Contraction de plus de 10% du commerce mondial en 2009, estime Lamy

[ 07/12/09 - 09H53 - actualisé à 09:53:00 ]

(Source : LESECHOS.fr)

Le directeur général de l'OMC a admis que les gouvernements avaient réalisé des progrès pour lutter contre la crise, mais qu'ils "étaient encore trop lents"

Le commerce mondial devrait se contracter cette année de plus de 10% en raison de la crise économique mondiale, un chiffre "sans précédent", a averti à Séoul le directeur général de l'OMC, Pascal Lamy.

Tout en admettant que les gouvernements avaient réalisé des progrès pour lutter contre la crise, le responsable a estimé que beaucoup restait à faire. "En février de cette année, la crise avait atteint son faîte", a déclaré Pascal Lamy, lors d'un forum dans la capitale sud-coréenne. "Moins d'un an plus tard, des progrès ont été accomplis, mais nous ne sommes pas encore tirés d'affaire", a-t-il ajouté, regrettant que "le processus de nettoyage en est à mi-chemin, mais les progrès sont encore trop lents".

Le bouclage des négociations du cycle de Doha est crucial

Dans ce contexte, "les pressions pour l'adoption de mesures protectionnistes... avec leurs gains illusoires pour les économies nationales, ne vont pas disparaître de sitôt", a-t-il poursuivi. Le patron de l'OMC a estimé à ce sujet que boucler les négociations dites du cycle de Doha sur la libéralisation des échanges avant fin 2010 était crucial.

Mais, "cela ne se produira que si chacun est disposé à faire de sérieux efforts", a-t-il prévenu. Les négociations sont en effet au point mort depuis des mois en raison de l'absence notoire d'implication des Américains. Une réunion ministérielle de l'Organisation mondiale du commerce la semaine dernière à Genève n'a pas permis de sortir les négociations de l'impasse.

Pascal Lamy avait reconnu que des "divergences" existaient toujours entre les 153 membres de l'OMC et qu'il était encore trop tôt pour fixer un calendrier à la négociation en 2010. Les ministres se sont engagés à évaluer au printemps prochain les progrès accomplis depuis le début de leurs discussions en 2001.

Les Echos (Source : AFP)

Pay for delay

Economics focus

Nov 5th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Wage subsidies and fatter jobless benefits have softened the impact of the recession but may yet hurt recovery

AMERICA may lead the rich world in periods of prosperity, but Europe has shown a greater talent for dealing with recession. Unemployment in the euro area has risen by 30% from its pre-crisis levels. America’s jobless rate has more than doubled. In Germany, the largest country in the euro zone, output fell far harder than America’s during the worst months of the crisis but Germany’s unemployment rate barely rose. Consumer spending has held up surprisingly well in a country where high saving is the norm even in good times. “Germany is calm,” says one official with satisfaction. By comparison, America is deeply troubled.

What explains the resilience of continental Europe? Some of it was already built-in. Job-protection laws make it costly for firms to lay off workers, and where posts are sacrificed, the newly unemployed are preserved from penury. They receive benefits worth around two-thirds of their lost salaries in most countries. Only in Italy are benefits anywhere near as skimpy as in America and Britain, where new claimants receive just 28% of their previous earnings. European governments also have fewer qualms about intervention. A new report from the OECD identifies 14 kinds of job-market initiatives put in place since recession struck. France ticks 12 of those boxes, more than any other country.

One policy in particular has helped keep a lid on unemployment. Schemes that subsidise the wages of employees working fewer hours than normal were introduced or expanded in 22 of the 29 countries surveyed by the OECD. Germany had around 1.4m workers on its short-time working scheme by the summer, equivalent to a cull of 400,000-500,000 full-time workers. That would add one percentage point to the jobless rate. Countries without these arrangements, such as America, Britain and Spain, have tended to suffer bigger rises in unemployment (see chart).

In normal times, wage subsidies would be frowned upon. But in a credit crunch they can be a smart use of fiscal resources. Firms worried about future sales, low on cash and deprived of credit, may too readily fire workers without a subsidy. That would only add to a downward spiral of confidence and spending. In Europe, the state funds generous jobless benefits in any case. Why not instead make it easier for firms to hoard workers and keep a skilled workforce intact for when the economy turns?

All policies have drawbacks, and those that help economies to absorb a shock will also tend to make the damaging effects linger. Subsidising jobs that are no longer viable will hold back recovery. The flow of workers from dying industries to new ones may be blocked. If sustained for too long, short-time working schemes can become artificial props for industries that need to shrink. A scheme in Spain, say, to pay construction firms to hoard workers would be madness when there is a glut of empty homes.

Firms may also be tempted to use wage subsidies as a cheap way of keeping their options open at the government’s expense. A well-designed scheme can curb this. In the Netherlands, businesses that lay off workers within three months of the scheme’s end have to pay back half the subsidy. The more workers that firms register for support, the sooner the subsidy runs out. A Swedish policy to prevent lay-offs due to weak cashflow looks even smarter. Instead of wage support, Sweden gives its firms the option to delay their social-security contributions. A punitive interest charge for firms receiving such help would root out all but the truly distressed. Other countries have trimmed their taxes on jobs in addition to (or instead of) wage subsidies.

