Who stands for freedom?
We desperately need free markets, but that means, above all, markets that are free from the stranglehold of monopoly and monopsony.
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How not to fight inflation
Anyone with any faith in the market economy knew that the supply issues would be resolved eventually; but no one could possibly know when.
All Pain and No Gain from Higher Interest Rates
In the name of taming inflation, central banks have set themselves on a path to cause a recession.
America's Silent Progressive Majority
It is not left-wing extremism to note that the American economy has not been serving most Americans
Wars aren’t won with peacetime economies
Politically, the G7 and like-minded countries around the world have adopted a war footing to stop Russian aggression.
How the US could lose the new cold war
The United States appears to have entered a new cold war with both China and Russia.
Getting Deglobalisation Right
The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) first meeting in more than two years was markedly different from the many previous Davos conferences.
IMF’s Unfinished Business
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is showing promising signs of changing with the times.
Argentina’s Covid Miracle
Although Covid-19 has been hard on everyone, it has not been an “equal opportunity” disease.
Brazil’s pioneering solution to vaccine shortages
The World Trade Organization was supposed to meet this week to consider a proposal that has been languishing for the past year:
A coup attempt at the IMF
Moves are afoot to replace or at least greatly weaken Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since 2019.
Getting finance onside for climate
The world has finally awoken to the existential imperative of securing a rapid transition to a green economy.
How Biden can restore multilateralism unilaterally
There is so much to celebrate with the new year. The arrival of safe, effective Covid-19 vaccines means that there is light at the end of the pandemic tunnel (though the next few months will be horrific). Equally important, America’s mendacious, incompetent, mean-spirited president will be replaced by his polar opposite: a man of decency, honesty, and professionalism.
Has Davos Man Changed?
This year marked the 50th anniversary of the World Economic Forum’s flagship meeting of the world’s business and political elites in Davos, Switzerland. Much has changed since my first Davos in 1995.
The truth about the Trump economy
As the world’s business elites trek to Davos for their annual gathering, people should be asking a simple question: have they overcome their infatuation with US President Donald Trump?
Argentina’s bright young hope
Judging by his appointment of a first-rate economist to his cabinet as Minister of Economy, Argentina’s new president, Alberto Fernández, is off to a good start in confronting his country’s economic problems.
Is Growth Passé?
It’s clear: we are living beyond our planet’s limits. Unless we change something, the consequences will be dire. Should that something be our exclusive focus on economic growth?
Is stakeholder capitalism really back?
For four decades, the prevailing doctrine in the United States has been that corporations should maximise shareholder value—meaning profits and share prices—here and now, come what may, regardless of the consequences to workers, customers, suppliers, and
After Neoliberalism
What kind of economic system is most conducive to human wellbeing? That question has come to define the current era, because, after 40 years of neoliberalism in the United States and other advanced economies, we know what doesn’t work.
Trump's most worrisome legacy
Kirstjen Nielsen's forced resignation as US Secretary of Homeland Security is no reason to celebrate. Yes, she presided over the forced separation of families at the US border, notoriously housing young children in wire cages.
How can we tax footloose multinationals?
In the last few years, globalisation has come under renewed attack. Some of the criticisms may be misplaced, but one is spot on: globalisation has enabled large multinationals, like Apple, Google, and Starbucks, to avoid paying tax.
From Yellow Vests to the Green New Deal
It's old news that large segments of society have become deeply unhappy with what they see as “the establishment”, especially the political class. The “Yellow Vest” protests in France, triggered by President Emmanuel Macron's move to hike fuel taxes in the name of combating climate change, are but the latest example of the scale of this alienation.
Beyond GDP
Just under 10 years ago, the International Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress issued its report “Mismeasuring Our Lives
People vs money in America's midterm elections
All eyes are on the United States as November's Congressional elections approach. The outcome will answer many alarming questions raised two years ago, when Donald Trump won the presidential election.
The myth of 'secular stagnation'
In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, some economists argued that the United States, and perhaps the global economy, was suffering from “secular stagnation,”
The US is at risk of losing a trade war with China
What was at first a trade skirmish—with US President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum—appears to be quickly morphing into a full-scale trade war with China.
Trump's trade confusion
The trade skirmish between the United States and China on steel, aluminium, and other goods is a product of US President Donald Trump's scorn for multilateral trade arrangements and the World Trade Organization, an institution that was created to adjudicate trade disputes.
When shall we overcome?
In 1967, riots erupted in cities throughout the United States, from Newark, New Jersey, to Detroit and Minneapolis in the Midwest—all two years after the Watts neighbourhood of Los Angeles exploded in violence. In response, President Lyndon B Johnson appointed a commission, headed by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, to investigate the causes and propose measures to address them.
Post-Davos Depression
I have been attending the World Economic Forum's annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, where the so-called global elite convenes to discuss the world's problems, since 1995.
The US Donor Relief Act of 2017
Never has a piece of legislation labelled as both a tax cut and a reform been received with as much disapproval and derision as the bill passed by the US Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump just before Christmas.
The global economy's risky recovery
A year ago, I predicted that the most distinctive aspect of 2017 would be uncertainty, fueled by, among other things, Donald Trump's election as president in the United States and the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union.
