Rubrics » Bridging News
Euro-Phobia, Justified or Not?
What comes first to mind when you say “European Union”? From the definition of the economic concept to the perception of a zero-average Gaussian variable system, we could introduce the notion of “Brexit”, a probability given by a system that does not understand its implications. “To be or not to be Brexit”, this is the question that is taking over the commons; but this is not a local phenomenon, for all its specificities, because its implications have their subtle roots hidden in the subconscious of the whole world. It is a bit like the apple that fell from Newton’s hand, and the “law” was his, when humanity had always been anchored to the face of the world. More
Corona-Economy: From Crisis to Rebuilding Trust
The Corona-Economy is already the grand economic challenge of the year 2020, but also of the political establishment. The latest developments are very serious, quite worrying for many sectors, which demand a coordinated response in terms of economic policy. The Coronavirus is the “black swan” that sickened the economy, rapidly and at a nearly global scale, like a tsunami starting from China that is washing away over all continents now. More
The “Avenger” from SpaceX and Tesla
The main purpose of this essay is to highlight the life and the entrepreneurial journey of one the most influential people of the moment and how he permanently changed the world with his abilities and perception of things.Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, one of South Africa’s three capital cities. His father is a wealthy and hard-working South African engineer and his mother is a Canadian former model (the oldest woman to appear in Covergirl campaign) and a nutritionist. In his early life, he grew up with his siblings, his brother Kimbal (currently an environmentalist and venture capitalist) and sister Tosca (now an award-winning producer and director). More
Remarks on the 2020 Romanian GDP Estimate – Reduced for the 3rd Time in the Official Forecast
The GDP 2020 estimate has been reduced for the third time in a row in the so-called Preliminary Autumn Forecast for the budget amendment published by the specialty National Commission. From an economic result of RON 1,141.4 billion according to the estimate issued in February, we went to RON 1,082.1 billion in April’s estimate, to RON 1,058.0 billion in August and now we reached RON 1,050.5 billion. More
Can Trade Wars Be Good for the Economy?
With the world economic community focused on US President Donald Trump’s acrobatics of escalating and deescalating trade battles, the question naturally arises if there’s actually any truth to his two-part statement, or tweet, that “trade wars are good, and easy to win”. Indeed, protectionism is an economic policy older than the science of Economics itself, but according to the classical theory of Smith and Ricardo it is just the oldest folly in the history of Economics. Modern neoclassical Economics incorporates and strongly validates the Smithian and Ricardian condemnation of protectionism, allowing deviations from it only in some exceptional and clearly specified situations. The explanation neoclassical Economics offers for the persistence of protectionism as a policy has changed however, replacing folly with a rational public choice theory of concentrated benefits for the beneficiaries and dispersed costs for those harmed. But is protectionism and its long history really just a folly? More
Japan and the European Union, Pushing Forward Free Trade
After concluding negotiations in December 2017, European and Japanese officials announced the world’s largest free trade agreement (FTA), which would remove almost 99% of the tariffs between the European Union (EU) and Japan. On July 17th, 2018, at the EU-Japan summit in Tokyo, the two parties signed the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), bringing it closer to implementation. The EPA has been praised by the EU trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom as “the biggest trade agreement we have ever negotiated for the European Union”. More
The Reference Social Indicator – Between Necessity and Moral Obligation
The Reference Social Indicator (RSI) comes to our attention after a ten-year period in which its value has not changed. The lack of political stability and, sometimes, the irresponsibility of governing parties creates the risk of deviating the value of RSI, established by political decision, from the economic, social and moral significance with which this indicator is invested.Considering the consequences generated by the possible arbitrary situation in setting the RSI value, it is necessary in the near future to identify a methodological anchor for the dynamic adjustment of the RSI value, avoiding the incidence of the political factor in this matter. It is therefore necessary to identify a relevant macroeconomic indicator for anchoring the Reference Social Indicator (RSI), so that its variation can be done automatically (via the automatic stabilization mechanism) without the conjunctural intervention of the political factor. More
Ruling over Central Banking…doms
The independence of the central banks – mysterious or miraculous entities in the eyes of masses – is practically an inexhaustible topic for scholars-economists and political scientists, as well as for business-persons and policy-makers.Still, the ultimate bill-payer of all institutional settings and governance organizations is the consumer-citizen.For this character this bell (of the debate) tolls. More
BNR’s Inflation Bias
The National Bank of Romania’s (BNR) recent decision to leave its interest rate unchanged, despite inflation surpassing the 4% threshold, has been justified as a prudent decision in the face of international uncertainties with adverse effect on growth and “preemptive” rate cuts in several advance and emergent economies, but it is also a testimony to the Bank’s inflationary bias and even of its shaky real policy independence. More
Taxation of Wage Earnings for Pension Purposes in Romania, since 1950
The income tax has increased about four times in Romania since 1950, according to data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS). The evolution of gross and net earnings shows that we have reached a doubling compared to the period before the political regime change, which occurred in 1989 (see data presented in extenso and centralized by decades in the table below). More
WaitSafe in the Pandemic: How to Fluently Reconcile Social Distancing with Personal Mobility
The easing of the lockdown ignited with the advent of COVID-19 pandemic is still subject to strict conditions, as communities need to accommodate sanitary safety concerns with solutions for the freedom of movement for individuals, as the latter is a crucial feature for the “health” of the socio-economic fabric. More
Romania’s Public Debt Relative to GDP – Implications
The public debt officially measured by the Romanian Ministry of Finance based on the European methodology advanced, in July 2020 alone, almost as much as in the whole second quarter, when Romania was caught in the middle of the pandemic-induced crisis shock and the quarterly GDP decreased by 12.3% compared to the previous quarter. The explanation for the relative increase as a public debt share of GDP (2.1 percentage points in Q2 and 2 pp in just one month, July 2020) is not limited to the increase by about 40% of the additional monthly borrowed amounts (RON 13.5 billion compared to the monthly average of 9.7 billion in full pandemic), but also in the reduction of the reporting base by over RON 20 billion (approx. EUR 4.1 billion) as a result of the methodology used. More
