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The Federal Reserve last week announced its new “Enhanced Prudential Standards and Early Remediation Requirements” for big banks, as required by the Dodd-Frank law. You have to pity the poor Fed because it faces an impossible task. The Fed’s proposal opens with an eloquent ode to the evils of too-big-to-fail and moral hazard. And then […] 

Europe is as full of bad ideas as it is of bad debts. Conventional wisdom says that sovereign defaults mean the end of the euro: If Greece defaults it has to leave the single currency; German taxpayers have to bail out southern governments to save the union. This is nonsense. U.S. states and local governments […] 

This week's IGM Economic Experts Panel poll statement:

A tax on the carbon content of fuels would be a less expensive way to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions than would a collection of policies such as “corporate average fuel economy” requirements for automobiles. 

 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel poll statements:

A) All else equal, making drugs illegal raises street prices for those drugs because suppliers require extra compensation for the risk of incarceration and other punishments.

B) The Netherlands restrictions on “soft drugs” combined with a moderate tax aimed at deterring their consumption would have lower social costs than continuing to prohibit use of those drugs as in the US. (Click here for a summary of the Netherlands restrictions.) 

 

This week’s IGM Economic Experts Panel poll statements:

A) Credible assumptions for inflation, GDP growth and primary budget deficits in Italy imply that either the Debt-to-GDP ratio in Italy would increase sharply if Italian interest rates on 10-year government debt remained at the November 30 level of around 7 percent or Italy would lose access to the bond market.

B) Absent outside help to deal with runs, such as a pledge of fiscal support from Germany or an unlimited commitment by the ECB to buy bonds, there is no spending-and-tax plan Italy can announce that would be credible enough to hold its interest rates low enough to stabilize its Debt-to-GDP ratio. 

 

Freakonomics Blog November 30, 2011 Professors Christian Leuz, Anil Kashyap, and Randall Kroszner participated in a Freakanomics Quorum, in which they offered their thoughts on the following questions: “In light of the recent European debt crisis, what do you think will happen to the euro? In your opinion, what should happen to the euro?” Read […]