AfterMath

Euro, The European Union Atomic Bomb “The Euro is a mistake”  by JOSEPH STIGLITZ, winner of THE NOBEL PRIZE Some Economists, such as Stiglitz and Krugman, believe that the euro was an experiment. Just like the fukushima atomic bomb, the euro creators did not measure, because they could not know, the effects of having a common or a single currency, “The Euro” . Even though, they still went ahead with the idea.  In the beginning it appeared to be working. The US economists had always been defending that the euro would not work. They belieaved that the decision of adopting the euro as a common currency, was more a political than an economic decision. Stiglitz argues that some of  the objectives of the  Maastricht Treaty, have not economic basis. For instance, the limit of the government deficits of 3%. Stiglitz, by pointing first the Euro, and sencondly the European institutions dysfunction (which Piketty also agree) as the two problems that Europe growth faces, provide a

We Are The OPEC And We Want The Triple-Digit Oil Prices Back The probabilities of the oil price to reach again the triple-digit, were very close to zero, according to the scenario that the Cartel (OPEC) was facing. In the same order of the article that I´ve published last year, 5th December 2016, O DESAFIO DA OPEP (The OPEC Challenge), where I´ve clearly shown my position concerning the Oil Price issue, I´ll try to make an analysis of the actual situation. One, firstly, concluded that the decision of reducing the oil production would lead to an increase in the oil price in the short run. But, not in the long run.   After the OPEC decision of reducing the oil production, we saw the oil market reacting by the pushing up of the  oil price. “ Today, 09/01/2017, the oil price jumped to 52.62 usd per barrel, from 49.18 usd per barrel at 09/10/2016” (Note that the higher oil price today was 53,74 usd. source: www.plus500.pt ). It looks like the objective was attained. For sure, if i

Knock Knock Knock, Is Portugal going to stay behind again? Reading an article of Prefessor Fernando Alexandre, Professor at School of Economics and Management at Minho university , about the austerity in Portugal, in the online news paper called Eco , I faced a quote that made me thing about Portugal in this new world. Translating into english what he said, in portuguese, one has: “ We should be discussing other issue. Such as, how to be competitive in a world that lives once again a technological revolution? What to do, to not be left behind? Why is the investment falling since the begining of the XXI century? For what reason the most qualified labor force ever, do not figure out into productivity statistics?” According to Nuno Palma and Jaime Reis in their last paper, FROM CONVERGENCE TO DIVERGENCE: PORTUGUESE DEMOGRAPHY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, 1500-1850 , Portugal had a long period, almost three and an half century, of both demographic and economic growth. Portugal had one o

Petróleo ou Preço do Petróleo? “Angola não depende do petróleo, mas sim do preço do petróleo” Durante mais de uma década, aproximadamente, depois do fim da guerra civil em Angola, o preço do petróleo esteve sempre a favor das contas do Estado em termos de receita, contribuindo significativamente na formação do produto interno bruto (PIB). Ao longo desse tempo foi possível verificar também um aumento na produção diária de petróleo, quando comparado com as décadas que antecederam. Este aumento na produção reflectiu-se bastante no crescimento da sua economia. Entretanto, é importante olhar para a questão da qualidade desse aumento na produção de petróleo e à qualidade do crescimento que a economia apresentou durante este período. Hoje, enfrentando uma nova crise do petróleo com a queda brutal do seu preço, diferente do que se registou na década de 1970 quando os países da Organização de Países Exportadores de Petróleo decidiram baixar a produção de petróleo e aumentar o preço, pode

O DESAFIO DA OPEP A Organização dos Países Exportadores de Petróleo (OPEP) tem, actualmente, a sua frente o grande desafio de controlar o preço de venda do petróleo no mercado mundial, o que contrasta com o seu interesse de deter a maior quota, mundial, de mercado de petróleo. É de lembrar que, controlar o preço de venda do petróleo no mercado mundial é um dos seus objectivos fixados a quando da sua criação em 1960. Portanto, este desafio não é de hoje. Ao longo destes anos, o cartel tem tentado manter a sua posição mundial no mercado de petróleo. Esta é uma tarefa que não tem sido fácil para a organização, uma vez que existem fortes concorrentes como a Rússia, o actual maior produtor de petróleo a nível mundial, e os Estados Unidos de América. Entre controlar o preço de venda do petróleo e deter a maior quota de mercado, a OPEP tem enfrentado grandes dilemas. Vejamos, para controlar o preço de petróleo a OPEP tem utilizado como política a diminuição da produção diária de petról

Príncipe Zanguilo is a student of economics at University of Minho His interests are Economics, Econometrics, Mathmatics, Languages, Music (Composer, Singer, Beat Maker, Choral Music), and (...)  He will start, from now, publishing in this blog named Aftermath some  opinion reports, about economy and development issues. The reports will be published weekly (every Monday) He will be writing in english, and making an abstract in Portuguese, for every article. He hopes to start making the abstracts also in French and German, as soon as possible. FYI: the first and the second report will be published in Portuguese, with abstracts in english. The only reason is that these reports were written in Portuguese and I avoid a translation to not lose the real sense of the words.    I hope to have your feedback  Príncipe Zanguilo