The financial crisis has shown that the capital reserves of many banks were too small. Ulrich van Suntum and Cordelius Ilgmann, University of Münster, point out that the capital banks have on their balance sheets, both in the euro area and the US, is now even greater than before the financial crisis. But this is no cause for an "all clear" signal since the capital reserve ratios before the crisis proved to be too small to prevent systemic breakdowns. The flaw of the German bad-bank model is that participation is voluntary and that banks have shown little interest in this model. Instead, with regard to the bad-bank solution one should turn to the already used instrument in Germany of equalisation claims. In the opinion of Wolfgang Hönig, formerly of Commerzbank AG, Frankfurt, one necessity is to improve the quality of the rating agencies. Another is that the state should subject the system-relevant German banks to stress tests to see if they need to be or are capable of being restructured. The B banks identified in this process should then be officially restructured. This should not be left to the discretion of the banking officials. Also Stephan Götzl, GVB (Genossenschaftsverband Bayern), would like to obligate the afflicted banks to take on state aid. In the future, the framework conditions should be set such that that the banks cannot become too "systemic" - i.e., too large, complex, opaque or international - to be allowed to go bankrupt. It must be possible for a bank to exit the market.
Kai Carstensen, Wolfgang Nierhaus, Oliver Hülsewig, Klaus Abberger, Teresa Buchen, Christian Breuer, Steffen Elstner, Steffen Henzel, Nikolay Hristov, Michael Kleemann, Johannes Mayr, Wolfgang Meister, Georg Paula, Anna Stangl, Klaus Wohlrabe and Timo Wollmershäuser
On 15 December 2009 the Ifo Institute presented its 2010/2001 economic forecast at its annual pre-Christmas press conference. Since spring 2009 production and trade have again increased, stimulated by billions of euros allocated to economic stimulus programmes, massively expansive monetary policy and comparably low oil prices. In addition, a turnaround in the global inventory growth cycle has occurred. The pace of growth will remain low, however. A key problem is still the weakening of the international financial market, whose viability is still limited in important areas. In addition, the banking system has suffered tremendous equity losses resulting from the high value-adjustment requirement of structured securities. In important industrialised countries there is also a real-estate crisis, which increases the write-off requirements of their banks. Credit conditions thus remain restrictive worldwide, which is having massively negative effect on the financing of investments and new jobs. In total world GDP will increase by 3.1 percent in 2010 and by 2.6 percent in 2011, having declined by 1.1 percent in 2009. Price increases will accelerate somewhat worldwide. The increase in prices will accelerate somewhat worldwide. In Germany economic output stabilised in the spring. In the second quarter real GDP expanded, seasonally and calendar adjusted, by 0.4 percent, and in the third quarter by 0.7 percent. Due to the exceptionally strong decline in the preceding half year by almost 6 percent, total economic output, and here especially the production in export-dependent industries, remained overall at a very low level, however. The rate of capacity utilisation - extrapolating from the Ifo capacity utilisation measurement in manufacturing is currently some 10 percentage points below the long-term average. On the whole, and seasonally and calendar adjusted, economic output has increased again in the final quarter of 2009, although at a somewhat slower pace (0.5 percent) than in the previous quarter. For the second half year of 2009 in comparison to the first half of the year, there was a 1.2 percent increase in economic output, seasonally and calendar adjusted; in comparison to the previous year, which was marked by a strong decline in the winter half year, the result is a drop of 3.0 percent, however. For 2009 as a whole, real GDP will fall by 4.9 percent. On average for 2010, real GDP will likely increase by 1.7 percent, and by 1.2 percent on average for 2011.
Arno Städtler and Joachim Gürtler
The recession has fully impacted the leasing sector, as the latest Ifo Investment Survey of German leasing companies shows. In 2008 total new business in leasing decreased by 1.1%, and leasing's share of total investments (excluding housing) declined from 17.0% to 16.1%. New business in movable capital assets plunged in the period from January to September alone by ca. 30 percent vis-à-vis the comparable previous-year period. On average for the year, business losses in leasing will amount to almost 23%, with mobile leasing shrinking by 23% and immovable leasing by around 22%. According to the autumn forecast of the institutes for total investment in the economy, which assumed a nominal decline of 13% for 2009, this means that the leasing ratio will fall from 16.1% to 14.4% in 2009. Although the current investment cycle bottomed out in 2009, the prospects of a quick revival in investment spending are slight. The recessionary evolution of investments could last even longer. The Ifo/BDL investment indicator points to further declines in plant and equipment spending through the greater part of 2010.
Annette Weichselberger
The investment propensity of western German manufacturing firms has been clearly dampened this year by the poor economic situation, in particular the weak demand and the strongly reduced capacity utilisation. According to the latest results of the Ifo Investment Survey, gross fixed capital formation in western German manufacturing was almost 22% below the level of 2008. According to companies' current plans for 2010, investments will rise only slightly: by nearly 2%. For 2010 only a slight improvement of the investment climate is to be expected. Current company plans point to a slight increase in investments of only about 2%. Differentiating the investment plans according to company sizes, primarily large enterprises will increase their investments in 2010 while the small firms are planning further cuts. In light of the currently low capacity utilisation, it is not surprising that the investment motive "expansion" has clearly lost importance, now being ranked in second place. The main motive of investment activity, both for this and next year, is for "replacements".
Janina Ketterer and Jana Lipppelt
For the reduction of worldwide CO2 emissions different carbon-free technologies are available such as nuclear energy, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), nuclear fusion and renewable energy. The proportion to which these technologies should and can be used in order to ensure a reliable energy supply is the subject of current research and political discussion. This article provides an overview of the present state of renewable energy production.
Previous issues: 2012 | 2011 2010 | 2009 | 2008 2007 | 2006 | 2005 2004 | 2003 | 2002
RSS