Working hypothesis

Another way of softening recession is to expand the welfare system. Around half of the rich countries in the OECD survey have done so since the crisis began—by raising benefits, making it easier to claim them or providing for longer. Extra money for the jobless is an effective stimulus measure since cash-starved households are likely to spend it. But if benefits are kept high for too long they will make the jobless less keen to search for work. One way of striking a balance between short-term stimulus and long-term incentives is to increase the value of benefits but withdraw them sooner. That is what Poland and the Czech Republic have done. The recession’s length has forced America’s government to do the opposite. It used to offer just six months of jobless benefits, but has extended its support to stop people falling into poverty.

It may seem heartless to counsel against too much support for the unemployed but incentives matter even when unemployment is high. Firms in rich countries make hires equivalent to some 14-15% of all employment in deep recessions, according to the OECD. (Net job creation falls because there are more lay-offs.) More generous benefits will mean vacancies are filled less quickly, pushing up unemployment. Active help for those on benefits—training, counselling and so on—can also be neglected in recession. Switzerland and Denmark link spending on such policies to their jobless rates to ensure that a fixed amount of spending is not shared between a larger pool of unemployed.

Evidence from past deep recessions suggests that unemployment is unlikely to fall as quickly as it has risen. Indeed further increases seem likely in Europe, because jobs have not adjusted much to a lower level of GDP. In those circumstances, the temptation to prolong wage subsidies and buttress benefits will be great. It should be resisted. The unemployment rate in the euro area has risen far less than America, but both are now close to 10%. Pre-crisis rates in Europe were higher precisely because of its rigid jobs markets. It would be a shame if measures that have helped mitigate crisis were left to spoil prospects for recovery.

Two Americans Share Nobel in Economics

October 13, 2009

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science was awarded on Monday to two Americans for their work in economic governance.

The prize committee cited Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons” and Oliver E. Williamson of the University of California, Berkeley “for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm.”

Ms. Ostrom becomes the first woman to win the prize for economics.

Her work demonstrated “how common property can be successfully managed by user associations,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said at a news conference on Monday in Stockholm. And Mr. Williamson has “developed a theory where business firms serve as structures for conflict resolution.”

Ms. Ostrom, who was born in 1933 in Los Angeles, is Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science and Professor at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, Bloomington. She received her Ph.D. in political science in 1965 from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Mr. Williamson, who was born in 1932 in Superior, Wis., received his Ph.D. in economics in 1963 from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. He is the Edgar F. Kaiser Professor Emeritus of Business, Economics and Law and professor of the graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley.

The economics prize was established in 1969 by the Swedish central bank in honor of Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite, and established the awards for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature in his will in 1896.

The winners will share 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.4 million), and each receive a gold medal and diploma from the Swedish king on Dec. 10, which is the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.

Last year’s winner was Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton and an Op-Ed page columnist for The New York Times. Mr. Krugman won the prize for his research, beginning in 1979, that explained patterns of trade among countries, as well as what goods are produced where and why.

PREDICTIONS: NOBEL PRIZE FOR ECONOMICS 2009

by Antonio Cappiello

on 12 October the Nobel Prize for Economic Science 2009 will be awarded.

Possible winners:

ERNST FEHR
Professor and Director of the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

JORDI GALI
Professor, Department of Economics, and Director of the Center for Research in International Economics, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain

EUGENE FAMA
Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, USA

JEAN TIROLE
director of the Foundation Jean-Jacques Laffont - Toulouse School of Economics, and scientific director of the Industrial Economics Institute (IDEI) in Toulouse

OLIVER HART
Andrew E. Furer Professor of Economics at Harvard University, USA

WILLIAM D. NORDHAUS
Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

MATTHEW J. RABIN
Edward G. and Nancy S. Jordan Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

JOHN B. TAYLOR
Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, and Bowen H. and Mary Arthur McCoy Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA, USA

MARK L. GERTLER
Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Economics, New York University, New York, NY, USA

MARTIN L. WEITZMAN
Professor of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

other possible winners: Paul Romer, Robert Shiller, Robert Barro, Richard Thaler, Oliver Williamson, Graciela Chichilinsky, Nicholas Stern, Hirofuni Uzawa. Jerry Hausman, Halbert White, Dale Jorgenson, Stephen Ross, Paul David, Joel Mokyr, Alan Krueger, Peter Diamond.

[see articles (in Italian) on nobel price 2006 2007 2008]

FRANCE: Forte hausse des défaillances d'entreprises en 2009

Forte hausse des défaillances d'entreprises en 2009

LEMONDE.FR avec Reuters | 07.09.09 | 20h08 • Mis à jour le 07.09.09 | 20h39

a reprise économique a beau pointer le bout de son nez à la rentrée, il n'en reste pas moins que la situation des entreprises françaises reste préoccupante. Selon une étude de l'assureur-crédit Euler Hermes SFAC, il y aura 70 000 défaillances d'entreprises en 2009, un chiffre en augmentation de 20 % par rapport à l'année dernière. "Il faut s'attendre dès la rentrée à une détérioration de la situation financière de nombreuses entreprises", ajoute Karine Berger, directrice des études chez l'assureur.

Selon le document, l'augmentation des défaillances est observée dans l'ensemble du pays, mais avec "des progressions supérieures à 20 % dans onze régions, la région Rhône-Alpes étant tout particulièrement touchée [+ 35 %]". Cette tendance se retrouve également dans l'ensemble des secteurs économiques, mais avec "une accélération significative dans l'industrie, frappée par la chute de l'activité, qui dépasse désormais celle de la construction", note l'étude.

