Heleen Mees

A speculative bubble in the housing market comes with Dutch disease-like symptoms. 

Using a dataset that covers 5 decades (1960–2009), we show that the main determinants of China's household savings rate are disposable income (measured by its reciprocal) and the old-age dependency rate. The income growth rate and young age dependency rate have a limited role. Our findings support the Keynesian saving hypothesis instead of Modigliani’s life cycle hypothesis, although precautionary saving motives are also important. We don’t find evidence that China's one-child policy or low interest rate drives the household savings rate. Both the sex ratio and the interest rate prove not significant. We show that the household saving curve is neither u-shaped nor hump-shaped, but positively sloped.

Using a dataset that covers 5 decades (1960–2009), we show that the main determinants of China's household savings rate are disposable income (measured by its reciprocal) and the old-age dependency rate. The income growth rate and young age dependency rate have a limited role. Our findings support the Keynesian saving hypothesis instead of Modigliani’s life cycle hypothesis, although precautionary saving motives are also important. We don’t find evidence that China's one-child policy or low interest rate drives the household savings rate. Both the sex ratio and the interest rate prove not significant. We show that the household saving curve is neither u-shaped nor hump-shaped, but positively sloped.

CHANGING FORTUNES - HOW CHINA’S BOOM CAUSED THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

Since the financial crisis in 2008 and the ensuing economic recession that rocked the world economy, plenty of blame has been going around. The chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, specifically singled out subprime mortgages and the Wall Street bankers that sold those mortgages. In bureaucratic jargon it is often dubbed a regulatory oversight failure. This study, however, shows that the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy at the start of the new millennium triggered the U.S. refinancing boom in 2003 and 2004, spurring personal consumption expenditures through home equity extraction. The U.S. spending binge boosted economic growth and savings in China and oil-exporting nations. The build-up of savings in China, which are heavily skewed towards fixed income assets, depressed interest rates worldwide from 2004 on. The decline in long-term interest rates accounts for the U.S. housing boom. Despite popular belief, the proliferation of exotic mortgage products can hardly be faulted for the U.S. housing boom and eventual bust.

Through innovation, moderation, and sheer hard work, Germany turned itself from the sick man of Europe at the end of the 1990s into one of the few Western economies that seems truly globalization-proof. Now Berlin has an opportunity to use its newfound economic leadership to rescue its neighbors from the worst of the euro crisis.

The immediate cause of the housing bubbles in the United States and the eurozone periphery was not regulatory oversight failure, but the precipitous drop in interest rates in the early 2000s. Without China's rise, China and other emerging economies' savings would not have depressed long-term interest rates worldwide. 

Are the Chinese prone to money illusion? This column uses a unique Chinese dataset and finds that, unlike their American counterparts, Chinese people are more likely to base decisions on the real value and not be fooled by inflation.

For decades, Americans have looked to monetary policy as an engine of economic growth -- and suffered the dire consequences.

With the US economy still faltering, some are suggesting it may be time for a third round of quantitative easing. This column explores the transmission mechanism of monetary policy and how it has broken down in recent years. It argues that, in this climate, the Fed would be wise to avoid another bond-buying programme.

Is U.S. easy monetary policy in the early 2000s to blame for the global saving glut? This column argues that the Federal Reserve’s policy triggered the refinancing boom and ensuing spending spree, which spurred economic growth and savings in China. The prolonged decline in long-term interest rates in the mid-2000s is largely to blame for the housing boom in the United States.

We demonstrate that the data generating process (DGP) of China’s cumulated quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP, current prices), as it is reported by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, can be (very closely) approximated by a simple rule. This rule is that annual growth in any quarter is equal to annual growth in its previous quarter plus an error term that is only nonzero in the first quarter of each year and with small variance. We show that this rule fits the data for 1992Q1 to 2005Q4 well, for total GDP as well for its three sector-specific components. It also gives accurate forecasts for 2006Q1 to 2009Q4. We also study the time series properties of GDP growth in constant prices, and show that these series behave as random walks, with much larger error variance.

There is little dispute that global imbalances in trade and capital flows are at least partly to blame for the financial crisis and ensuing recession that have rocked the world economy since 2008. But not all imbalances are created equal, so it is important to weigh the consequences of individual countries’ external accounts for global economic stability and prosperity.

In his essay “Warming to the European way” (May 2), Russell Shorto sounds the praises of the Dutch welfare state. However, the Dutch welfare state isn’t as beneficial to low-skilled immigrants as it is to high-skilled workers like Mr. Shorto. In fact, it has suffocated the large group of non-Western immigrants who came to the Netherlands over the past decades to seek their fortune.

Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Western world is hit by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Nothing is left of the triumphalism that was so dominant in the West. The crisis will have profound consequences not only when it comes to the value of the assets of individuals and corporations, but also for the balance of global power.

Between Greed and Desire is a selection of columnist Heleen Mees’ work. With her sharp pen she warns of the emergence of authoritarian regimes like China and Russia and the role that excessive executive remuneration plays in the emergence of speculative bubbles in financial markets. Mees calls for the European welfare state to be transformed into an opportunity-based society similar to that of New York.

Truth is often said to be the first casualty in wartime.  But if the real truth is told, it is women who are the first casualties. In conflict zones, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF recently observed, sexual violence usually spreads like an epidemic. Whether it is civil war, pogroms, or other armed conflicts, all too often women’s bodies become part of the battlefield. The victims of large-scale sexual atrocities range from baby girls to old women.

Working women throughout the world have long complained of the unfairness implied by lower pay than what men receive. But the wage disparity between men and women is more than unjust. It is also economically harmful.

About women, ambition and career

More than half a century after the publication of Simone de Beauvoirs feminist handbook, women in the Netherlands is still the second sex. Along with Pakistan, the country where gang rape to this day is seen as an acceptable punishment for a woman who is accused of adultery, occupied Netherlands the last place on an international ranking when it comes to women in the top of the business.

According Heleen Mees, including a much-discussed columnist for NRC Handelsblad, the Dutch earner model a treacherous mixture of traditional gender roles laced with a touch of feminism. Women who drink the cup is handed to the bottom blank. In her columns Mees kicks against sacred cows like fertility, lactation and the old boys' network. Not only must men in the eyes of Mees bit more care to take, should also view real women get top jobs. Stop household.
Women on top!

Down with feminism in time! the most urgent of Mees' columns about women, ambition and work together. The book sheds new light on the ruthless ostensibly completed the emancipation of women, which the author does not hesitate to hit us over the head with confrontational facts and statistics. We're not there yet! An eye-opener for women and men.

"Women aged 20 to 30 occurred en masse to join the labor market, throw themselves wholeheartedly to their work, then - once they become pregnant - their economic independence indiscriminately to give up."

"It earner model is a myth: in reality the woman is not wearing more than one fifth of the household income."

"Men can also develop maternal instinct, as they have the opportunity to care for their child."

Black Friday in the United States traditionally is the day after Thanksgiving that signals the start of the holiday season sale. At daybreak, people line up before department stores to get the special “early bird” bargains. In Europe, black Saturday falls in the last weekend of July, when the French and other Europeans set off in droves for their Mediterranean holiday destinations, and highways get jammed with traffic.