The globalisation of our discontent
Fifteen years ago, I published Globalization and Its Discontents, a book that sought to explain why there was so much dissatisfaction with globalisation within the developing countries.
Has Trump captured the Fed?
One of the important powers of any US president is to appoint members and heads of the many agencies that are responsible for implementing the country's laws and regulations and, in many cases, governing the economy.
Why tax cuts for the rich solve nothing
Although America's right-wing plutocrats may disagree about how to rank the country's major problems—for example, inequality, slow growth, low productivity, opioid addiction, poor schools, and deteriorating infrastructure—the solution is always the same: lower taxes and deregulation, to “incentivise” investors and “free up” the economy.
Trump and the truth about climate change
Under President Donald Trump's leadership, the United States took another major step toward establishing itself as a rogue state on June 1, when it withdrew from the Paris climate agreement. For years, Trump has indulged the strange conspiracy theory that, as he put it in 2012, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.” But this was not the reason Trump advanced for withdrawing the US from the Paris accord. Rather, the agreement, he alleged, was bad for the US and implicitly unfair to it.
Trump's Rogue America
Donald Trump has thrown a hand grenade into the global economic architecture that was so painstakingly constructed in the years
Lessons from the anti-globalists
The likely victory of Emmanuel Macron in the French presidential election has elicited a global sigh of relief.
Illiberal stagnation
Today, a quarter-century after the Cold War's end, the West and Russia are again at odds. This time, though, at least on one side, the
How to survive the Trump era
Trump sees the world in terms of a zero-sum game. In reality, globalisation, if well managed, is a positive-sum force: America gains if its friends and allies — whether Australia, the EU, or Mexico — are stronger. But Trump's approach threatens to turn it into a negative-sum game: America will lose, too.
Trumpian uncertainty
Donald Trump grasped the spirit of the time: things weren't going well, and many voters wanted change. Now they will get it: there will be no business as usual. But seldom has there been more uncertainty. Which policies Trump will pursue remains unknown, to say nothing of which will succeed or what the consequences will be.
The Age of Trump
On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. I would hate to say “I told you so,”
What America's economy needs from Trump
The problems posed by the disaffected Americans – resulting from decades of neglect – will not be solved quickly or by conventional tools. An effective strategy will need to consider more unconventional solutions, which Republican corporate interests are unlikely to favour.
Why Trump?
Change entails risk. But the Trump phenomenon – and more than a few similar political developments in Europe – has revealed the far greater risks entailed by failing to heed this message.
A better economic plan for Japan
It's been a quarter-century since Japan's asset bubble burst – and a quarter-century of malaise as one “lost decade” has followed another.
Reform or divorce in Europe
In response to asymmetric shocks and divergences in productivity, there would have to be adjustments in the real (inflation-adjusted) exchange rate, meaning that prices in the eurozone periphery would have to fall relative to Germany and northern Europe.
Globalisation and its new discontents
The failure of globalisation to deliver on the promises of mainstream politicians has surely undermined trust and confidence in the “establishment.” And governments' offers of generous bailouts for the banks that had brought on the 2008 financial crisis, while leaving ordinary citizens largely to fend for themselves, reinforced the view that this failure was not merely a matter of economic misjudgments.
Monopoly's New Era
For 200 years, there have been two schools of thought about what determines the distribution of income – and how the economy functions.
What's wrong with negative rates?
I wrote at the beginning of January that economic conditions this year were set to be as weak as in 2015, which was the worst year
March 20, 2016
The New Generation Gap
SOMETHING interesting has emerged in voting patterns on both sides of the Atlantic: Young people are voting in ways that are
January 27, 2016
Sri Lanka's Rebirth
Sri Lanka is fortunate to have a low level of urbanisation today; but this is likely to change in the next two decades. This gives the country the opportunity to create model cities, based on the adequate provision of public services and sound public transport and attuned to the cost of carbon and climate change.
January 10, 2016
The New Geo-Economics
Last year was a memorable one for the global economy. Not only was overall performance disappointing, but profound changes – both for better and for worse – occurred in the global economic system.
January 1, 2016
The great malaise continues
Former US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke once said that the world is suffering from a “savings glut.”
December 11, 2015
When inequality kills
It is perhaps true that unhealthy habits are more concentrated among poor Americans, a disproportionate number of whom are black. But these habits themselves are a consequence of economic conditions, not to mention the stresses of racism.
September 13, 2015
Fed up with the Fed
At the end of every August, central bankers and financiers from around the world meet in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the US Federal Reserve's economic symposium. This year, the participants were greeted by a large group of mostly young people, including many African- and Hispanic Americans.
August 14, 2015
America in the Way
The third Interna-tional Conference on Financing for Development recently convened in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.
July 1, 2015
Europe's attack on Greek democracy
The rising crescendo of bickering and acrimony within Europe might seem to outsiders to be the inevitable result of the bitter endgame playing out between Greece and its creditors.
June 10, 2015
EUROPE'S LAST ACT?
The future of Europe and the euro now depends on whether the eurozone's political leaders can combine a modicum of economic understanding with a visionary sense of, and concern for, European solidarity.
April 19, 2015
Asia's Multilateralism
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are poised to hold their annual meetings, but the big news in global economic
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