La production industrielle française, qui a enregistré en juin un deuxième mois de hausse après huit mois d'affilée de recul, s'inscrivait encore en recul de 12,8 % sur un an. Dans le secteur de la construction, les permis de construire pour les logements neufs affichaient un recul de près de 25 % sur les trois mois à la fin juillet et d'environ 19 % sur un an.

En ce qui concerne les perspectives économiques pour le reste de l'année qui vient, l'assureur est pessimiste, estimant que, malgré un rebond de la croissance lors du dernier trimestre, la France connaîtra sa pire récession depuis 1945, avec une chute de 2 % du PIB. "Le rebond n'est pas la reprise, car la croissance de la demande n'est pas de retour", conclut le document.

For Today’s Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics

From the New York Times - August 6, 2009

By STEVE LOHR

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — At Harvard, Carrie Grimes majored in anthropology and archaeology and ventured to places like Honduras, where she studied Mayan settlement patterns by mapping where artifacts were found. But she was drawn to what she calls “all the computer and math stuff” that was part of the job.

“People think of field archaeology as Indiana Jones, but much of what you really do is data analysis,” she said.

Now Ms. Grimes does a different kind of digging. She works at Google, where she uses statistical analysis of mounds of data to come up with ways to improve its search engine.

Ms. Grimes is an Internet-age statistician, one of many who are changing the image of the profession as a place for dronish number nerds. They are finding themselves increasingly in demand — and even cool.

“I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians,” said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. “And I’m not kidding.”

The rising stature of statisticians, who can earn $125,000 at top companies in their first year after getting a doctorate, is a byproduct of the recent explosion of digital data. In field after field, computing and the Web are creating new realms of data to explore — sensor signals, surveillance tapes, social network chatter, public records and more. And the digital data surge only promises to accelerate, rising fivefold by 2012, according to a projection by IDC, a research firm.

Yet data is merely the raw material of knowledge. “We’re rapidly entering a world where everything can be monitored and measured,” said Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Digital Business. “But the big problem is going to be the ability of humans to use, analyze and make sense of the data.”

The new breed of statisticians tackle that problem. They use powerful computers and sophisticated mathematical models to hunt for meaningful patterns and insights in vast troves of data. The applications are as diverse as improving Internet search and online advertising, culling gene sequencing information for cancer research and analyzing sensor and location data to optimize the handling of food shipments.

Even the recently ended Netflix contest, which offered $1 million to anyone who could significantly improve the company’s movie recommendation system, was a battle waged with the weapons of modern statistics.

Though at the fore, statisticians are only a small part of an army of experts using modern statistical techniques for data analysis. Computing and numerical skills, experts say, matter far more than degrees. So the new data sleuths come from backgrounds like economics, computer science and mathematics.

They are certainly welcomed in the White House these days. “Robust, unbiased data are the first step toward addressing our long-term economic needs and key policy priorities,” Peter R. Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, declared in a speech in May. Later that day, Mr. Orszag confessed in a blog entry that his talk on the importance of statistics was a subject “near to my (admittedly wonkish) heart.”

I.B.M., seeing an opportunity in data-hunting services, created a Business Analytics and Optimization Services group in April. The unit will tap the expertise of the more than 200 mathematicians, statisticians and other data analysts in its research labs — but that number is not enough. I.B.M. plans to retrain or hire 4,000 more analysts across the company.

In another sign of the growing interest in the field, an estimated 6,400 people are attending the statistics profession’s annual conference in Washington this week, up from around 5,400 in recent years, according to the American Statistical Association. The attendees, men and women, young and graying, looked much like any other crowd of tourists in the nation’s capital. But their rapt exchanges were filled with talk of randomization, parameters, regressions and data clusters. The data surge is elevating a profession that traditionally tackled less visible and less lucrative work, like figuring out life expectancy rates for insurance companies.

Ms. Grimes, 32, got her doctorate in statistics from Stanford in 2003 and joined Google later that year. She is now one of many statisticians in a group of 250 data analysts. She uses statistical modeling to help improve the company’s search technology.

For example, Ms. Grimes worked on an algorithm to fine-tune Google’s crawler software, which roams the Web to constantly update its search index. The model increased the chances that the crawler would scan frequently updated Web pages and make fewer trips to more static ones.

The goal, Ms. Grimes explained, is to make tiny gains in the efficiency of computer and network use. “Even an improvement of a percent or two can be huge, when you do things over the millions and billions of times we do things at Google,” she said.

It is the size of the data sets on the Web that opens new worlds of discovery. Traditionally, social sciences tracked people’s behavior by interviewing or surveying them. “But the Web provides this amazing resource for observing how millions of people interact,” said Jon Kleinberg, a computer scientist and social networking researcher at Cornell.

For example, in research just published, Mr. Kleinberg and two colleagues followed the flow of ideas across cyberspace. They tracked 1.6 million news sites and blogs during the 2008 presidential campaign, using algorithms that scanned for phrases associated with news topics like “lipstick on a pig.”

The Cornell researchers found that, generally, the traditional media leads and the blogs follow, typically by 2.5 hours. But a handful of blogs were quickest to quotes that later gained wide attention.

The rich lode of Web data, experts warn, has its perils. Its sheer volume can easily overwhelm statistical models. Statisticians also caution that strong correlations of data do not necessarily prove a cause-and-effect link.

