Political risk has come home, and we must combat it

by | Aug 24, 2016 | Blog

The past decade has upended my profession almost entirely. I work in political risk, and my job is to advise companies how to manage political and economic instability. A coup in Turkey, sanctions against Russia, unrest in Venezuela, debt default in Argentina – such...

The Greek crisis explained, in pictures

by | Jul 7, 2015 | Blog

Between 2007 and 2012 several Eurozone countries — Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain — needed bailouts. In each case, the recipient countries threatened that they would leave the Eurozone if the bailout terms were too harsh. Germany and the other AAA-rated...

The Eurozone’s (and Japan’s) deflation problem

by | Apr 1, 2014 | Blog

I tend to be bullish on Europe – partly as a corrective to the mass of commentators who too early wrote off the crisis in the Eurozone as irresolvable. This optimism has been justified by the recent run-up in European equities, with developed European countries...

The German Constitutional Court leads by example

by | Feb 13, 2014 | Blog

The differences in interpretation of the recent German Constitutional Court ruling on the legality of “bailouts” by the ECB have been extraordinary. In part this is understandable: the court, in effect, ruled that bailouts via OMT are illegal under German law, but...