Tag Archive: Blog

Malta under Pressure

2021-05-29

by

2021-05-29

Malta is a compact archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea, 80 km from Sicily, 333 km from Libya and 284 km from Tunisia. It had a long list of rulers, including the Phoenicians, the Byzantines, the Arabs and later the French under Napoleon and finally the British. The island gained independence in 1964, and in 2004 it joined the European Union.

Read More »

World IP Day

2021-05-07

by

2021-05-07

Monday, April 26, marked World IP Day. In cooperation with the Property Rights Alliance (PRA), the Austrian Economics Center celebrated it by signing its annual coalition letter, addressed to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Director-General Daren Tang. Property rights benefit businesses, both big and small, start-ups or companies with a long tradition. This, in turn, enriches society as a whole. The COVID-19 pandemic has cost us too...

Read More »

AEC Announces Austrian Economics Conference in Vienna

2021-04-29

by

2021-04-29

10th International Conference “The Austrian School of Economics in the 21st Century” will be held in Vienna (Austria) on November 4 and 5, 2021, organized by the Austrian Economics Center and Fundación Internacional Bases.

Read More »

Vaccine diplomacy: Soft power lessons from China and Russia

2021-04-18

by

2021-04-18

As Covid-19 continues to rage throughout Europe, China and Russia seem to be giving the European Union lessons in soft power on its home ground. EU members and countries nearby are turning to Beijing and Moscow for additional supplies of Covid-19 vaccines, faced with rising discontent at the slow rollout of the EU’s own vaccination strategy, supply shortages, delivery bottlenecks, poor communication and concerns about vaccine safety.

Read More »

Anti-Vaccine and Anti-Vaping: Against Science and Innovation

2021-04-08

by

2021-04-08

Among the many problems originated by the Covid 19 pandemic, one of the most important is the resurgence of the anti-vaccine movement. Conspiracy theories, ridiculous arguments and unfounded accusations have given renewed fuel to one of the most anti-scientific and destructive trends we have ever seen.

Read More »

Pandemic diplomacy in the Western Balkans

2021-04-03

by

2021-04-03

The business of fighting Covid-19 is now estimated at around $150 billion. As of March 2021, 354 million vaccine doses have been delivered – 90 percent of them to countries that are home to only 10 percent of the world’s population. If 65 to 85 percent of people have to be vaccinated to reach global immunity, then it is unlikely to happen this year.

Read More »

Monetary Metals Issues Gold Token

2021-04-01

by

2021-04-01

Scottsdale, Ariz, April 1, 2021— Monetary Metals® announces that it has issued a gold token. Unlike the company’s other products, this one is not designed to pay a yield. In a sign of the times, the company intends this product to generate big speculative gains. It is designed to GO UP!

Read More »

The Loneliness Epidemic intensifies Thanks to Lockdowns

2021-03-21

by

2021-03-21

The coronavirus has dominated all of our lives in recent months. Radical paths were taken by politicians in the form of lockdowns to contain the pandemic. But we should recognize that even if the coronavirus is a (major) challenge for us, we always have to keep a holistic view of world events.

Read More »

Printing Money in Times of Corona

2021-03-13

by

2021-03-13

The coronavirus has dominated all of our lives in recent months. Radical paths were taken by politicians in the form of lockdowns to contain the pandemic. But we should recognize that even if the coronavirus is a (major) challenge for us, we always have to keep a holistic view of world events.

Read More »

No Work in Europe Thanks to Lockdowns

2021-03-04

by

2021-03-04

The coronavirus has dominated all of our lives in recent months. Radical paths were taken by politicians in the form of lockdowns to contain the pandemic. But we should recognize that even if the coronavirus is a (major) challenge for us, we always have to keep a holistic view of world events.

Read More »

The end of central banking as we know it

2021-02-26

by

2021-02-26

The severest crisis the European Central Bank (ECB) ever faced coincided with the early days of a new Executive Board. Over the past year and a half, the board’s six members, including the ECB’s president and vice president, have all been replaced, either because they resigned, or because their eight-year mandate expired. 

Read More »

Socialist America?

2021-02-24

by

2021-02-24

The idea of socialism is still alive and well in 2021. Looking at the progressives on the fringes of the Democratic Party – the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, one might think they are the real culprits keeping the idea alive. Yet, just looking at the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates, we can see just how alive socialism truly is.

Read More »

God, Bitcoin, and Asymmetric Bets

2021-02-22

by

2021-02-22

Blaise Pascal was a brilliant mathematician, inventor of the calculating machine, and pioneer of probabilistic theory during the 17th century. His philosophical works were published posthumously under the title of Pensées.

Read More »

New Opportunities 2021: Covid-19 and the future of shipping and aviation

2021-02-21

by

2021-02-21

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted transportation worldwide, sending shockwaves across supply chains, lowering demand and reducing revenue. Shipping and aviation especially experienced a steep financial decline. Companies have had to operate at limited capacity and growth prospects have dropped sharply. 

Read More »

In One Image, Everything You Need to Know about Government Intervention

2021-02-15

by

2021-02-15

US Consumer Goods and Services, Wages Price Change, 2000 - 2020
While I freely self-identify as a libertarian, I don’t think of myself as a philosophical ideologue. Instead, I’m someone who likes digging into data to determine the impact of government policy. And because I’ve repeatedly noticed that more government almost always leads to worse outcomes, I’ve become a practical ideologue.

Read More »

Extreme Poverty Shifts Gear… in Reverse

2021-02-11

by

2021-02-11

The coronavirus has dominated all of our lives in recent months. Radical paths were taken by politicians in the form of lockdowns to contain the pandemic. But we should recognize that even if the coronavirus is a (major) challenge for us, we always have to keep a holistic view of world events.

Read More »

Stillbirths on the Rise

2021-02-09

by

2021-02-09

The coronavirus has dominated all of our lives in recent months. Radical paths were taken by politicians in the form of lockdowns to contain the pandemic. But we should recognize that even if the coronavirus is a (major) challenge for us, we always have to keep a holistic view of world events.

Read More »

The economic cost of lockdowns

2021-01-31

by

2021-01-31

As many countries face their second or even third lockdowns (Germany, Austria, Israel), others (Switzerland, the United States) have done what they can to escape such repetitions. Much of the discussion about this drastic move involves its costs.

Read More »

New Opportunities 2021: Fiscal policy for the recovery

2021-01-24

by

2021-01-24

This GIS 2021 Outlook series focuses on the opportunities that stem from the upheaval of the past year. Coronavirus vaccine distribution has begun, most probably marking the beginning of the end of the global health crisis. A receding pandemic will leave behind intertwined economic and fiscal challenges for countries around the world.

Read More »

Vaccine Passports Are a Terrible Idea

2021-01-20

by

2021-01-20

Vaccine rollout is advancing at snail pace in the European Union. At the same time, countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel are moving quickly to get large parts of the population vaccinated as promptly as possible. As Europe debates the success or failure of its vaccine policy, some countries want to be one step ahead and discuss the possibility of so-called vaccine passports.

Read More »