For example, in the late 1940s, before there was a polio vaccine, public health experts in America noted that polio cases increased in step with the consumption of ice cream and soft drinks, according to David Alan Grier, a historian and statistician at George Washington University. Eliminating such treats was even recommended as part of an anti-polio diet. It turned out that polio outbreaks were most common in the hot months of summer, when people naturally ate more ice cream, showing only an association, Mr. Grier said.

If the data explosion magnifies longstanding issues in statistics, it also opens up new frontiers.

“The key is to let computers do what they are good at, which is trawling these massive data sets for something that is mathematically odd,” said Daniel Gruhl, an I.B.M. researcher whose recent work includes mining medical data to improve treatment. “And that makes it easier for humans to do what they are good at — explain those anomalies.”

Andrea Fuller contributed reporting.

How the euro crept into Britain

By Marie Jackson
BBC News

For anyone wondering what to do with a couple of 20 euro notes stuffed in their sock drawer and no holiday in sight on the Continent, there may be a simple answer - spend them in the UK.

From the south coast of England to a Birmingham nightclub and a major high street retailer to Edinburgh's Royal Mile, substantial numbers are saying yes to the euro.

Quite where this trend began is in dispute.

Dunster, a medieval village in Exmoor, lays claim to being the first place in Britain to accept euros on a par with the pound - not a bad deal with the exchange rate hovering around 85p to a euro.

"There are no banks in the village, no bureau de change - I think we're giving them a service," says Antony Brunt, Dunster hotel owner and chairman of Exmoor Tourism Association.

Some economists may call Dunster's retailers foolish but what villagers have done is regarded by others as savvy marketing.
----------------------------------------
WHERE TO SPLASH YOUR EUROS
Dunster, Somerset: Made a name for itself with a 1 Euro=£1 rate
Bournemouth and Poole: 50 outlets signed up including taxi drivers, ice cream vendors and restaurateurs to accept notes only
Swanage: Accepts any strong currency, including euros
Rye: Starred on French TV, looking to improve local euro banking system
All Marks and Spencer stores: Change given in sterling, conversion rate set weekly
Gatecrasher nightclub, Birmingham: Euros accepted on the door and at the bar
------------------------------------------

The move has not gone unnoticed internationally, with Dunster (population: 860) featuring on French TV, in a leading German magazine and being visited by a Japanese news agency.

Mr Brunt thinks this interest has been piqued by people wanting to see evidence of Britain looking to the future.

"There's got to come a time when Britain adopts the euro, whether in five or 50 years' time," he suggests.

Could the seeds have been sown for a much wider unofficial movement?

Professor Iain Begg of the European Institute at the London School of Economics is doubtful.

"These are local gimmicks," he says. "If you are the tourist officer for Bournemouth and you can say 'you can pay in euros', it gives you a bit of an edge.

"But you are talking about an aggregate population of 250,000, which is less than half a percentage of Britain's population.

"It is designed to cater to tourists - it won't engage with the rest of the population," he added.

Only if the euro was adopted outside the tourism trade or by an entire city could momentum gather, he said, but that would be a "logistical nightmare".

Every cash till would need reprogramming and cash handling charges would double, he added.

The drawbacks, however, have not put off the town of Rye.

'Bank deals'

Euro notes have been appearing in cash tills in the East Sussex tourist spot since they first came into circulation in 2002, and now nearly half of all local outlets accept them.

Traders there believe it has been a boost to the economy, so much so that they are looking to develop a banking system of their own.
--------------------
“ We're hoping it will drag a lot more French across the channel - it's cheap shopping for them ”
Derick Holman, Rye businessman
-----------------------

Rye shops currently rely on staff to top up euro coin reserves on their trips across the English Channel and are avoiding commission charges by buying the currency back from the business for personal use rather than converting it into pounds.

To counter this, the local chamber of commerce is trying to strike deals with a major bank and a ferry company that would enable them to accept coins more easily and change euros for a lower commission rate.

Rye businessman Derick Holman trades in euros, working to a daily exchange rate in his gift and reproduction antiques shop.

"We're hoping it will drag a lot more French across the Channel. It's cheap shopping for them," he said.

The so-called euro tourist is no new concept. Northern Ireland's border towns have seen increasing numbers of customers from the Irish Republic crossing over to do their shopping.

Some shops have been offering a straight euro-for-pound exchange rate in towns like Newry and Enniskillen.

Money-spinner

Such demand is what is exciting the new "euro-towns".

The seaside town of Bournemouth is hoping this summer will see the use of the euro take off and become a real money-spinner.

Tourism bosses there have calculated that if half a million tourists each spend 20 euros as a part of their holiday budget, the region could be looking at making close to £10m.

Others are less optimistic.

Julian Maughan, who runs the Castleton Hotel in Swanage, says despite having guests from across the eurozone, not one has used his euro-paying service yet.

Back in Rye, Mr Holman has such confidence in the euro that he is looking to a day when it will have the same relevance as the pound.

But this is no great Europhile talking, simply someone who can see the advantages of dealing in other currencies.

