News & Commentary:

Articles/Commentary

Challenging times lie ahead for the eurozone
FT View Jan 1, 2019
Stronger tools are needed to ensure success in the event of a new crisis.

Only nimble investors can tackle the trade war threat
Karen Ward (FT) Jan 1, 2019
Portfolios can be tweaked to improve resilience but no single strategy will work.

The Fed should seize blockchain’s potential
Eswar Prasad (FT) Jan 1, 2019
Central banks must embrace new financial technologies to boost market stability.

The future might not belong to China
Martin Wolf (FT) Jan 1, 2019
Replicating the success of other high-growth economies is about to become far harder.

Investors Are Still Cautiously Optimistic About 2019. But Here’s What Could Go Wrong.
Peter Eavis and Guilbert Gates (NYT) Jan 1, 2019
After an unexpectedly bad year for the stock market, investors are eager for clues about what 2019 will bring.

The Fed’s Obama-Era Hangover
Phil Gramm and Thomas R. Saving (WSJ) Jan 1, 2019
By paying banks not to lend, the central bank diminished its ability to control interest rates.

Five Doom Loops to Navigate in 2019
Satyajit Das (Bloomberg View) Jan 1, 2019
Be prepared for the appearance of negative feedback cycles in markets as global monetary stimulus is withdrawn.

Welcome to the World’s Least Ugly Economy
Michael Hirsh (FP) Jan 1, 2019
Despite inequality, debt, and a tariff war, the U.S. economy is still the strongest.

How a World Order Ends
Richard Haass (FA) Jan 1, 2019
And what comes in its wake.

The Free-Trade Paradox
Alan S. Blinder (FA) Jan 1, 2019
The bad politics of a good idea.

Snake-Oil Economics
N. Gregory Mankiw (FA) Jan 1, 2019
The bad math behind Trump’s policies.

The Stealth Superpower
Oriana Skylar Mastro (FA) Jan 1, 2019
How China hid its global ambitions.

Shareholders are being dethroned as rulers of value
John Plender (FT) Jan 2, 2019
More investors emphasise social and governance factors in corporate performance.

The new year could mark the beginning of a new(ish) century
Frederick Studemann (FT) Jan 2, 2019
Historians are divided on where ages begin and end: how will they assess this one?

US stock market exceptionalism should survive in 2019
Joachim Fels (FT) Jan 2, 2019
There are reasons for thinking US equities could still outperform this year despite headwinds.

The politics of tax are as complex as the system
Gavin Kelly (FT) Jan 2, 2019
Politicians have made bodges and choices that now weigh on attempts to raise revenue.

The fastest growers and biggest shrinkers of 2019
Economist Jan 2, 2019
Economic forecasts for the coming year.

The Trump administration is weakening the global trading system
Economist Jan 2, 2019
As the revised Trans-Pacific Partnership comes into force, multilateralism seems to be giving way to preferential trade deals

New Data on Global Debt
Samba Mbaye and Marialuz Moreno Badia (IMF) Jan 2, 2019
Until recently, we had a partial view of global debt. Our new update to the IMF’s Global Debt Database, first made public in May 2018, now fills even more of the gaps. We have compiled data on public and private debt for 190 countries, dating back to 1950, which now includes the latest numbers for 2017.

Power projection, economic resilience, domestic discontent
Alex Kruglov (AT) Jan 2, 2019
Moscow continues to make news internationally, but there are rumblings against Putin at home for the first time in his 18 years in office.

China’s Interesting Future, in 2019
Tom Clifford (Globalist) Jan 2, 2019
If China has a problem, so does the global economy.

The Hidden Decline in Human Capital—and the Danger Ahead
Peter Temin (INET) Jan 2, 2019
U.S. GDP accounting underestimates intangible capital, overstates financial capital, and is all but oblivious to the the erosion of human and social capital. A serious growth slowdown is coming.

No One Is Ready for a No-Deal Brexit
Bloomberg View Jan 2, 2019
By pretending to prepare for calamity, the government is deluding itself — and its citizens.

This Bond Giant Still Has $15 Billion to Play With
Marcus Ashworth (Bloomberg View) Jan 2, 2019
The ECB’s mammoth corporate debt-buying program is ending net new purchases. But it may have 1 billion euros a month to reinvest this year.

A Bad Loan Farce Gets Another Rerun in India
Andy Mukherjee (Bloomberg View) Jan 2, 2019
The risky punchline to the central bank’s latest policy flip-flop would be a return to a tycoon-friendly debtor regime.

