The European Central Bank should open its doors to economists from outside the European Union, according to an external audit of its research operations. “The central banking world has become increasingly global and competitive, with many central banks hiring economists who are not citizens of their own country,” says the report published on the ECB’s website.

Currently, the ECB only employs citizens of the 27 EU countries. That means it employs, for instance, Brits and Swedes (even though their countries are outside the eurozone), but not Americans (although there are possibilities to bring in outsiders on exchange trips). “The ECB should also hire citizens of other countries in the same way that central banks of many other countries are prepared to hire EU citizens,” the report says.

It is hard to see how the ECB could object to such an idea. Read more

“We are in the midst of a turning point in German economic history,” writes Andreas Rees, economist at Unicredit in Munich, southern Germany, somewhat grandly, in a research note issued on Thursday. On his calculations, German companies shipped more to China in December than to the US.

The rising relative importance of China as an export destination for Europe’s largest economy has been one of the features of the post-Lehman world. By the end of last year, China (including Hong Kong) was Germany’s third biggest export market after France and the Netherlands, according to Unicredit. Read more