"I think a lot of people who are enthusiastic about it are relatively lukewarm about Europe. I was very pro-Europe. These days, I'm quite happy being Britain and leaving Europeans to get on with it," he said.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/8060020.stm

Published: 2009/08/05 06:01:55 GMT

© BBC MMIX

FINLAND: Helsinki population growth based on immigrants moving from abroad

Johannes Klein in HELSINGIN SANOMAT INTERNATIONAL EDITION - METRO

In recent years, the population growth in Helsinki has clearly been based on migrants from abroad.
Last year alone, nearly 6,500 people moved into the Finnish capital from foreign countries, with around half of the immigrants coming from other EU countries, including Germany, Spain, Italy, and France.

”The relative share of migrants from Western Europe has increased rapidly”, notes senior statistician Pekka Vuori from the City of Helsinki's Urban Facts unit.
No research findings exist relating to the reasons for the population growth, but one of the factors contributing to the population gain could be the fact that the demand for workforce at Finland-based foreign companies continues to grow, reports Vuori.

According to advance information, the population of the capital rose by 1,031 individuals or by 0.2 per cent over the period from January through March. The majority of the growth, namely 773 individuals, came in the form of net migration gain from abroad.
The number of people moving to Helsinki from abroad has been rising year by year. In 2004, the number of immigrants moving to the capital was 4,200, whereas in 2006 it was 5,400, and last year already nearly 6,500 persons.
A large number of immigrants are still moving to Finland from Estonia and Russia, while the latest enlargement of the European Union does not reflect on the statistics as yet, as no major wave of migrants to Finland from Romania or Bulgaria has taken place.
Since 2005, the net migration gain from abroad has outnumbered both the country’s internal migration and increased birth rate.
The birth rate increased the Helsinki population only to a small degree over the first quarter of the current year, as the net increase from births over deaths was only 287 people.

Compared with the situation in other large cities, including Helsinki, Espoo, Turku, Tampere, and Oulu, Vantaa has benefited most from internal migration.
”The migration gain is based on the large number of people moving into Vantaa mainly from Helsinki and Espoo”, reports Manager Hannu Kyttälä from the City of Vantaa Statistics and Research.
For example in 2006, a total of 6,500 persons moved from Helsinki into Vantaa, while just 4,800 individuals moved to the capital from the neighbouring city.
In addition to somewhat cheaper homes and good transport connections, the attractions offered by Vantaa include the two new residential areas of Kartanonkoski and Pakkala in the immediate vicinity of the border between Helsinki and Vantaa.
Towards the end of the year, the population growth of Vantaa is likely to slow down, as the number of new residences going up is not sufficient to meet demand.

The estimated annual population growth in Espoo is some 3,500 inhabitants, but in 2007, the city’s population increased by just 3,000 individuals. Moreover, the number of new residences in Espoo was under 1,700, which is considerably fewer than previously.
”The price level in Espoo is approaching that in Helsinki”, says Research Manager Teuvo Savikko from the Espoo City Research and Development unit.
Savikko notes further that the city intends to look into the reasons why people are moving away from Espoo.
At the same time, Vantaa’s Kyttälä is contemplating the fact that many Helsinki residents moving towards the west reject Espoo and choose Kirkkonummi, some 30 kilometres west from the capital.

In Espoo, the majority of population growth is a result of the net birth rate. In 2007, the number of newborn babies was the major explanation for the population gain in the city.

Who are Roma and travelers? How many are there in Europe?

Antonio Cappiello

this post originally appeared (in Italian) on Neodemos.it and on demography.matters.blog (in English)

The knowledge of ROMA and travelers' culture and the quantification and localization of their presence it is of fundamental importance for planning social policies for the protection of minorities, for overcoming the intolerance and for preventing social exclusion.

Who are Roma and Travelers?
During the history, the only written sources on Roma came from no-Roma populations.The collective memory of Roma population should be found in their folklore, their songs and poems and has its roots in the various historical experiences, in their travel itineraries and in their particular language. Nowadays ROMA population is a mosaic composed by various socio cultural groups, coming to Europe from India at the end of the XII century. Roma's language (Romani) becomes to the Indo European group and it originates from some popular idioms close to Sanskrit, and was greatly influenced by the languages spoken by the populations that were in contact with ROMA: Persian, Kurdish, Greek, Serbian, Turkish etc. According to the estimation of the Council of Europe (2007), Roma and Travelers in Europe are about 10 millions distributed in about 40 countries.

click here to enlarge this graph














Intolerance and discrimination
Roma have always been victims of intolerance, prejudice and discrimination, their presence in Europe is characterised by centuries of persecution,extermination and discriminatory policies. Nowadays, the majority of modern societies continue to show anti-gypsy feelings and to perceive, disseminate or tolerate negative images linked to ROMA who are still considered “different” and not "fully citizen" of their respective countries. As reaction, Roma have developed, as self defense, isolation and diffidence against society and institutions. Generally, travelers include, besides Roma and Sinti, other population group with non Roma origins but with a traveler life style (Irish Travelers, Swiss Yenish, Camminanti Siciliani, etc.), and they have to face the same difficulties of Roma as concerns the fundamental human rights and are constantly in need of fighting against discrimination. Since 1990 the Council of Europe has undertaken various initiatives related to Roma issues. Among them European Roma and Travelers Forum (ERFT) aiming at promoting the participation of Roma representative in decision making process. FORUM activities are in cooperation with other activities of important international organizations , namely: European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), International Roma Women’s Network (IRWN); refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); anti-trafficking actions with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE); data collection, with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP); Forum of European Roma Young People (FERYP).

