1997 Asian financial crisis In June 1998, Folkerts-Landau predicted that the
1997 Asian financial crisis would see its resolution "stretch well into the new century. The elimination of the unprecedented debt overhang and the reduction of high leverage ratios will be slow and painful.There is little upside potential, and a lot of downside risk coming from the possible devaluation of the Chinese RMB, a continuing slide of Japan into a 1930’s type of recession, and the possibility of a G-7 interest rate increase". South Korea and some of the other smaller Asian countries had recovered by 2000, but Malaysia and Indonesia only recovered to pre-crisis levels of output by 2001 and 2003 respectively. Of the downside risks highlighted, the prediction of a weak Japan materialised, with people coming to talk about the 1990s and 2000s as the country's "
lost decades". The Chinese RMB did not depreciate but remained pegged at around 8.27-8.28 to the dollar until 2005. The Fed cut rates by 75 basis points later in the year, before reversing this decision in June 1999 and hiking rates by 175 basis point over the following 12 months.
Russia crisis of 1998 Folkerts-Landau and Marcel Cassard predicted in June 1998 that "notwithstanding the current political crisis, the Russian economy is likely to improve in 1998. Recent indicators point towards faster growth in output and a pick-up in domestic demand as well as a decline in inflation to single digits". They argue that in the early 2000s (decade) the international system is composed of a core issuing the dominant international currency, and a periphery. The periphery is committed to export-led growth based on the maintenance of an undervalued
exchange rate. In the 1960s, the core was the United States and the periphery was Europe and Japan. This old periphery has since
graduated, and the new periphery is Asia. The core remains the same, the United States. The argument is that a system of pegged currencies, in which the periphery export capital to the core that provides a financial intermediary role is both stable and desirable, although this notion is controversial.
2008 financial crisis Folkerts-Landau viewed the
subprime mortgage crisis as the result of fraud rather than financial innovation such as
CDOs. In May 2008, he argued that the international monetary system was well placed to withstand the sub-prime crisis, and that a pessimistic outcome was not credible.
European debt crisis In June 2013, Folkerts-Landau argued that the
European debt crisis was the biggest force for European integration. He stated that "legacy (bank) assets should be kept apart from any sovereign bail-out...to mix them up would be a socialisation of losses of an unimaginable scale". He believed that Germany stimulating demand and raising wages would be "disastrous for the Euro-zone viz-a-viz the rest of the world". In relation to austerity programmes introduced since the crisis, he believed that "it has been a tremendous propaganda victory of governments to make us believe that austerity has reached its limits". He further added that "While we maintain that the Euro-zone will not break up, we are less optimistic on the pace of crisis resolution. Reform efforts are likely to be slow given the challenging economic backdrop and 'austerity fatigue'. As a result, we expect a continuation of the 'muddle-through' approach to crisis resolution, with growth in Europe remaining subdued for several years". He argued that Spanish youth unemployment was not due to austerity and instead could be solved by "changing trade union laws" as they were keeping labour markets closed.
ECB quantitative easing In December 2013, Folkerts-Landau advocated the ECB engage in "genuine quantitative easing" given that he predicted growth in the euro zone to be low "pretty much as far as the eye can see,". The view was controversial as the Germany’s central bank had earlier opposed the ECB's conditional bond purchase plan. In an interview with Welt Online also in April 2014, he recognised that as with other ECB programmes such as OMT (
Outright Monetary Transactions), which was never used by the ECB, "The decision of the central bank to talk about QE, perhaps even ensures that you never have to use it.". The ECB announced
quantitative easing in January 2015.
Russia and Ukraine In April 2014, in the context of
Russian involvement with Ukraine, Folkerts-Landau stated that "unlike many investors, I believe that Putin is ready to take these economic costs [of sanctions] in order to boost the geopolitical weight of Russia and secure the Russian influence in the region [by annexing eastern Ukraine] . This should lead to growing geopolitical uncertainty and at the end also to growing economic instability" reported that he had criticised the economic arguments for Scottish independence. In September 2014, Folkerts-Landau also wrote a critical analysis of the prospects of Scottish independence, saying a Yes vote would go down in history as "a political and economic mistake" which was indirectly quoted by former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown.
Grexit In 2010 Folkerts-Landau predicted that the Euro-zone would survive the debt crisis. "We believe that the Euro-zone will survive this current crisis. (…) [T]here is no way the political and financial leadership of the core Euro-zone countries are going to sacrifice the whole single currency project over a default by Greece or Portugal". On 19 June 2015, Folkerts-Landau predicted that in relation to
Greece receiving funding from the Brussels group before the end of the month there was a "60 percent probability of no deal , [which would be] followed by capital controls". After the "No" vote at the 5 July 2015 referendum, while recognising that odds of Grexit had risen materially, Folkerts-Landau wrote: "we continue to see Greece staying in the euro as marginally more likely, not least because the majority of Greeks prefer so". == Controversies ==