zone. While I have an Austrian bias overall, for me, MMT is the best way […]

Dog Whistle Economics’ Code Words

Here are a few code words that you will often see in economic writing followed by their true meaning. The code word is a dog whistle. It acts like an emotional marker only for those attuned to the underlying ‘moral’ issues implied by the code. While you may agree with the logical framework behind the […]

IMF and ECB to offer Italy a 600 billion euro bailout (sources)

Cross-posted from Credit Writedowns There is a flurry of activity going on in Euroland this weekend. I have a number of stories up on different proposals in the offing. Clearly, European policy makers have got religion about saving the euro. Expect some kind of announcement soon. According to Austrian daily Der Standard, Italy is to […]

An Italian exit scenario

This post originally appeared on Credit Writedowns Editorial note: this article is neither a policy recommendation or a prediction. Rather, this articles looks to outline one potential outcome of the current policy choices in the European sovereign debt crisis, building upon the discussion from three recent articles “Deflationary crisis responses”, “Predicting the future of policy […]

Marshall Auerback: The more you deflate, the bigger the debt problem gets

Cross-posted from Credit Writedowns Marshall Auerback was on Fox Business last week talking about the European sovereign debt crisis. He said he is very concerned not just about the national solvency problem in the euro zone but also about the debt deflationary policy remedies now being implemented across the whole of the euro zone. He […]

Italian default scenarios

Cross-posted from Credit Writedowns The most important debate of our lifetimes is now ongoing. For many, the answer will be existential. First, the question: Should the ECB “write the check’ for the euro area national governments? In thinking about the answer to this all-important question, I prefer to shift the focus by changing the verb […]

The Italian Job

Cross-posted from Credit Writedowns. Follow me on Twitter at edwardnh for more credit crisis coverage. Disclaimer: This piece on the impact of Italy’s potential insolvency on the sovereign debt crisis is not an advocacy piece. It is supposed to be an actionable prediction of what I see as likely to occur. That said, see link […]

Questioning Italy’s solvency means ECB intervention

Cross-posted from Credit Writedowns. Follow me on Twitter at edwardnh for more credit crisis coverage. Disclaimer: This piece on the impact of Italy’s potential insolvency on the sovereign debt crisis is not an advocacy piece. It is supposed to be an actionable prediction of what I see as likely to occur. Last week we witnessed […]

The eurozone vendor financing scheme

Cross-posted from Credit Writedowns. Follow me on Twitter at edwardnh for more credit crisis coverage. Here’s an interpretation of the euro zone I have been meaning to discuss. I touched on it in the update to my post on how austerity in Europe works. In a fixed exchange rate environment like the euro area, you […]