Markets Are Signaling Higher Odds of a 2019 Recession
Komal S Sri-Kumar (Bloomberg View) Jan 2, 2019
The acceleration in the timing of a downturn is reinforced by the speed with which financial assets have slumped.

Yield Curve Tells the Fed to Hold on Rates
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jan 2, 2019
If this keeps up, a key recession warning indicator soon will be flashing red.

The U.S. Needs to Continue to Lead Global Growth
Mohamed Aly El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jan 2, 2019
America still has the capacity to be the world’s engine room, but only if the administration and Congress stop their sabotage.

Europe's New Bank Sheriff Isn't Hanging Around
Elisa Martinuzzi (Bloomberg View) Jan 2, 2019
A day into his new job, Andrea Enria is moving to avert any more damage to investor confidence in Italian banks.

China’s Malign Secrecy
Ricardo Hausmann (Project Syndicate) Jan 2, 2019
In principle, China’s massive savings, infrastructure know-how, and willingness to lend could be great for developing economies. Alas, as many countries have learned the hard way, Chinese development finance often delivers a corruption-filled sugar high to the economy, followed by a nasty financial (and sometimes political) hangover.

Dirty Populists
Janine R. Wedel (Project Syndicate) Jan 2, 2019
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro joins the growing ranks of leaders – including America's Donald Trump, Hungary's Viktor Orbán, and Poland's Jaroslaw Kaczynski – who won power by vowing to end systemic corruption. But he is likely to join them in enabling much more of it.

A Makeover for Chinese Macroeconomic Policy
Yu Yongding (Project Syndicate) Jan 2, 2019
While China is not about to recapture double-digit GDP growth, that does not imply economic catastrophe. After four decades of rapid growth, a slowdown was inevitable, and if China readjusts its macroeconomic policy stance, it can prevent that slowdown from being excessively sharp.

Testing the resilience of Europe’s inclusive growth model
Jacques Bughin and Christopher Pissarides (VoxEU) Jan 2, 2019
Europe’s social contracts to protect their citizens from socioeconomic risks are based on an inclusive growth model characterised by a more egalitarian view of revenue generation and distribution. But this model is under strain, with various global placing upward pressure on inequality that could intensify. This column suggests that keeping the essence of Europe’s current inclusive growth model does not preclude it from adapting its current social contracts to protect its citizens, whatever the disruptions that lie ahead.

Technological progress may be changing what we learn and how we trade
Laura Veldkamp and Maryam Farboodi (VoxEU) Jan 2, 2019
Technological change is making it possible to process more and more information. This column looks at the implications of this for trading strategies. It finds that growth in the amount of data investors can process is a logical and predictable cause of a shift from fundamentals-based to order flow-based strategies.

Labour’s ambiguous Brexit stance is now untenable
John McTernan (FT) Jan 3, 2019
Supporters prize Jeremy Corbyn’s authenticity, but oppose his hostility to the EU.

Europe urgently needs stronger banks
Josef Ackermann (FT) Jan 3, 2019
In a volatile world, the region must make the capital markets business a priority.

The trade war with America is a strategic gift for China
Keyu Jin (FT) Jan 3, 2019
Beijing’s worst nightmare would be a visionary US president with convening power.

Abe’s harpoon hits the wrong target
Philip Stephens (FT) Jan 3, 2019
The Japanese prime minister is, in effect, saying he wants multilateralism à la carte.

Demand worries suddenly get real for oil market
David Sheppard (FT) Jan 3, 2019
Traders are having to pay close attention to US and Chinese economic data.

New Year yen drama suggests tumult before tranquillity
Leo Lewis (FT) Jan 3, 2019
A ‘flash crash’ may herald an end to sideways trading in Japan’s currency.

The danger of unchecked power and other lessons from Versailles
Simon Kuper (FT) Jan 3, 2019
We may be returning to the primitive multilateralism of 1919, when three men in a room made decisions for the whole world.

Brexit will test the resilience of the British economy
Chris Giles (FT) Jan 3, 2019
But uncertainty over how Britain leaves the EU will not be enough to cause a downturn.

Last Month, Investors Seemed Too Pessimistic. Now, They Seem Prescient.
Peter Eavis and Binyamin Appelbaum (NYT) Jan 3, 2019
Revenue warnings from Apple and Delta Air Lines and weaker manufacturing data suggest that the economy and corporate profits are slowing more than expected.

What Should You Do About a Falling Stock Market? Nothing
Neil Irwin (NYT) Jan 4, 2019
If you had a perfect ability to predict how far the market would fall and when it would bottom out, it would make sense to move money in and out. But you do not.

