"Greece: The musical... " Or not. A round- discussion on what Greece means for the eurozone, and vice-versa. With Emilios Avgouleas (University of Edinburgh), George Handjinicolaou (ISDA) and Richard Segal (Jefferies).
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
SAVE THE DATE A CSFI round-table discussion on Greece. December 14, 2011, 6:30pm-8:15pm.
"Greece: The musical... " Or not. A round- discussion on what Greece means for the eurozone, and vice-versa. With Emilios Avgouleas (University of Edinburgh), George Handjinicolaou (ISDA) and Richard Segal (Jefferies).
To be held on Wednesday, December 14, 2011, from 6:30-8:15pm.
At Watermen's hall, 16-18 St Mary-at-Hill, London, EC3R 8EF.
At Watermen's hall, 16-18 St Mary-at-Hill, London, EC3R 8EF.
*Please note: This is an evening meeting*
Who knows what will have happened to Greece by December 14? Indeed, who knows what will have happened to the euro? To the eurozone? Or even to the EU? There is (I suppose) a faint chance that the problem will have gone away entirely – and a rather better chance that the can will have been kicked a bit further along the road. But the betting must be that the crisis that has been triggered by the profligacy of previous Greek governments (or, if you prefer, by German snake-oil salesmen who unloaded BMWs and Mercedes-Benzs galore on to unsuspecting Greek 'peasants') will be with us still.Either way, the problem of Greece (and potential solutions) are well worth a look. I am, therefore, delighted that we have been able to put together a distinguished panel to kick off what I am sure will be a lively discussion:
- Emilios Avgouleas has just been elected to the chair of international banking law and finance at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently the professor of international financial markets at the University of Manchester and, before that he worked in the field of financial markets as a senior associate with Clifford Chance and Linklaters, and as a partner with a major Greek law firm. - George Handjinicolaou is deputy CEO of the International Swaps & Derivatives Association, and its regional head for EMEA. He has just returned from a two-year "sabbatical" in Greece, where he was CEO of TBank and Vice-chairman of the Capital Markets Commission. Before joining ISDA (for the first time) in 2007, he ran a hedge fund, and before that, he was a managing director at Merrill Lynch, responsible for the global fixed income emerging markets business. - Richard Segal is a European credit strategist at Jefferies International, which he joined earlier this year. Prior to that, he was a strategist at Knight Libertas and Renaissance Capital. He is one of the leading authorities on the sovereign debt market in London.
I am (literally) a paid-up philhellene – but you don't have to be a member of the Anglo-Hellenic Society to feel some sympathy for the Greeks. If you (or a colleague) would like to show a bit of empathy (and also, perhaps, find out how to make a buck out of the current unpleasantness), please let us know by emailing sophie@csfi.org or by calling the office on 020 7493 0173. As usual, wine and sandwiches will be provided.
Many thanks,
Andrew Hilton
Director
CSFI
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Saturday, 19 November 2011
TEH COUNTDOWN BEGINS
Veteran readers will know that I have some personal favourites among the ELSTAT data series - headline figures like GDP and, to a lesser extent, unemployment, are highly political and the temptation to game them must be very high. Other, more humble statistics on the other hand are cleaner and much more meaningful, even if they are a little noisy due to small samples.
My personal favourite is the percentage of unemployed people who had job offers but turned them down. You can check out a much more detailed discussion of this variable here, but basically this is a very rich statistic as it incorporates people's expectations about the future and their attitudes towards work.
This number peaked in mid 2006, the height of the 'good days', when 15.8% of all unemployed people were made a job offer but turned it down for one reason or another. Since then it's been falling steadily, especially since Q3 2009 when the Greek fiscal crisis started in earnest. Well the latest figures from ELSTAT say this number has fallen to a record low of 6.7%.
In itself, this means very little. But as you'll recall, I've modelled this variable as a function of unemployment and future GDP (and the prospect of elections) and this is the first time since 2007 that the 'workshy' are a smaller percentage of the unemployed than unemployment alone would justify. This could mean one of three things:
My personal favourite is the percentage of unemployed people who had job offers but turned them down. You can check out a much more detailed discussion of this variable here, but basically this is a very rich statistic as it incorporates people's expectations about the future and their attitudes towards work.
This number peaked in mid 2006, the height of the 'good days', when 15.8% of all unemployed people were made a job offer but turned it down for one reason or another. Since then it's been falling steadily, especially since Q3 2009 when the Greek fiscal crisis started in earnest. Well the latest figures from ELSTAT say this number has fallen to a record low of 6.7%.
In itself, this means very little. But as you'll recall, I've modelled this variable as a function of unemployment and future GDP (and the prospect of elections) and this is the first time since 2007 that the 'workshy' are a smaller percentage of the unemployed than unemployment alone would justify. This could mean one of three things:
- A permanent shift in in the attitudes of Greek workers (probably a good thing)
- There are no workshy any more - everything is friction unemployment. People are actually taking any job can find unless this is physically impossible or absolutely unacceptable.
- A strong expectation that economic conditions will deteriorate significantly.
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