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The ECB has run as loose a monetary policy asother central banks have. It is just rather more coy about it

THE globaleconomy has stopped sinking and central bankers are pausing for breath. As TheEconomist went to press on July 2nd, the European Central Bank (ECB) wasexpected to keep its main "refi” interest rate unchanged, at 1%. The ECB’srate-setting council has been chary of cutting rates closer to zero aspolicymakers elsewhere have done. Its reluctance to do more has attractedcriticism, only some of it fair...

SOMETIMESyou can have too much news. There was so much financial turmoil in the autumnthat it was hard to keep up with events. In retrospect it is clear that achange in the economic backdrop akin to the demise of the Bretton Woods systemin the early 1970s has taken place. Investors will be dealing with theaftermath for decades to come...

Olli Rehn, the incomingcommissioner for European economic affairs, told an audience in Brussels thathe`s concerned about big government debts in Europe

The EUcommissioner-designate for economic and monetary affairs, Olli Rehn,successfully batted off questions from MEPs on Monday evening (11 January),with debate on public finances and the EU`s new economic strategy making upmuch of the exchange...

MEPs were also keen toknow where the Finnish politician stood on the issue of stronger surveillancemechanisms under the EU`s new economic growth plan, the 2020 Strategy, followinga recent proposal by the Spanish EU presidency that Brussels should sanctioncapitals which fall out of line...

The total of all the moneycoming into a country from abroad less all of the money going out of thecountry during the same period. This is usually broken down into the currentaccount and the capital account. The current account includes:

*Visible trade (known asmerchandise trade in the united states), which is the value of exports and imports ofphysical goods;...

A guardian of themonetary system. A central bank sets short-term interest rates and oversees thehealth of the financial system, including by acting as lender of last resort tocommercial banks that get into financial difficulties. The federal reserve, thecentral bank of the united states, was founded in 1913. The bank of england, known affectionately as the "old lady ofthreadneedle street”, was established in 1694, 26 years after the creation ofthe world’s first central bank in sweden. With the birth of the EURO in 1999, the monetarypolicy powers of the central banks of 11 european countries were transferred toa new european central bank, based in frankfurt...

Putting money to work, in the hope of making even more money.Investment takes two main forms: direct spending on buildings, machinery and soforth, and indirect spending on financial securities, such as bonds and shares.

Traditionally, economictheory says that a country’s total investment must equal its total savings. Butthis has never been true in the short run and, as a result of globalisation,may never be even in the long run, as countries with low savings can attractinvestment from overseas and foreign savers lacking opportunities at home caninvest abroad... 

The main reason firmsexist. In economic theory, profit is the reward for risk taken by enterprise,the fourth of the factors of production – what is left after all other costs,including rent, wages and interest. Put simply, profit is a firm’s totalrevenue minus total cost...

Mercantilists feared that money would become tooscarce to sustain high levels of output and employment; their favoured solutionwas cheap money (low interest rates). In a forerunner to the 20th-centurydebate between keynesians and monetarists, they were opposed by advocates ofclassical economics, who argued that cheap and plentiful money could result ininflation... 

Born in 1883, he studied at cambridge but came to reject much of the classicaleconomics and neo-classical economics associated with that university. Keyneshelped set up the bretton woods framework, but he is best known for his generaltheory of employment, interest and money, published in 1936 in the depths ofthe great depression... 

When the production of agood or service with no close substitutes is carried out by a single firm withthe market power to decide the price of its output. Contrast with perfectcompetition, in which no single firm can affect the price of what it produces.Typically, a monopoly will produce less, at a higher price, than would be thecase for the entire market under perfect competition. It decides its price bycalculating the quantity of output at which its marginal revenue would equalits marginal cost, and then sets whatever price would enable it to sell exactlythat quantity...