References and further readings

Council of Europe, Roma and travelers (http://www.coe.int/t/dg3/romatravellers/Default_en.asp)

UNDP BRC, The Roma in central and Eastern Europe: Avoiding the Dependency Trap. A regional human development report, 2002 (http://roma.undp.sk/)

Russia's ailing economy

Red square blues
Jun 4th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Russia’s failure to diversify away from oil should worry the Kremlin

NOT long ago, Russia proudly counted itself as one of the BRICs—with Brazil, India and China, the four emerging-market giants that were outgrowing the rich world. Yet it now makes more sense to talk of the BICs. With GDP shrinking by almost 10% in the year to the first quarter, Russia is in deep recession.
This is upsetting and worrying for the country’s political masters in the Kremlin. Upsetting because, as late as last autumn, they dismissed the economic crisis as a Western problem that would leave Russia unscathed. But the collapse in the oil markets has shown just how much Russia still depends on getting a good price for its natural resources. Neither President Vladimir Putin in 2000-08 nor (since last May) President Dmitry Medvedev has done anything like enough to diversify the economy—indeed, it depends more on oil and gas now than it did. The government has utterly failed to create a legal and political infrastructure to support business and enterprise.

The Kremlin may not care much about either of these shortcomings, especially now that oil once again costs $70 a barrel. Yet even at this price it must worry, for it can no longer honour its side of Mr Putin’s original bargain: that, in return for a guaranteed rise in living standards, ordinary Russians would accept curbs on the media, rigged elections and a slide into autocracy. The Russians are now lumbered with the second part of this deal without gaining the benefits of the first. Not since Mr Putin came to power have high inflation and shrinking GDP caused such a fall in real incomes.

Why has this not led to more protests? Partly because the Kremlin is firmly in charge and partly because many Russians built up savings in the boom years and have yet to feel the full impact of recession. Besides, faith in the “good tsar” and low expectations of government mean that few blame Mr Putin, now Mr Medvedev’s prime minister.

In the past few months the Kremlin has also tried to show a friendlier face. Mr Medvedev gave his first full Russian interview to Novaya Gazeta, an opposition newspaper, on the grounds that its journalists “did not suck up to anyone”. He has acknowledged critics among non-governmental organisations. He hailed Barack Obama in their first meeting in London in April, inviting the American president to Moscow in July.

The trouble is that this has yet to produce any change. The second sham trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former boss of the Yukos oil company, makes a mockery of judicial independence. Better relations with America are portrayed in Russia as a belated American recognition of past errors and a vindication of the Kremlin’s assertiveness, notably over Georgia.

Nor is there any sign of the promised falling-out between a hardline Mr Putin and a liberal Mr Medvedev. In fact, the differences between the two men are largely of style. After a year of Mr Medvedev’s presidency, only 12% of Russians feel that he is in charge, whereas over 30% believe that power remains with Mr Putin. And Mr Putin has hinted once again that he may resume the presidency for two more six-year terms in 2012.

Bear markets

The risk for the Kremlin is not that it will lose control or collapse into internecine fighting—Mr Putin’s grip is too firm. Nor is it that Russia will go bust, as the Soviet Union almost did in the late 1980s and Boris Yeltsin’s Russia did in 1998. Foreign reserves of $380 billion mean there is enough money to pull through. But without legal, political and economic reform, Russia could well lapse into stagnation. It has squandered one oil-price boom. The price of doing nothing again would be to condemn Russia to the vagaries of the oil market. Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev must not make the same mistake twice

Germany’s cash-for-clunkers scheme shows some readiness to spend

The German economy
Clunk-clicked

Apr 16th 2009 | BERLIN
From The Economist print edition
Germany’s cash-for-clunkers scheme shows some readiness to spend


ARE Germany’s leaders stubborn penny-pinchers, oblivious to the financial crisis and the urgent need for more fiscal stimulus? This was the charge when Chancellor Angela Merkel teamed up with France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to resist pressure to do more at the G20 summit in London. Or are they reckless spendthrifts, wasting billions on schemes that boost their popularity but do little for the economy? Such was the complaint on April 8th, when the grand coalition between Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) more than tripled the amount available for its cash-for-clunkers scheme, which gives Germans a €2,500 ($3,330) handout to scrap their old cars and buy new ones.


The government had set aside €1.5 billion for this, as part of a stimulus package worth €50 billion in February. But the offer “zeroed in on the German soul”, as one newspaper put it. By early April, 1.2m had applied to take it up, twice as many as expected. Ms Merkel, facing an election in September, is in no mood to disappoint them. Nor is her SPD challenger, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister. So they threw an extra €3.5 billion into the pot, which now has enough in it to please 2m car-buyers.

This has lit the economic gloom with a rare flash of euphoria. In March car sales had jumped by 40% from March 2008, to the highest level since the boom after unification, putting Germany far ahead of other countries (see chart). The frenzy is mainly for small cars, the sort that drivers of decade-old clunkers most like to buy.


But fretting about debt and inflation is equally characteristic of the German soul. Many commentators have criticised the scrapping bonus. Singling out one industry for subsidy, even if it accounts for 20% of industrial production, is economically dubious. The bonus may rob sales from other deserving industries, from white goods to beer—as well as from future car sales. In France, which offered a scrapping bonus in the mid-1990s, sales slumped by 20% in the year after its expiration.

