• Yesterday Financial Times had an interesting article on new migration wave coming after EU enlargement in 2007 into Romania and Bulgaria. It is now clear that countries that allowed free movement of labour after 2004 enlargement are winners (UK, Ireland). In new EU members many people left (estimated at as high as 5-10% of the labor force in some smaller countries) raising potential output in host countries. This time around the wage differencial is even bigger, and since-2004 members may also witness labor inflows (in construction sector in particular) from since-2007 members.
  • Today Financial Times published an article showing that the value of euro notes in circulation exceeded that od US dollars. It took almost hundred years for dollar to dwarf British pound (Swiss franc,  German mark) and it took only five years for euro notes to dwarf dollar notes. I personally believe that euro dominance will last some 20-30 years and it will be dwarfed by asian – the common currency of ASEAN+3. Of course dollar is still the king when it comes to global reserve currency ranking, see the recent BIS report .