International Selection

Interest rates are unsustainably low. Once they start to rise, bubbles in the prices of bonds and other securities will burst and the financial markets will suffer. A column by Martin Feldstein.

The decision of the EU summit to tax small deposits in Cyprus was amateurish, LSE economist Paul De Grauwe complains in an interview with FuW. A lot of credibility was destroyed unnecessarily.

Berkeley economist Barry Eichengreen talks in the interview with «Finanz und Wirtschaft» about the consequences of the deposit levy in Cyprus and the need for a banking union in the Euro Zone.

The reforms undertaken in some peripheral countries are much deeper than those undertaken by Germany a decade ago. A column by Daniel Gros.

The Swiss National Bank does a much better job in explaining and executing its exchange rate policy than the new leadership of the Bank of Japan. A column by Barry Eichengreen.

The Federal Reserve may be digging itself into an ever-deeper hole by committing to misguided policies aimed at the wrong problem.A column by Stephen S. Roach.

Exiting nonstandard monetary policy will ask for experimental strategies. Central banks are pondering ways out, but in secrecy - which is worrisome. By columnist Charles Wyplosz.