Les banques rapportent 700 millions d'euros

Le gain net serait, avec une charge constante d'intérêts, de 6,5 milliards d'euros.

Lisez cet article dans LLB ici.

Bruxelles-Capitale: Cinq impasses, une issue

Comment gouverner au mieux Bruxelles, capitale de la Belgique fédérale, des Communautés
flamande et française de Belgique, mais aussi – et chaque jour davantage - de l’Union
européenne? Comment la gouvernance de Bruxelles peut-elle prendre en compte comme il
convient les intérêts de tous les Bruxellois, qu’ils soient francophones ou néerlandophones,
«nouveaux Belges» ou «Européens», en harmonie avec la Flandre et la Wallonie, les deux
régions voisines avec lesquelles Bruxelles entretient des liens étroits? Avant d’explorer les
scénarios d’avenir, jetons un coup d’oeil sur la physionomie actuelle de la ville et de ses
habitants. Lisez l'article complet de Philippe Van Parys, professeur à l'UCL, la KUL et Harvard, ici.

De grijze hersencelletjes slijpen

Het nieuwe schooljaar staat voor de deur. Onderwijs is zowat de belangrijkste investering die een land zonder noemenswaardige grondstoffen kan doen om zijn welvaartspotentieel op peil te houden. Ons land heeft een goede reputatie en algemeen leeft de overtuiging dat we het erg goed doen op onderwijsvlak. Er zijn echter aandachtspunten om een geleidelijke achteruitgang te vermijden. Lees de volledige column van Geert Noels in Trends hier.

The Varieties of Unemployment

Does it look right now as if the biggest problem facing the economies of Europe and North America is structural unemployment? It does not, says J. Bradford DeLong, a former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Read his complete article on Project Syndicate here.

Formula to Grade Teachers’ Skill Gains in Use, and Critics

The system calculates the value teachers add to their students’ achievement, based on changes in test scores from year to year and how the students perform compared with others in their grade. Read the complete article in the NYTimes here.

Pensioenzorgen

Een nieuwe regering, in welke samenstelling ook, krijgt onvermijdelijk weer het pensioendossier op haar bord. Lees de volledige column van Patrick Martens in Knack hier.

Germany Needs More Foreigners

A new book by Thilo Sarrazin, a board member of Germany's central bank, accusing immigrants of dragging down the country, has unleashed a new immigration debate. Yet neither side is addressing the real issue: Germany's rapidly aging population.

Read this article on the Spiegel online here.

Logement social : les nouvelles ambitions de Bruxelles

Le gouvernement bruxellois compte presque doubler le nombre de logements sociaux en 10 ans et réduire celui des logements inoccupés. La nécessité s'en fait sentir… d'autant que le boom démographique bruxellois se précise.

Lisez l'article dans Trends-tendances ici.

Eén op vier jongeren raakt niet aan werk

De Belgische jongeren onder 25 jaar hebben het almaar moeilijker om aan werk te geraken. De jongerenwerkloosheid stijgt in ons land tot 25,3 procent, een van de hoogste percentages in de EU. Dat meldt statistiekenbureau Eurostat. Meer dan in andere Europese landen hebben jongeren het in ons land moeilijk om binnen te dringen in de arbeidsmarkt, omdat de mensen die al een baan hebben relatief goed beschermd zijn.

Lees het artikel in De Morgen hier.

Les patrons veulent simplifier la structure de Bruxelles

Rudy Thomaes, l’administrateur délégué de la Fédération des entreprises de Belgique plaide pour un grand pacte. La FEB veut fusionner les 19 communes.

Lisez l'article dans Le Soir ici.

When Value Judgments Masquerade as Science

The economist’s concept of efficiency, as I’ve discussed previously, is quite distinct from the meaning associated with it among non-economists.
Most people think of the term in the context of production of goods and services: more efficient means more valuable output is wrung from a given bundle of real resources (which is good) or that fewer real resources are burned up to produce a given output (which is also good).

Read this opinion article from U.E. Reinhardt in The New York Times here.

Des formations pour les travailleurs plutôt que des hausses de salaires

Claude Rolin (CSC) refuse de faire payer la crise aux petits revenus, déjà touchés. Au-delà de l’indexation des salaires, il prévilégie la formation des travailleurs.

Lisez cette interview dans LLB ici.

