Ligjërata master 2012-2013 syllabusi 2012-2013
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- Heres the scoop on the fiscal cliff deal
- Dividend tax rates and capital gains rates for top earners will rise to 23.8%
- Key takeaways on the agreement
- I see three distinct possibilities
- How the fiscal cliff deal impacts individual investors
- Sustainable and Responsible Investing Facts Sustainable and Responsible Investing
- The Unstarvable Beast (bisha e uritur)
- Why does slow productivity growth translate into high costs
- The government, of course, is the consummate service-intensive sector
- In the US, for example, the manufacturing sector employs less than 10% of all workers.
- Europe’s Narrative Struggle (Lufta narrative e Europes)
- ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE EUROPEAN AREA ( STRUKTURA EKONOMIK E DHE FINANCIARE E HAPËSIRËS EUROPEIANE)
[Singapore] - It's late Tuesday evening and I'm about to go on air with CNBC Asia in Singapore regarding the impact of the Fiscal Cliff bill which passed minutes ago after Republican leaders decided not to try and tack on amendments nor engage in further bickering. Passed by a 257 to 167 vote, the bill is now headed to the White House and a draft may even be on the President's desk by the time you read this. So I'll have to write quickly. Here's the scoop on the fiscal cliff deal:
Key takeaways on the agreement:
My take on the markets: The fiscal cliff bill passed only a few minutes ago so traders around the world are just beginning to react. However, I've already talked with key contacts in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Frankfurt and London to gauge what we might expect here at home come Wednesday morning. I see three distinct possibilities: First, as I suggested last week, the fiscal cliff deal is likely to prompt a short-term rally because it eliminates short-term worries. The problem is that nobody knows what short term means. Do not forget that the fiscal cliff is only one of three upcoming problems in our ongoing fiscal madness. There's still the debt ceiling, sequestration and the complete lack of a budget to contend with. In other words, it's on to the next crisis now. Second, Asian markets are already enjoying a strong run this morning (your evening) as I write this. European futures are on the move, too. But, professional traders may see right through this and, in fact, begin selling the news leading to a down day when U.S. markets close Wednesday afternoon. The question at hand is whether or not they feel confident enough to remain "risk-on" or pick up their toys and seek safety while selling into strength. Third, we could get a weak opening but then the pros go bargain hunting based on "oversold" conditions and a short "burn." Many traders, in fact, sold heavily into New Year 's Eve and now they've got to unwind those short positions in a hurry if Asia and Europe continue to take things higher between now when I am writing to you and early Wednesday morning when you read this. How the fiscal cliff deal impacts individual investors: For the most part, this will be a non-event. Yes...a non-event, especially if you are following along with a disciplined investment approach like the 50-40-10 Strategy I advocate in our sister publication, the Money Map Report. While there is no question we will face yet more financial hurdles, I don't see any of the changes being larger than the potential gains associated with 3-5-10 year growth targets when it comes to the "glocal" stocks we prefer. So barring a massive sell off that hits our trailing stops, expect dips to remain consistent with the 10% rise I see ahead for the S&P 500 in 2013. Whether or not it finishes at that level remains to be seen but that's a story for another time particularly as we get a clearer look into the Q4 earnings season which kicks off shortly. I envision gold having another solid year along with other commodities as it becomes clear that the market will place a premium on capital preservation as a result of yet more fiscal nonsense - deal or no deal. And finally, I actually see the U.S. Dollar strengthening following this evening's news. It won't be immediate; if anything the dollar will drop a bit on news following the fiscal cliff deal. But down the road a bit things will be different when traders begin to focus on yet another looming downgrade and the comparative safety of the US greenback. It's not that the fiscal cliff bill is anything even remotely resembling financially astute management, but rather that it's "business as usual." And that means the dollar, which is the best-looking horse in the glue factory is alive and, evidently, still kicking. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sustainable and Responsible Investing Facts Sustainable and Responsible Investing (SRI) is a broad-based approach to investing that now encompasses an estimated $3.07 trillion out of $25.2 trillion in the U.S. investment marketplace today. SRI recognizes that corporate responsibility and societal concerns are valid parts of investment decisions. SRI considers both the investor's financial needs and an investment’s impact on society. SRI investors encourage corporations to improve their practices on environmental, social, and governance issues. You may also hear SRI-like approaches to investing referred to as mission investing, responsible investing, double or triple bottom line investing, ethical investing, sustainable investing, or green investing. As a result of its investing strategies, SRI also works to enhance the bottom lines of the companies in question and, in so doing, delivers more long-term wealth to shareholders. In addition, SRI investors seek to build wealth in underserved communities worldwide. With SRI, investors can put their money to work to build a more sustainable world while earning competitive returns both today and over time. Sustainable and responsible investors include individuals and also institutions, such as corporations, universities, hospitals, foundations, insurance companies, public and private pension funds, nonprofit organizations, and religious institutions. Institutional investors represent the largest and fastest growing segment of the SRI world ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Unstarvable Beast (bisha e uritur) 02 January 2013 Kenneth Rogoff Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University and recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003. His most