The small-car bias means foreign carmakers benefit more than German ones. In March domestic producers captured just 36% of the bonus bounty, even though their normal market share is over 60%. Germany wins brownie points for upholding Europe’s single market. But the scheme will do little for the likes of Daimler, which is contemplating layoffs, or Karmann, a supplier that has just filed for bankruptcy. Car production, which depends heavily on exports, has dropped to its lowest in 15 years. Writing in Handelsblatt newspaper, Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, an industry analyst, calls the cash-for-clunkers results “anything but exhilarating”.

But ex-clunker drivers’ elation is boosting the business climate overall, argues Ulrich Kater, an economist at DekaBank in Frankfurt. Production should pick up once carmakers clear their stocks of unsold cars. In Berlin sales of French-built Peugeots have tripled. Yet Christian Spreigl, head of local distribution, is not worried about a post-bonus slump. He says 85% of recipients are buying a new car for the first time, trading in one bought second-hand.

That is stimulus enough for now, says the government. The tax cuts and extra spending in its two stimulus packages add up to 1.4% of GDP this year, reckons Bruegel, a think-tank in Brussels, well above the total European average of 0.9%. America’s stimulus is worth 2% of GDP, but that does not account for “automatic stabilisers” like unemployment insurance, which are more generous in Germany.

Nonetheless, the buzz over a further stimulus will not go away. A subsidy for workers who have had their hours reduced could be extended from 18 to 24 months. There is talk of state-supported “transfer companies” where employers could temporarily park unneeded workers. Corporate tax might be cut. Plenty of politicians in Berlin insist there will be no new stimulus. But by doling out more cash for clunkers the government seems more afraid of voters than of debt.

Italy: wine sector weathering crisis

Interest high in Vinitaly despite credit crunch
(ANSA) - Verona, April 2 - Italy's wine sector has not been immune to the global economic downturn but it has been able to the weather financial storm, Italian Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia said on Thursday. Speaking at the opening of Vinitaly, Italy's most important wine trade fair, Zaia said ''it is a very difficult moment but this sector has very deep roots, even abroad. Last year we were the world's leading wine producer, the world's leading exporter in terms of volume and second only to France in terms of value''. Wine is a key player in Italian trade with exports last year valued at 3.6 billion euros, compared to imports of 326 million euros. Quality wines account for 34% of exports, table wines for 45% and sparkling wines for 11%. A sector report presented at the fair showed that the economic downturn was responsible for a 5.1% decline in Italian wine exports in 2008 over the previous year. The 43rd edition of Vinitaly has drawn 4,250 exhibitors from 29 countries, two more than last year and a sharp increase in the number of buyers. Over the years the trade fair has expanded to include not just wines and spirits but also olive oil, in the limelight at the SOL exhibition, and wine industry technology, on display at Enolitech. Food has played a major role, with a host of pavilions offering a variety of regional delights under the banner of the Agrifood Club, while a number of top restaurants also have concession areas. This fashion will be in the spotlight with the Coldiretti farmers' union sponsoring a fashion show that will display designer footwear created using corks and other recycled materials. The show is entitled 'Dal Tappo al Tacco', which roughly translates 'from the cork to the heel'. Vinitaly is produced by the Verona trade fair agency Veronafiere which for the past several years has taken the Vinitaly concept on the road for a world tour. The travelling trade fair has made regular stops in Russia, China, Japan, India and the United States and this year will add South Korea to its itinerary. Aside from wine, the Vinitaly road show also promotes quality Italian foods and food products. Vinitaly closes its gates on Monday, April 6.

Lombardy ready for 'bank for poor'

Region wants to host offshoot of Yunus' Grameen bank
(ANSA) - Milan, March 3 - Lombardy would be happy to host a ''bank for the poor'' proposed by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, the Regional President Roberto Formigoni said on Tuesday.

Speaking a day after Yunus unveiled his proposal to open an Italian offshoot of his Grameen Bank, which offers unguaranteed loans to the poor, Formigoni said Lombardy was keen to get involved in the initiative. ''It's just an invitation but I believe Yunus is already thinking about it,'' said the regional president. ''In many ways, Lombardy would be the ideal location. I have great respect for the Nobel laureate and Lombardy has always kept a close eye on initiatives such as these''. Yunus, who was jointly awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize along with the bank that he founded, revealed his plans during a visit to Italy on Monday. He said he hoped to get the project off the ground within the year, with assistance from Bologna University and Italian bank Unicredit, with the specific goal of helping Italian women unable to obtain loans by conventional means.

The focus on assisting women has played a crucial role in the development of the bank, which was founded in 1976 in Bangladesh, where women struggled to access the services of large commercial banks. According to the Grameen website, 97% of Grameen's borrowers are women.

The Grameen initiative now operates in developing countries around the world, with 7.71 million borrowers and 2,541 branches.

The US and Australia are home to Grameen microfinance projects and the Italian offshoot will also function as a non-governmental organization, rather than seeking to operate as an official bank. The Grameen system works on a trust basis, lending money to those without collateral in order to help individuals start small businesses and raise themselves out of poverty. Although Yunus's claim that the bank has a 98% repayment rate has been questioned, the positive impact of the Grameen model has been praised by many external bodies, including the World Bank. Yunus has also underscored the Grameen principle's resilience in the face of the current financial crisis. ''This has had no impact on us,'' he said. ''The crisis affects those financial systems that build castles from air. When we make a loan, it is for concrete reasons, like buying a cow''.