61 millards non déclarés

La Belgique s'illustre dans l'économie dite souterraine. Les gens essaient de compenser leurs pertes de revenus dues à la crise en se tournant vers l'économie souterraine.

Lisez l'article dans LLB ici.

Top 6 Most Indebted Countries (And Why)

The recent financial crisis and recession have been a worldwide occurrence. The events in the United States since 2008 have garnered most of the headlines because the U. S. has the world's largest economy and national debt, but the reality is that many countries in Europe are in worse financial shape and continue to deteriorate. Read the complete article on Financial Edge here.

Redesigning the contours of the future financial system

This paper explores the responses of the private and public sector to the crisis and some of the probable outcomes. Aside from improved supervision of individual institutions, greater emphasis needs to be put on financial regulations that reflect the systemic nature of financial risks and the role that macroeconomic policies play. Global consistency of regulation and financial sector taxation will be essential to mitigate systemic risks, to avoid unintended distortions, and to help ensure a level playing field.

Read this IMF publication here.

The NIME Outlook for the World Economy

Read this report from the Federal Plan Bureau here.

Affûter les petites cellules grises

La nouvelle année scolaire va débuter sous peu. Quand un pays est dépourvu de matières premières dignes de ce nom, l'enseignement est quasiment l'investissement le plus important qu'il doit réaliser pour conserver son potentiel de prospérité. La Belgique a une bonne réputation et en général, on est convaincu que nous prestons très bien dans le domaine de l'enseignement. Il y a cependant des points auxquels nous devons être attentifs pour éviter une régression progressive.

Lisez cette chronique de Geert Noels dans Trends-tendances ici.

Germany 'Has Done Everything Right' on the Economy

A soaring budget deficit on the one hand, the strongest growth in years on the other: The news on the German economy is both good and bad. On the whole, commentators say, the politicians seem to have got things right. There are still tough times ahead, however. Read the complete article in Der Spiegel here.

Onze leraarslonen in Europese middenmoot

Lees het volledige artikel in De Standaard hier.

La pénurie de généralistes gagne les villes

Les villes et communes en carence de médecins généralistes sont 206 sur 589.

Lisez l'article dans LLB ici.

Un bulletin mitigé

Les parents de l’Ufapec toujours préoccupés par le décret inscription. Ils s’inquiètent des transports scolaires, surtout dans l’enseignement spécial.

Lisez l'article dans LLB ici.

Wages, labor or prices : How do firms react to shocks ?

Survey results in 15 European countries for almost 15,000 firms reveal that Belgian firms react
more than the average European firm to adverse shocks by reducing permanent and temporary
employment. On the basis of a firm-level analysis, this paper confirms that the different reaction
to shocks is significant and investigates what factors explain this difference. Although the
explanatory value of the variables is limited, most of the explanatory power of the model being
associated with the dummy variables coding for firm size, sector and country, the variables
investigated provide valuable information. The importance of wage bargaining above the firm
level, the automatic system of index-linking wages to past inflation, the limited use of flexible pay,
the high share of low-skilled blue-collar workers, the labor intensive production process as well as
the less stringent legislation with respect to the protection against dismissal are at the basis of the
stronger employment reaction of Belgian firms. On the contrary, employment is safeguarded by
the presence of many small firms and a wage cushion. Read the complete Research Paper from the National Bank of Belgium here.

L’Ecole d’Administration publique voit le jour

Lisez cet article sur le site de l'UVCW ici.

Me Medicine

Donna Dickenson develops some of the amazing possibilities of genetic personalized medicine but fears that resoureces will not be invested on the most effective health interventions, but on the most personalized and profitable, which nowadays go hand-in-hand. Read the complete opinion article on Project Syndicate here.

The Great Recession's Labor-Market Lessons

Opinion article by Marc De Vos in yesterday's Wall Street Journal:

The Great Recession is showing some unexpected results on the unemployment front. The irresistible job machine that used to be the U.S. labor market continues to sputter. Job creation remains disappointing. A decidedly un-American unemployment rate of close to 10% leaves almost 15 million Americans unemployed. And that is not counting the millions more who are underemployed, or the numerous jobs that are officially and artificially "saved or created" by stimulus spending.

