Telos - Agence Intellectuelle

Attempting the Impossible: constructing Life out of Digital Records

Jannis Kallinikos- — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:54:53 +0200

Human living and knowing are bound to vacillate between the sensible and the intelligible, what can be experienced through the senses and what can be thought (including counting and calculation) without immediate reference to palpable reality. Perception is a vital and inseparable component of living and, though shaped by culture, it is firmly anchored into the human sensorium. At the same time, living and knowing always transcend the givens of perception and entail cognitive operations that lack ostensive reference, being conceptual or abstract.

The WTO’s transparency challenge

Valentin Zahrnt- — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:01:20 +0100

Multilateral liberalization has often been described as a bicycle that has to keep moving to maintain stability. Undeniably, the bicycle has come to a standstill: as the Doha Round drags on since 2001 with little result, countries have worked off their liberalization commitments from the Uruguay Round (1986-94) and face few incentives to reform their policies in preparation of new WTO obligations.

Illusory Virtue

Agnès Bénassy-Quéré- — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:24:56 +0100

The European Commission has just released gloomy, updated macroeconomic forecasts, with Euro area GDP now projected to decline by 1.9% in 2009. In eleven out of 16 Member states, GDP is expected to fall in 2009, with an especially sharp decline in Ireland (-5%). Due to automatic stabilizers and fiscal stimulation plans, half of the countries are expected to run fiscal deficits exceeding the 3%-of-GDP red line. The European Commission forecasts very large deficits in Ireland (11% of GDP) and in Spain (6.2%). Strikingly, these two countries used to be part of the most virtuous members of the Euro area until 2007. Indeed, from 1999 to 2007, none of these two reached or even approached the 3% bound. General government budget was close to balance on average in Spain while Ireland ran a 1.6% surplus on average. All other Euro Members except Belgium, Finland and Luxembourg crossed the red line at least once, and five of them (France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal) did it several times.

Trade as an international public good

Antoine Bouët-David Laborde- — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:16:06 +0100

After seven years of negotiations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) mini-ministerial meeting held in Geneva last July did not manage to close the gap between delegations to reach a final agreement on the Doha round liberalization modalities. Conflicts still exist on several issues regarding the disciplines that both developed and developing countries should make. Traditional impact studies aim to assess the potential gains of Doha negotiations by comparing the consequences of the negotiation modalities to the status quo (baseline). Therefore, the cost of a failure of the negotiations is just an opportunity cost: the unrealized gains. However, this approach may underestimate the real losses associated with a failure of the DDA. Such a drastic event will make the business as usual assumption uncertain: the status quo is not a long-term perspective for trade policies.

Not another Bretton Woods

Peter B. Kenen- — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:49:06 +0100

The Washington meeting of the Heads of State to take place shortly reflects recognition of the need for international cooperation in the regulation of financial institutions and markets. There has been international cooperation in recent months, mainly among the major central banks, notably the coordinated interest-rate cuts that took place recently, and the provision of dollar financing by the Federal Reserve to the European Central Bank, which needed dollars to relend to European banks that could not obtain them commercially.

Despite the history of a weak dollar would you rather buy a Mercedes or a Ford?

Avinash Persaud- — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:38:49 +0100

We are entering in different phase in stock market weakness, one that gives me some cause for optimism. I believe that in recent weeks what we have witnessed is a transition from “liquidity fear” to “recession fear” or for the more technical, from liquidity risk to credit risk. It may be hard to notice the difference. Both forces are bad for stock markets in general. But they have a different impact on individual stocks and therein lies the opportunity for opportunistic investors who don’t mind a bare-knuckle ride in search of superior returns.

Some ways out of the financial crisis

Jean Cordier- — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:44:25 +0100

Everyday, as a matter of urgency, central banks and governments are fighting against the fire. An amazing blow to confidence has burst within the most sophisticated financial system which has ever been experienced. Before smoke and dust fall down, it is wise to investigate the ways out on which governments should drive the players of this drama in order to contain damages and speed up reconstruction.

Not a G7 but an Emergency meeting of a new G16 to stabilize the world economic crisis

Jean-Joseph Boillot- — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:29:36 +0200

The 1980s have seen the 2nd wave of economic globalization of modern history. It should not end like the first during the 19th century. Economic crises and wars often keep pace. The first energy shock of 1973, the start of the economic reforms in China at the end of the 1970s then in India and finally the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, gradually led to a huge transformation of the world economy. The idea to gather a G7 or even the G8 under the current format is clearly unsuitable when we see clouds accumulating on emerging countries, China and India included.

Bailouts, deposit guarantees and solidarity

Angel Ubide- — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:57:54 +0200

Those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it. Thus goes the say, or a version of it. It has been a year into what we could call the 2007-08 Western Banking Crisis, ten years after the 1997-08 Asian Crisis – and the crisis is unfolding in its expected ways. Banks are under stress, losses are being recognized, sick or too small to rescue banks are being closed, healthy or too big to fail banks are being recapitalized, and non performing assets will be removed from the system. It is just the same story, with small variations, all over again. In 1997-98, this was done country after country, all over Asia, and many papers were written about it. However, a very important piece of the lessons from that episode has been missing: guaranteeing the deposits of the system before proceeding to closing important institutions.