recent book, co-authored with Carmen M. Reinhart, is This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. CAMBRIDGE – As the world watches the United States grapple with its fiscal future, the contours of the battle reflect larger social and philosophical divisions that are likely to play out in various guises around the world in the coming decades. There has been much discussion of how to cut government spending, but too little attention has been devoted to how to make government spending more effective. And yet, without more creative approaches to providing government services, their cost will continue to rise inexorably over time. Any service-intensive industry faces the same challenges. Back in the 1960’s, the economists William Baumol and William Bowen wrote about the “cost disease” that plagues these industries. The example they famously used was that of a Mozart string quartet, which requires the same number of musicians and instruments in modern times as it did in the nineteenth century. Similarly, it takes about the same amount of time for a teacher to grade a paper as it did 100 years ago. Good plumbers cost a small fortune, because here, too, the technology has evolved very slowly. Why does slow productivity growth translate into high costs? The problem is that service industries ultimately have to compete for workers in the same national labor pool as sectors with fast productivity growth, such as finance, manufacturing, and information technology. Even though the pools of workers may be somewhat segmented, there is enough overlap that it forces service-intensive industries to pay higher wages, at least in the long run. The government, of course, is the consummate service-intensive sector. Government employees include teachers, policemen, trash collectors, and military personnel. Modern schools look a lot more like those of 50 years ago than do modern manufacturing plants. And, while military innovation has been spectacular, it is still very labor-intensive. If people want the same level of government services relative to other things that they consume, government spending will take up a larger and larger share of national output over time. Indeed, not only has government spending been rising as a share of income; so, too, has spending across many service sectors. Today, the service sector, including the government, accounts for more than 70% of national income in most advanced economies. Agriculture, which in the 1800’s accounted for more than half of national income, has shrunk to just a few percent. Manufacturing employment, which accounted for perhaps a third of jobs or more before World War II, has shrunk dramatically. In the US, for example, the manufacturing sector employs less than 10% of all workers. So, even as economic conservatives demand spending cuts, there are strong forces pushing in the other direction. Admittedly, the problem is worse in the government sector, where productivity growth is much slower even than in other service industries. Whereas this might reflect the particular mix of services that governments are asked to provide, that can hardly be the whole story. Surely, part of the problem is that governments use employment not just to provide services, but also to make implicit transfers. Moreover, government agencies operate in many areas in which they face little competition – and thus little pressure to innovate. Why not bring greater private-sector involvement, or at least competition, into government? Education, where the power of modern disruptive technologies has barely been felt, would be a good place to start. Sophisticated computer programs are becoming quite good at grading middle-school essays, if not quite up to the standards of top teachers. Infrastructure is another obvious place to expand private-sector involvement. Once upon a time, for example, it was widely believed that drivers on privately operated roads would constantly be waiting to pay tolls. Modern transponders and automatic payment systems, however, have made that a non-issue. But one should not presume that a shift to greater private-sector provision of services is a panacea7. There would still be a need for regulation, especially where monopoly or near-monopoly is involved. And there would still be a need to decide how to balance efficiency and equity in the provision of services. Education is clearly an area in which any country has a strong national interest in providing a level playing field. As US President in the 1980’s, the conservative icon Ronald Reagan described his approach to fiscal policy as “starve the beast8”: cutting taxes will eventually force people to accept less government spending. In many ways, his approach was a great success. But government spending has continued to grow, because voters still want the services that government provides. Today, it is clear that reining in government also means finding ways to shape incentives so that innovation in government keeps pace with innovation in other service sectors. Without more ideas about how to innovate in the provision of government services, battles such as one sees playing out in the US today can only become worse, as voters are increasingly asked to pay more for less. Politicians can and will promise to do a better job, but they cannot succeed unless we identify ways to boost government services’ efficiency and productivity. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Ana Palacio Ana Palacio, a former Spanish foreign minister and former Senior Vice President of the World Bank, is a member of the Spanish Council of State. Europe’s Narrative Struggle (Lufta narrative e Europes) 02 January 2013 MADRID – The start of any year invariably prompts stocktaking, and 2012 certainly offers much to consider: the dramatic events in the Middle East, leadership change in China, and the brinkmanship of America’s budget debate. All were high in importance, if not always in popular interest. That seems especially true of the painful and excruciatingly prolonged – indeed, still ongoing – process of saving the euro. The euro’s survival in 2012 – if only by the skin of its teeth – confounded skeptics who forecast Greece’s exit from the eurozone and the single currency’s collapse by the end of the summer. Indeed, the European Union’s future still seems acutely uncertain, owing mainly to a mismatch between rhetoric and reality. In the realm of reality, the latest of many “grand” summits in Brussels has left a yawning gap between