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Hans-Werner Sinn

For Hans-Werner Sinn's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 31, 2016

EU welfare states under siege

If freedom of movement within Europe is to be maintained — and if high inflows of non-EU citizens continue — European welfare states face a stark choice: adjust or collapse.

Japan Times

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 29, 2015

Can the Islamic State threat unify Europe?

If recent events have taught us anything, it is that threats to the EU stem not from inadequate fiscal risk-sharing, but from insufficient coordination on foreign-policy and security challenges.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 6, 2015

The German promised land is rapidly reaching its limits

In order to avert chaos, Germany has no choice but to impose restrictions on the number of migrants it accepts.

Japan Times

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 31, 2015

EU’s easy-money endgame

The euro has brought a balance-of-payments crisis to Europe, just as the gold standard did in the 1920s. Only one difference exists between the two episodes: In today's crisis, huge international rescue packages have been available.

Japan Times

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 1, 2014

Italy's decline masks loss of competitiveness

There is no other way for Italy to correct its price differential with Germany and other EU members than to carry out a real depreciation, something that is easier said than done.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 28, 2014

Debt runup looms as next phase of euro crisis

The euro crisis has passed through six phases so far. The seventh phase of the crisis appears to be one of enhanced moral hazard, stemming from a runup in debt.

COMMENTARY

Dec 30, 2013

Rescue of Europe must involve reform of euro

Eurozone members whose path to regaining competitiveness through price and wage reductions is too long and grueling, and whose societies risk being rent asunder by the imposition of austerity, may have to temporarily exit the monetary union.

COMMENTARY / World

May 10, 2013

Euro exit by Germany would be a big mistake

Politically it would be a big mistake for Germany to exit the eurozone, because doing so would jeopardize the greatest success story of the postwar period in Europe.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 3, 2012

Judgment day for the eurozone

Europe and the world are eagerly awaiting the decision of Germany's Constitutional Court on September 12 regarding the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the proposed permanent successor to the eurozone's current emergency lender, the European Financial Stability Mechanism. The Court must rule on German plaintiffs' claim that legislation to establish the ESM would violate Germany's Grundgesetz (Basic Law). If the Court rules in the plaintiffs' favor, it will ask Germany's president not to sign the ESM treaty, which has already been ratified by Germany's Bundestag (parliament).

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 16, 2012

An EU 'banking union' will make things worse

In blatant violation of the Maastricht Treaty, the European Commission has come forward with one bailout plan after another for Europe's distressed economies. Now it wants to socialize not only government debt by introducing Eurobonds, but also banking debt by proclaiming a "banking union."

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 30, 2012

A crisis of capital flight as TARGET debt grows

For a while, it looked as if the European Central Bank's €1 trillion credit program to pump liquidity into Europe's banking system had calmed global financial markets. But now interest rates for Italian and Spanish government bonds are on the rise again, closing in on about 6 percent.

COMMENTARY / World

May 4, 2011

How ECB bailed out 'PIGS'

Why did Greece, Ireland and Portugal have to seek shelter under the European Union's rescue umbrella, and why is Spain a potential candidate?

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 5, 2011

EU's instability mechanism

MUNICH — By 2010, Europe was to be "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge- based society in the world." This was the proclamation in 2000 by the European Commission in the "Lisbon Agenda." Now, a decade after that bold pledge, it is official: Europe is the world's growth laggard rather than its champion.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 27, 2010

China's fair-weather friends in Washington

MUNICH — Because China has pegged its undervalued currency, the renminbi, to the dollar, every weakening of the dollar in the wake of America's financial crisis has also meant a weakening of the renminbi vis-a-vis other world currencies. But is China really to blame for the eruption of a global currency war?

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 31, 2010

Blessed are the low in debt

MUNICH — The world's worst postwar financial crisis is over. It arrived suddenly in 2008 and, after roughly 18 months, vanished almost as quickly as it had come. Bank rescue programs on the order of 5 trillion euro and Keynesian stimulus programs on the order of a further 1 trillion euro staved off collapse.

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 30, 2010

Eurozone isn't doomed yet

MUNICH — Despite huge rescue packages, interest-rate spreads in Europe refuse to budge. Markets have not yet found their equilibrium, and the governments on Europe's southwestern rim are nervously watching how events unfold. What is going on?

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 29, 2010

Reining in Europe's debtor nations

MUNICH — The euro-zone countries have now agreed to provide some 80 billion euro in cheap loans to Greece over the next three years, and hope that the International Monetary Fund will provide another 15 billion euro at the least. But the interest rate that Greece must pay buyers of its government bonds has shot up to a record-high level of nearly 9 percent — 5.9 percentage points above the benchmark rate paid by Germany. That translates into an additional 16 billion euro per year in interest payments on Greece's current debt of 273 billion euro. Obviously, markets still believe that Greece will default on its debt.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 3, 2010

Grasping for a way to save the Greek sinner

MUNICH — The euro's current weakness has one culprit: Greece. At 14 percent of GDP, Greece's latest current-account deficit was the largest of the euro-zone countries after Cyprus. Its debt-to-GDP ratio stood at 113 percent by the end of 2009. As this year's deficit is projected to be more than 12 percent of a shrinking GDP, the debt-to-GDP ratio will soar above 125 percent by the end of 2010, the highest in the euro zone.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 18, 2010

Europe's surrender of resources similar to U.S. spending on wars

MUNICH — Once upon a time, stocks were risky and collateralized securities were safe. That time is over, as the breakdown of the American mortgage securitization market has shown.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 28, 2009

It's Italy for America and Japan for Europe

MUNICH — The American business model has collapsed. During recent years, the United States borrowed gigantic sums of money from the rest of the world. Net capital imports exceeded $800 billion in 2008 alone. The money came largely from selling mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations, claims against American homeowners (or to be precise, only against the homes themselves, as the owners were protected by the nonrecourse nature of loans).

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

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The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces

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