Francesco PAPADIA

@francz.bsky.social

Economist at Bruegel. Former European Central Bank director general.

What implications for financial stability from the recent news that Blackstone, Cliffwaters and Blue Owl have limited withdrawals from their private funds? Any worrying analogy with August 2007 when BNP Paribas suspended withdrawals from three of its investment funds?

#Trump is: reducing good supply, through tariffs; reducing labour supply, through immigration; increasing aggregate demand, with fiscal policy; welcoming a weak dollar; weakening FED's resolve to fight inflation, with continuous calls to reduce rates. How can this not lead to inflation?

The EU has been hit in the last few decades by 3 raw material shocks: oil in the 1970s, gas in 2022 and now rare earths. They overcame the 2nd shock faster than the 1st one. Is the 3rd one more similar to the 1st or the 2nd? How do the 3 shocks compare in size and substitutability?

I see similarities between the weaponisation of the $ by the US and the weaponisation of rare earths by China: both are effective in the short to medium run, both incentivise alternatives, weakening their effect, in the medium to long run. Would be interesting to see which effect will fade faster.

With the tariff agreement with the US and now with the Trump-Putin meeting on Ukraine, the EU is suffering unavoidable but painful humiliations. This is the precondition for understanding that we must further our unity and strengthen our independence. Humiliations can provide strong incentives.

1 Tariffs worsen growth and inflation; 2 Increasing tariffs is contrary to the long trend towards free trade; 3 All commentary considers the increased level of tariffs as persistent. 3 is not consistent with 1 and 2. Can the mid-term elections, or the next presidential election, reduce tariffs?

Two optimistic, maybe wrong, interpretations. 1. An extreme political shock favoured the US's traditional populist soul against its liberal one, and Roth's Plot Against America has become real, but will not last. 2. Europe is forced to surpass colonialism and the two World Wars and become an adult.

There is a common feature in French, Canadian, Australian and Romanian elections: confronted with a possible win by an extreme right party, electors choose the candidate best able to defeat it. Unfortunate exceptions are: Italy, Hungary, Israel.

I sensed a tension in #Lagarde's press conference today: -It is clear that tariffs are imparting a negative demand shock, while there is no clear inflation impact -Monetary policy will remain meeting by meeting without a clear path. An indication of a downward path would have been justified.

The most important message in #Trump's backdown on tariffs is not that he suspended some of them but that the market can force a change. I expect more of this going forward, also regarding China, as both Xi and Trump must reckon with market consequences.