Economic View: Let's not get excited, but if the big three keep on bringing in the bacon, the Government will be able to get the deficit down

It is a funny time in Italy. On paper the country's economy has now shrunk for seven consecutive quarters, making it the longest recession since the Second World War, and leaving it some 8 per cent below the peak reached in 2007.

So the share price of Lloyds Bank has just about squeaked above the level where the taxpayers start to make a profit on our involuntary investment.

Economic View: The markets conclude that this news is so bad the ECB will have to find ways of injecting new demand into the eurozone

Economic View

Preserving Britain's access to the European Single Market is cited as one of the main reasons for continued membership of the EU – the single market essentially being the market for services, which has developed much more recently than the single market for goods.

Economic View: If a company's share price is strong it has options: it does not have to rely on recalcitrant banks for a loan

Economic View: Confidence is an odd thing. Share prices are as much a measure of confidence as a driver of it

Economic View

Anyone seeking a magic formula for stock market investment will be intrigued by the study in Nature Publishing's Scientific Reports by three academics, Tobias Preis, of Warwick Business School, Helen Susannah Moat, of University College London, and H Eugene Stanley, of Boston University.

Economic View: Apply the buy/sell rule to equities over the past 40 years and you would have spent 2000 to 2008 outside the market

Economic View

There will be a lot of attention in the coming weeks to what the new Governor of the Bank of England will or won't do, and there is a danger that expectations will be too high – not so much of him but of the role of central banks in an advanced economy.

Economic View: If the German economy were to falter, we would have the makings of a catastrophe on our doorstep

One of the puzzles of the past year is how British consumers have managed to keep increasing their spending despite the continuing squeeze on their incomes and without further running down savings – rather the reverse.