The iPhone Canary
WSJ Jan 3, 2019
Apple’s sales plunge shows the need for a U.S.-China trade deal.

Italy’s ‘Doom Loops,’ Imagined and Real
Joseph C. Sternberg (WSJ) Jan 3, 2019
The financial system isn’t about to collapse. But the nation’s economy faces a death spiral.

China’s economic slowdown will be a major challenge. Trump should tread wisely.
WP Jan 3, 2019
But it will take international cooperation and a disciplined focus on legitimate trade complaints, not the bilateral trade imbalance.

The specter of deflation is haunting risk markets
David P. Goldman (AT) Jan 3, 2019
Expect the Federal Reserve to hold off on rate hikes as fear of a financial crisis grows.

‘Frosty Boy’, the rural poor and China’s push to eliminate poverty
Gordon Watts (AT) Jan 3, 2019
The country’s economic miracle has lifted millions of people out of ‘poverty in rural areas’ but critics say more should be done.

The Deteriorating US Economy
Robert J. Shapiro (Globalist) Jan 3, 2019
Economists cannot say with precision when the next U.S. recession will begin. But there is no reasonable doubt that the U.S. economy will weaken in 2019.

Super-Low Bond Yields Won't Be Here for Long
Marcus Ashworth (Bloomberg View) Jan 3, 2019
Risk-averse investors have been piling into high-quality debt. Expect a flood of issuance from money-hungry European governments as a result.

Venezuela’s Lessons for American Socialists
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jan 3, 2019
There may be a right way to do socialism, but this sure isn’t it.

The Yen-Inspired 'Flash-Crash' Is an Ugly Omen
Marcus Ashworth (Bloomberg View) Jan 3, 2019
The currency’s surge isn’t just about thin liquidity. A weakening dollar and yuan make the BoJ’s efforts to lessen the yen’s appeal look pretty futile.

Here’s How Powell Regains Control of the Fed’s Narrative
Mohamed Aly El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jan 3, 2019
He must re-establish the central bank as a source of market stability, not volatility.

Africa’s Philanthropic Potential
Carl Manlan (Project Syndicate) Jan 3, 2019
If every African with the means contributed a dollar a month for a year to pool their own resources, the continent could move from charity case to wealth creator. But to achieve this shift, Africa’s philanthropic infrastructure will first need to be strengthened – and in some cases built.

Hard Brexit Truths
Bill Emmott (Project Syndicate) Jan 3, 2019
Though UK Prime Minister Theresa May has struck a Brexit deal with the EU, the chances that it will gain parliamentary approval on January 14 seem vanishingly slim. Instead, the UK increasingly seems to be facing a choice between two extremes, each of which would likely involve another referendum.

AI for Human Development
Michael Chui and Martin Harrysson (Project Syndicate) Jan 3, 2019
Technologies powered by artificial intelligence are being applied to some of the world’s most challenging human-development issues. But while AI has considerable potential to serve the public good, key bottlenecks – from education to risk reduction – must be overcome.

Intergenerational mobility in the US
Juan C. Palomino, Gustavo A. Marrero and Juan Gabriel Rodríguez (VoxEU) Jan 3, 2019
The American Dream is grounded in the US being the land of opportunities, but real opportunity requires mobility across generations. This column examines the influence of parents’ income on the income of their children in the US for the period 1980-2010. Parental income has a greater influence, implying lower levels of mobility, for families with the highest and lowest levels of income. Education also plays a stronger role in economic persistence at both tails of the income distribution, while race affects mobility in the middle and lower parts of the distribution.

Urban planning and town foundations
Alexandra L. Cermeño and Kerstin Enflo (VoxEU) Jan 3, 2019
Urban growth is crucial for modernisation, and the wave of new towns in China since the 1980s is one example of a strategy employed by policymakers to encourage the process. This column analyses the long-run success of a town foundation policy in Sweden between 1570 and 1810. While the ‘artificially’ created towns failed to grow in the short term, they eventually began to grow and thrive, and today are as resilient as their medieval counterparts.

The Five Paradoxes of Brexit
David De Cremer (EFR) Jan 3, 2019
Brexit – despite all the promises made – is not necessarily about creating a better economic future for the country but rather reflects a type of identity negotiation. The author discusses UK’s decision to turn away from the EU and how some expected positive outcomes do not necessarily come into reality – resulting into paradoxes.

Will Machine Learning Transform Finance?
Charles Elkan (Yale Insights) Jan 3, 2019
Data may well be the natural resource that defines this century. If so, effective application of machine learning can extract its value. Charles Elkan, Goldman Sachs’ global head of machine learning, offers context and implications for finance.