ITALIAN FILM DIRECTOR PLANS TO SHOOT BIOPIC ON YUNUS.

Meanwhile, award-winning Italian film director Marco Amenta has announced plans to start work on Yunus's life story. ''It is a story that touched me deeply,'' explained Amenta, whose other films have focused on real life stories of the Italian mafia and justice system. ''Yunus is a person who made a choice and refused to stand by and accept things as they were. It will be an epic film, recounting a universal story''.

The film, based on Yunus's autobiography, Banker To The Poor, will be an international co-production shot in English. Filming is expected to start later this year

The case for transparency in financial markets is not clear-cut

Feb 19th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Economics focus

Full disclosure

ITS promises are alluring, yet elusive; everyone, from politician to pundit, calls for more. In its recent report on financial reform, the Group of Thirty, a body of financial experts, mentioned it more than 30 times. Transparency is in vogue. Yet few ask whether it actually works.

Not long ago the cheerleaders of opacity were the loudest. Without privacy, they argued, financial entrepreneurs would be unable to capture the full value of their trading strategies and other ingenious intellectual property. Forcing them to disclose information would impair their incentive to uncover and correct market inefficiencies, to the detriment of all. And for years the so-called shadow banking system thrived, away from prying eyes. Then crisis hit, lending weight to the quip “What you see is what you get; what you don’t see gets you.” Few saw it coming, but if a lack of transparency was pervasive, how could they have?

As clear as mortgage-backed securities

“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” wrote Louis Brandeis, later a Supreme Court justice, in 1913, and almost a century later his words have become a maxim. Yet transparency is amorphous; it can, frustratingly, be anything but transparent and, implemented wrongly, may harm the very interests it is supposed to serve. In financial markets, the word is nearly always equated with information disclosure. The trouble is that the information is often incomplete, irrelevant or outright incomprehensible. Subprime-mortgage-backed securities are a case in point. These instruments—whose value remains shrouded in mystery—can have prospectuses of about 500-600 pages, most of which are devoted to intricate legalese. Yet, inexplicably, they do not contain the information about individual loans that is needed to detect default risk.

Nor is transparency free. The Sarbanes-Oxley act, which partly restored confidence after the scandals of Enron, WorldCom and others, came at a cost—not only in terms of the burden of compliance it imposed on companies. In order to shield small firms, those with a stockmarket value of less than $75m were initially exempted. This created a peculiar incentive: at least one study suggests that firms just below the threshold began disbursing unusual amounts of cash to shareholders and making fewer investments. The act has also been accused of stifling risk-taking and increasing directors’ pay.

At its onset, the turmoil in financial markets was described as a liquidity crisis. And transparency and liquidity are close relatives. One enemy of liquidity is “asymmetric information”. To illustrate this, look at a variation of the “Market for Lemons” identified by George Akerlof, a Nobel-prize-winning economist, in 1970. Suppose that a wine connoisseur and Joe Sixpack are haggling over the price of the 1998 Château Pétrus, which Joe recently inherited from his rich uncle. If Joe and the connoisseur only know that it is a red wine, they may strike a deal. They are equally uninformed. If vintage, region and grape are disclosed, Joe, fearing he will be taken for a ride, may refuse to sell. In financial markets, similarly, there are sophisticated and unsophisticated investors, and unless they have symmetrical information, liquidity can dry up. Unfortunately transparency may reduce liquidity. Symmetry, not the amount of information, matters.

The good news is that transparency can work. When information is relevant, standardised and public, it fosters intelligent decision-making. Lenders, for instance, are required to quote interest rates as annual percentage rates, making loans easy to compare. Some behavioural economists call this “simplified transparency”, and think similar requirements should be imposed on complex financial products. Information must also be accurate as the credit-rating debacle shows: an AAA rating is harmful rather than helpful if it describes a CCC asset.

But politics impedes the ideal of transparency for at least two reasons. First, the benefits of transparency are widely dispersed among information users, whereas the costs are borne by few information disclosers; the disclosers therefore dominate the political process. Second, disclosure requirements are often drawn up after crises. They therefore tend to be hurried and haphazard, and support for them fades with memory of the hard times.

And even well-designed disclosure requirements may not suffice. People may make ill-informed choices, simplified transparency or not. In a recent study, two groups (made up of Harvard University staff) were asked to pick mutual funds. One group was given prospectuses which neatly summarised the funds’ objectives, risk profiles, costs and past performance in a few pages. The other group received the standard long-winded and hard-to-understand prospectuses. They nonetheless made nearly identical choices, opting for funds with good past performance and largely neglecting fees. Academic research suggests that people should do precisely the opposite.

Still, for all its difficulties, transparency is usually better than the alternative. The opaque innovations of the recent past, rather than eliminating market inefficiencies, unintentionally created systemic risks. The important point is that financial markets are not created equal: they may require different levels of disclosure. Liquidity in the stockmarket, for example, thrives on differences of opinion about the value of a firm; information fuels the debate. The money markets rely more on trust than transparency because transactions are so quick that there is little time to assess information. The problem with hedge funds is that a lack of information hinders outsiders’ ability to measure their contribution to systemic risk. A possible solution would be to impose delayed disclosure, which would allow the funds to profit from their strategies, provide data for experts to sift through, and allay fears about the legality of their activities. Transparency, like sunlight, needs to be looked at carefully.