Across the pond, on a European continent traditionally lambasted for its outdated and stifling labor rigidities, the picture is surprisingly less bleak. For sure, European countries have had their fair share of the employment hemorrhaging and have also seen something of the frosty hiring slump that has been the crisis fallout throughout most of the developed world's labor markets. But in relation to their economic performance, many European countries have registered less unemployment increase than the U.S. The list covers almost the entire Old Europe, including such otherwise notorious labor market underperformers as Italy, France, and Belgium.

It used to be different. For decades, Europeans have been told that they need to become more American if they want more growth and more jobs. That conviction eventually morphed into an official European Union agenda for so-called "flexicurity," seeking to combine flexible labor markets with supportive policies for personal employability. Whatever its merits, flexicurity was always more a hype among policy wonks than a reality on the European work floor. The recent reversal in labor-market fortunes has now brought a number of observers to question the mantra altogether. European politicians did not go on a Keynesian spending spree to save jobs. Instead, they to point their countries' built-in labor protections as the reason for their recent outperformance. Union experts have joined the chorus, labeling flexicurity a fair-weather friend and reclaiming old-fashioned restrictions as the guarantors of stability.

This trans-Atlantic comparison is premature. There is simply no quick labor market fix for an economic recession, whatever your policy persuasion may be. Economic differences go a long way toward explaining today's differences in labor-market outcomes among countries. Some countries have been hit more by the Great Recession than others, some have had a major domestic real-estate crisis to add to the global contraction, and some have been able to take better advantage of the rebounding economy in the developing world. Germany's ability to export to Asia helps its domestic employment. A real-estate crisis weighs heavily on unemployment in Ireland and Spain alike, notwithstanding big differences in their respective labor-market models. Beyond the economy there is demography. Aging and immigration affect different countries differently, with ramifications for their respective labor forces and—consequently—unemployment figures.

None of these factors relate to labor-market policies per se, but all of them heavily impact labor-market outcomes. Moreover, the traditional view of the inflexibility of European labor markets is really outdated. Virtually all of the European countries that have rigid and inflexible labor regulations have also grown a wide penumbra of often extremely flexible atypical work. Companies in Europe thus have layers of flexible temporary workers that can be employed, re-employed, and laid off as a matter of course. Such is the legacy of rigid labor markets whose beneficiaries have never accepted overall modernization: a multi-tier market in which insiders enjoy cushy stability for most of their careers at the expense of incoming outsiders. Predictably, the brunt of any labor-market contraction then falls on the outsiders, who either lose temporary work or enter the labor market with very limited job prospects.

The labor-market lesson of the Great Recession so far lies not in the vagaries of unemployment statistics, but in the worsening of the divide between insiders and outsiders. For the responses of virtually all European governments to the current jobs crisis have primarily been aimed at protecting existing jobs even more. Across the Continent, subsidy mechanisms and regulatory measures have sought to avoid redundancies through working-time reduction, temporary-unemployment systems, cash-for-clunkers programs, and the like. As a result, the chasm between the haves and the have-nots on the labor market has only deepened further.

By entrenching existing employment, European politicians and employers have not demonstrated the uselessness of flexible labor markets in times of crisis. They have instead undermined the potential for a downturn to prompt useful job transitions in a period of profound economic change. Europe's internal-market rules did prevent a repeat of wholesale state support as a crisis policy. But its light-version in the labor market has similar consequences. Time will tell whether Europe is—once again—only slowing inevitable transitions and therefore undermining future growth and productivity to the detriment of all, or whether its job shielding will be a jump board and allow companies to grow anew with lower redundancy and recruitment costs.

Whatever the outcome, the bottom line is a labor-market preference for the incumbent at the expense of newcomer. This goes beyond reduced job opportunities as such. The niceties of increased employment protection and automatic stabilizers translate into deficits that will have to be paid by future workers. The same generational arithmetic obviously holds for deficit spending on expanded unemployment insurance and Keynesian job creation in the U.S. Labor-market realities on both sides of the Atlantic thus share what is becoming an overall tendency of our crisis epoch: our generation's unwillingness or inability to pay for its collective mistakes.

Can the NHS Be Fixed?

"To put it another way, in a free system, the government determines supply, but consumers and doctors want to control their own demand. The right metaphor for Mr. Lansley's reforms, then, is neither deck-chairs nor Trojan horses, but the straitjacket. Trying to fix the NHS without addressing this basic issue is like trying squirm your way out of one. You can wriggle and contort all you want, but you can't escape the central fact that one person writes the checks while another demands the services." Read the complete article in The Wall Street Journal here.