Time to Press Pause? Financial Conditions & the FOMC
Jay Bryson, Sarah House and Shannon Seery (WF) Jan 3, 2019
Financial conditions have tightened in recent months, prompting speculation that the FOMC may need to alter its current expectation of raising the fed funds rate two more times this year. While the Chicago Fed's National Financial Conditions Index increased 13 bps between the FOMC's September and December meetings, financial conditions are easier today than when the FOMC began raising rates in December 2015. So is the FOMC likely to look through the recent moves?

Investors must rely on political common sense
FT View Jan 4, 2019
Economic fundamentals are vulnerable to poor policymaking.

The central issue to falling share values
John Redwood (FT) Jan 4, 2019
Monetary tightening has hit markets hard, along with rising interest rates.

Better late than never, Chairman Powell
Gavyn Davies (FT) Jan 4, 2019
Federal Reserve chief indicates the rate pause that could have come in December.

Nervous markets: how vulnerable is China’s economy?
Gabriel Wildau and Sam Fleming (FT) Jan 4, 2019
As an economic slowdown rattles investors around the world, unlike in 2008, Beijing has less room to launch a new stimulus.

This Expert Called the Market Plunge. Here’s What He Sees in 2019.
James B. Stewart (NYT) Jan 4, 2019
Market watchers are divided on whether the current slump will be prolonged or a blip, and history doesn’t offer a clear answer. Expect turbulence.

Getting to grips with the China syndrome
Gordon Watts (AT) Jan 4, 2019
Hopes of a breakthrough in the US trade war and upbeat economic data pierce the market gloom.

Asia stumbles into year of the currency war
William Pesek (AT) Jan 4, 2019
As the trade battle comes up short, US President Donald Trump is ramping up the next theater of conflict in the dispute with China.

Banks' Emerging-Market Boom Leaves a Grim Legacy
Lionel Laurent (Bloomberg View) Jan 4, 2019
Lenders piled into Africa and Asia after the financial crisis. The cost of some of their deals is now becoming apparent.

Saudi Arabia’s Great Run Seems Headed for Trouble
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jan 4, 2019
Falling oil revenue, a restive young population and climate change will make a volatile mix.

Italy Can't Live Without Its 'Naughty' Bankers
Ferdinando Giugliano (Bloomberg View) Jan 4, 2019
The populists promised to stop giving money to banks and protect investors. But the plight of Carige shows this is pretty much impossible.

Boomer Retirements Will Blunt the Next Recession
Conor Sen (Bloomberg View) Jan 4, 2019
Millennials may not even notice a downturn that eliminates jobs, because workers over 55 would be retiring in droves at the same moment.

Central Bankers’ Fiscal Constraints
Kenneth Rogoff (Project Syndicate) Jan 4, 2019
With policy interest rates near zero in most advanced economies (and just above 2% even in the fast-growing US), there is little room for monetary policy to maneuver in a recession without considerable creativity. But those who think fiscal policy alone will save the day are stupefyingly naive.

A Year to Act
Ian Goldin and Robert Muggah (Project Syndicate) Jan 4, 2019
It has been 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and despite significant progress toward improving life expectancy and boosting incomes around the world, divisions within and between societies are deepening. Without a new paradigm for managing globalization, fragmentation and political despair will become the new normal.

Europe’s Future Is Up to Us
Michel Barnier (Project Syndicate) Jan 4, 2019
As 2019 begins, many in the Europe Union are no doubt feeling a sense of despair in the face of mounting environmental, economic, and political threats. But by focusing on four key priorities in the coming year, EU leaders could start to put the European project back on track.

The gains from economic integration in the EU
David Comerford and Sevi Rodriguez Mora (VoxEU) Jan 4, 2019
Populists in Europe are contesting the perceived benefits of economic integration between countries. This column uses data on trade frictions to estimate the long-run impact of trade frictions on GDP if countries in Europe were to be more or less integrated. Negative between-country impacts, such as from Brexit or an EU collapse, imply a GDP reduction of between 1-3%. The potential trade benefits of a 'United States of Europe', on the other hand, may be an order of magnitude greater for its members.

The network origins of the gains from trade
Maarten Bosker and Bastian Westbrock (VoxEU) Jan 4, 2019
Much has been written about the opportunities and threats arising from the international fragmentation of production processes. This column introduces a novel theoretical approach to track down the different, sometimes conflicting, ways in which shocks spread through global value chains. It suggests that what matters most is not a country's access to the technologies and markets of its direct trading partners, but its exposure to changes in the larger production network.