The New New World Order

Jolyon Howorth- — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:50:19 +0200

The world has finally entered the real post-Cold War era. With Russia’s military intervention in Georgia, we are embarking on a new era in international relations. This will be neither a return to the Cold War (as various US spokespersons appear to want the world to believe), nor a return to classic 19th-century balance of power politics (as some Russians might hope). By demonstrating that Moscow, too, has “red lines”, the Georgian conflict has exploded the myth of the uni-polar world.

Re-inventing Europe after the Irish No

Vivien A. Schmidt- — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:59:06 +0200

The EU can’t go on like this. Whether the Lisbon Treaty ultimately succeeds or fails, the Irish referendum will have taught us one thing: Unanimity and uniformity are things of the past. The EU is now too diverse to expect all member-states of the EU to ratify any given treaty or to participate in all areas of EU activity.

Seismic Change in the Middle Kingdom - and why we should take note

Yves Tiberghien-Yvonne Xiao- — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:19:46 +0200

In the wake of the tragic Sichuan earthquake, something big is astir in China. It was not just the earth that shook on this peaceful afternoon of May 12, 2008. Society and political world moved as well. Future historians may well remember this month as a watershed moment. The time has come for us to take note and change course in our understanding of China. This is probably one of the most important tasks in front of us when we map out our future decades. The stakes could not be higher.

The HRC's universal review: Fig leave or effective tool?

Franziska Brantner- — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:40:01 +0200

The Human Rights Council has been in place since 2006. The Council was then tasked to carry out a "Universal Periodic Review". Under this mechanism, the Council reviews, on a regular basis, the fulfillment by all 192 UN Member States of their human rights obligations and commitments. It is to be a cooperative mechanism, based on objective and reliable information, and equal treatment of all states. The review process is to fully involve the state under review, while at the same time not be overly burdensome for states.

Is Sarkozy’s Fiscal Policy Supporting reforms?

Eric Chaney- — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:55:48 +0200

The ‘fiscal package’ passed on 21 August 2007 (known in France under its acronym ‘TEPA’) was sold by the new government as an important tool to bolster confidence and thus make reforms easier. Since then, it has become the main target of the government critics in the French political debate. When the project was made public, we had concluded that, from a strict economic angle, the fiscal side of the first reforms announced by PM Francois Fillon was ‘an unnecessary fiscal stimulus without long-term merits’. Real life has confirmed this diagnosis: the ‘fiscal shock’ was based on flawed economics, namely that fiscal stimulus generate high growth returns, and proved counter-productive in the French political debate. Yet, the new government’s fiscal policy is not as negative as some critics are saying, and it is not too late to re-design it so that budget decisions would support structural reforms.

Databasing Life Patterns

Jannis Kallinikos-José-Carlos Mariátegui- — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:21:27 +0200

Over the last two decades, many of us have felt the gradual and expanding involvement of technological information and the internet in our lives. However, more often than not, we fail to appreciate the subtle and pervasive implications these developments may have for the ways we think and behave. The accumulation of information, from the growing expansion of the trivial to the serious aspects of life that are recorded in databases (e.g. financial, medical or legal records, online habits) and the increasing sophistication of computer technology converge to confer to data and information a new and interesting role in the lives of people and the functioning of institutions. Information is not any longer confined within the world of computer-based experts.

Normative Empire

Zaki Laïdi- — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:38:19 +0100

On October 25th 2007 the Wall Street Journal published a blistering attack on Europe entitled “Regulatory Imperialism”. The editorial took issue with Europe’s intent to force its norms on the rest of the world by taking advantage of the dynamism of its internal market both affluent and attractive and in addition highly organized. Examples cited included the Microsoft Affair, the ban on the importation of chlorine-rinsed poultry, the Reach legislation on chemical products, as well as the plan to tax airline companies as part of the battle against climate change.

SWFs investment in banks: an alarming trend?

Avinash Persaud- — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:37:42 +0100

In the wake of the credit crunch banks’ capital cushions have deflated dangerously. And, in response, some have turned to one group of investors untouched by subprime credit or by mark-to-market reporting requirements: sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). Is this a good, or a worrying development?

The challenge of sovereign wealth funds

Philipp M. Hildebrand- — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:05:21 +0100

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are not a new phenomenon. With its Caisse des Dépots et Consignations, France essentially set up a SWF in 1816! But SWFs have recently grown both in number and size, and now exceed the combined assets of hedge funds and private equity. The rapid growth in SWFs is closely linked to the prevailing global macroeconomic imbalances, and that means that SWFs will be around for some time to come. Even under the assumption that global imbalances unwind over the next ten years and commodity and oil prices revert to long-term averages, SWFs will continue to deploy substantial financial assets in the global market place.

Minimum wages, maximum wages and the level of economic discourse in Germany

Michael Burda- — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:05:16 +0100

The past few weeks have been economically challenging for economists who live in or deal with Germany. For starters, the parliament just passed a minimum wage for postal workers. Second, the country is in the grips of a national discussion of “the excesses of managerial pay”- and a significant number of politicians have argued for caps on executive pay – maximum wages! And precisely because the quality of economic discourse surrounding these issues is so abysmal, one may need to think twice when assessing whether Germany has made any fundamental progress on labor market reforms.

France, Britain and the Future of Europe: The Gathering Storm?

Jolyon Howorth- — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 13:59:43 +0100

Two speeches, two languages, two mindsets, two audiences: one looming battle over the future of Europe? UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband's speech in Bruges on 15 November and French President Nicolas Sarkozy's speech to the European Parliament two days earlier could hardly be more different in their tone, style and vocabulary. Each, clearly, had the other in its sights.