Thursday, 7 February 2013

Being Mario Draghi

Thanks to Reuters everyone can now look at Draghi's dashboard. Apparently this is what Draghi looks at to steer the Euro through troubled waters.


  1. Florian,
    Do you think Draghi's position is even valid at the moment considering the increasing polarisation of individual EU member states and their economic goals?
    The North of the EU seems to want less spending than the South.

    Surely it will be national leaders looking at these figures at the forthcoming summit and Draghi will end up as a mediator with no real economic power other than a signature?

  2. Dear Joe, first of all thanks for being the first to leave a comment. I think, in many respects Draghi has done a good job given the circumstances. Certainly, his announcement to act as a lender of last resort for European countries brought the borrowing costs of the European periphery down and prevented a meltdown of the Europ in the short term. He did not take this decision alone but I don't think we would have seen a similar move of the ECB under a different president. So his handling of the short term worked well. About his long term strategy, I am more doubtful. Why is he not lowering interest rates further? Why is he worrying more about monetary stability than about growth? Having said this, I think for the longer term, fiscal policy will matter much more than anything that the BCE can do. So, ultimately, you may have a point that it's now up to the politicians.