Het gevaar van een te lage rente

"Het paniekgevoel bij Ben Bernanke, baas van het federale hedgefonds van de Amerikaanse staat - vroeger bekend als de centrale bank - neemt toe. Hij vreest een double dip en wil daarom meer onconventionele wapens gebruiken in de strijd tegen deflatie. Daarmee kan hij de financiële crisis verergeren, ook in Europa," schrijft Geert Noels in Trends. Lees het volledige artikel hier.

Will the Next Generation be Better off Than Their Parents’ Generation?

Gary Becker and Richard Posner debate a timeless question: Will the next generation be better off than their parents' generation? Becker's take: "America has always been optimistic about its future. The decline in such optimism during the past couple of decades is understandable, but highly regrettable. The best way to restore this optimism is to promote faster economic growth. That is feasible with the right policies, but will not happen automatically. Even America has no destiny to be optimistic about the future without important redirection of various public priorities."Read the complete post on their blog here.

La "flexsécurité" à la peine

Si les chiffres inquiétants de l'économie américaine ou le redressement rapide de l'économie allemande monopolisent l'attention, l'état des marchés du travail des pays scandinaves de l'Union européenne est également instructif.

Lisez l'article dans Le Monde ici.

Berlin présente son projet de loi pour taxer les banques

Une semaine avant la présentation de son plan de rigueur en conseil des ministres, mercredi 1er septembre, le ministre des finances allemand, Wolfgang Schäuble, présente dès mercredi 25 août un premier projet de loi destiné, lui, à ponctionner les banques.

Lisez l'article dans Le Monde ici.

En Bourse, le vice rapporte autant que la vertu

L'investissement socialement responsable est à la mode et rapporte tout comme son opposé, le vice fund lancé aux Etats-Unis en 2002. Lisez l'article complet sur Slate.fr ici.

Income Inequality and Financial Crises

David A. Moss, an economic and policy historian at the Harvard Business School, has spent years studying income inequality. While he has long believed that the growing disparity between the rich and poor was harmful to the people on the bottom, he says he hadn’t seen the risks to the world of finance, where many of the richest earn their great fortunes.

Read this article in the New York Times here.

Le patrimoine retrouvé grâce à l'épargne

ING Focus se concentre ce mois-ci sur l’évolution du patrimoine financier des ménages belges pendant et après la crise. L’étude montre que s’il est bien avéré que le patrimoine a atteint un nouveau record historique, cela est autant lié à un incroyable effort d’épargne qu’à un retour progressif des actifs à leur valorisation d’avant-crise.

Lisez cette publication d'ING ici.

The Plight of the Roma

The Roma have been persecuted across Europe for centuries. Now they face a form of discrimination unseen in Europe since World War II: group evictions and expulsions from several European democracies of men, women, and children on the grounds that they pose a threat to public order. Read George Soros' article for Project Syndicate here.

The consensus in favour of Swedish thinking

In the early 1990s, it had its own banking and economic crisis. Might what worked for Sweden now also work for others? Read the complete article in the Financial Times here.

Does Driving Cause Obesity?

Read the complete post on the Freakonomics blog here.

Combler le bon trou

Face à plusieurs trous, lequel combler le plus rapidement ? Celui qui constitue le plus grand danger. Une loi particulièrement vérifiée lorsqu’appliquée aux finances publiques. Lisez l'article complet dan La Libre Belgique ici.

Angela Merkel countert protest over taks op energiecentrales

Ondanks het protest van energiebedrijven E.ON en RWE, houdt de Duitse kanselier Angela Merkel vast aan een taks op de exploitatie van Duitse kerncentrales. Lees het volledige artikel in Trends hier.

La «surprise» à 400 millions du Trésor belge

L’Agence de la dette a revu à la baisse ses prévisions de charges d’intérêt pour la dette belge, et ce, grâce à la baisse historique des taux. Elle chiffre le bonus ainsi dégagé entre 350 et 400 millions d’euros. Mais prévient : le déficit budgétaire n’en sera pas moindre pour autant.

Lisez l'article dans Trends tendances ici.

Zone euro : la croissance de l’activité ralentit en août

La croissance de l’activité privée dans la zone euro a ralenti légèrement en août, selon une première estimation de l’indice des directeurs d’achats (PMI) publiée ce lundi par la société Markit.

Lisez l'article dans Le Soir ici.