Europe and a fiscal union, as heads of state stripped much of the substance from the blueprint proposed by Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, and developed by the European Commission. Nonetheless, concrete and positive steps toward institutional consolidation – though far from achieving the ambitions of some – have been taken. The creation of the European Stability Mechanism, the European Central Bank's new supervisory role, and the ECB’s purchases of sovereign bonds over the course of the last year have provided much-needed relief to Europe’s beleaguered peripheral economies. Moreover, Europe is one step closer to a full-fledged banking union. The main impediment to further progress is that two competing narratives have emerged to explain Europe’s economic travails and lay out a path forward. One centers on the eurozone's structural flaws and aims at strengthening the institutional framework, whereas the other highlights faulty domestic policies and focuses on austerity. Alarmingly, the resulting political debate has degenerated into a shrill cacophony of moral righteousness, finger-pointing, scapegoating, and stereotyping. In fact, though often portrayed as irreconcilable opposites, the two approaches to resolving the euro’s problems are complementary – indeed, essential – components of any realistic approach to ensuring the eurozone’s future. Likewise, neither narrative alone can provide a vision for the EU; the gap between them can be filled only by trust. Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and even France need to control their deficits and streamline debt. But no degree of austerity on its own will enable Europe’s southern economies to get back on their feet. Consider Greece. Anticipating desertion by Europe and convinced that painful budget cuts and repayment will benefit only its creditors, the country has ring-fenced itself, and has been sapped of all motivation to undertake the reforms dictated by Brussels. Meanwhile, Germans regard economic transfers to the South as a moral-hazard problem that no European political agreement could resolve. Seeing only one side of the equation, public opinion has become polarized between northern and southern Europe, perpetuating a vicious cycle of mistrust. It would be equally wrong to imagine that institutional changes alone will fix Europe’s problems. While an integrated financial framework for Europe is taking shape, daunting decisions regarding the design of a European resolution mechanism need to be worked out. A banking union will undoubtedly entail significant encroachments on sovereignty (for example, decisions to close banks, distribute losses, or cut workforces at the national level), which, unless accompanied by progress toward a political union, will generate a crisis of legitimacy. Thus, addressing Europe’s serious economic issues requires wading into the deep waters of the political imagination. So far, however, policies aimed at shoring up the euro have been narrowly technical, in an effort to isolate Europe’s financial travails from popular discontent over its direction. That debate has been left to fester, serving as a dangerously dysfunctional pressure valve for turbulent and frustrated citizens across Europe. Confronted with the reality of disgruntled electorates, pundits are quick to bemoan the “democratic deficit” of the Union’s institutions. Lately, they have been pleading for the direct election of the European Commission president, the transformation of the Council of Ministers into a form of second legislative chamber, or for the establishment of Europe-wide political parties to contest elections to the European Parliament. None of these initiatives would work, however, owing to a simple, inconvenient truth: to this day, Europeans view each other in “us versus them” terms. Europe’s common institutions – both old and newly created – can survive in the long run only if a common European identity materializes to underpin them. The emergence of such an identity depends on politicians’ ability to communicate to their fellow citizens the Union’s real advantages and the bleak prospects of nation-states that try to go it alone. In a “post-European world,” Europe is globally relevant only when united. The single market is the paramount example at one extreme, with defense – plagued by duplication and lacunae between EU countries – at the other. Although politicians and voters are equally unwilling to admit it, the EU has reached a fork in the road. One route leads to further integration, while the other implies a return to national sovereignty; navigating the former will require great effort, whereas the latter is a relatively straight downward path. Ultimately, the EU’s future – if it has any future at all – depends on constructing a coherent narrative that articulates that choice explicitly. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE EUROPEAN AREA (STRUKTURA EKONOMIKE DHE FINANCIARE E HAPËSIRËS EUROPEIANE) http://www.ecb.int/
Compared with the economies of its individual member countries, the euro area is a large and much more closed economy. In terms of its share of world GDP it is the world’s largest economy after that of the United States. As in other highly developed economies, the service sector has the largest share of total output, followed by the industrial sector, while the share held by agriculture, fishing and forestry is relatively small. In terms of population, the euro area economy is in fact the world’s largest, with more than 300 million people.
The unemployment rate in the euro area reached very high levels in the 1980s and 1990s. Having fallen back during the initial years of EMU, it has risen markedly since the recession began. By December 2009, the unemployment rate was 9.9%, corresponding to about 15.5 million unemployed persons across the euro area. Euro area labour markets are also characterised by a relatively low labour force participation rate in comparison with other countries. In particular, young and older Europeans as well as women participate to a relatively low extent. The euro area's high unemployment rate combined with the low participation rate results in a relatively low employment rate in the euro area. In turn, taken together with the relatively low number of hours worked per employed person this is one of the main reasons why GDP per capita is lower in the euro area than, for instance, in the United States. 
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