Robots, telework, and the jobs of the future
Jon Peha (Science) Jan 4, 2019
Richard Baldwinvs thesis in his new book, The Globotics Upheaval, is that globalization and AI robots constitute a “globotics” tidal wave that will shake the foundation of middle-class prosperity in wealthy nations. This, he argues, will lead to social upheaval, just as 19th-century steam engines and mechanical looms created workplace disruptions that brought workers to the streets in sometimes violent protest.

What the market turmoil means for 2019
Economist Jan 5, 2019
Fears that the Fed will tighten too much are among the reasons the stockmarket has fallen.

The euro enters its third decade in need of reform
Economist Jan 5, 2019
The EU’s great project may not survive another crisis.

China Has a Dangerous Dollar Debt Addiction
Christopher Balding (Bloomberg View) Jan 5, 2019
With $1.2 trillion needing to be rolled over this year, the threat of a funding crunch is rising.

US-China: farmers count cost of trade war
Gregory Meyer (FT) Jan 6, 2019
America’s soyabean exports to the world’s biggest market have all but disappeared, leaving farmers dependent on a $12bn bailout.

America’s Lost Markets
WSJ Jan 6, 2019
The Pacific trade pact is up and running, and U.S. exporters are the losers.

The euro is still vulnerable. Can it survive?
Robert Samuelson (WP) Jan 6, 2019
Two decades after being introduced, the European unit of currency has not achieved its central goals.

The Saudi Battle for India
James M. Dorsey (Globalist) Jan 6, 2019
Saudi Arabia’s engagement in India goes beyond strengthening its reach of India’s Muslims. It aims to reduce the Iran factor in the Indian economy.

Let China Get to Yes on Trade
Bloomberg View Jan 6, 2019
Slowing growth could lead Beijing to compromise — but only if the U.S. lets it.

Has the Stock Market Established a Bottom?
Mohamed Aly El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jan 6, 2019
Beware: The rally at the end of last week might not signal the end of the downward trend.

Money’s Getting Tighter: China’s Ignored iPhone Alert
Nisha Gopalan (Bloomberg View) Jan 6, 2019
It’s not just about a slowing economy and the rise of cheaper devices from the likes of Huawei and Xiaomi.

Baby Boomers Will Be a Drag on Stock Market Rebound
David A Ader (Bloomberg View) Jan 6, 2019
Those who own the most equities don’t have a lot of time to recover before retirement, and are likely to sell into any rally.

The Fed and the PBOC Are No Longer Poles Apart
Daniel Moss (Bloomberg View) Jan 6, 2019
The world’s two most important central banks are edging closer in their approach to monetary policy. That’s a good thing for global stability.

Leverage over the lifecycle, firm growth, and shock responsiveness
Emin Dinlersoz, Henry Hyatt, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Veronika Penciakova (VoxEU) Jan 6, 2019
The financing behaviour of private US firms has been somewhat neglected in the firm dynamics literature. This column presents a new dataset for studying these firms’ behaviour and explores how the Great Recession affected their growth. The results show substantial heterogeneity in leverage by firm age and size among private firms, but not among public firms.

EU’s wilful blindness to sovereign risk adds to eurozone danger
Patrick Jenkins (FT) Jan 7, 2019
The fiction of zero risk-weighted sovereign bonds threatens a eurozone ‘doom loop’.

We must prepare now for the likelihood of a recession
Lawrence Summers (FT) Jan 7, 2019
Excess austerity is a bigger risk than fiscal profligacy.

Market challenge for the Fed is just beginning
Lena Komileva (FT) Jan 7, 2019
Central bank is caught between strong economic fundamentals and market fragility.

The premature ageing of emerging market economies
Hung Tran (FT) Jan 7, 2019
Growth advantage over mature markets has halved and is set to disappear.

Credit investors should be wary of tech disruption risk
Laurence Fletcher (FT) Jan 7, 2019
Corporate cash flows may seem solid but tech breakthroughs could change the outlook.

American Companies Need Chinese Consumers
Weijian Shan (NYT) Jan 7, 2019
Apple’s declining sales reveal how important the health of China’s consumer market is to the world’s economy.

Team Trump should be careful what it wishes for on China
Catherine Rampell (WP) Jan 7, 2019
There’s a self-interest reason to stop rooting for the world’s second-largest economy to falter.

How Is Trade Working Out for You, President Trump?
Uwe Bott (Globalist) Jan 7, 2019
The fallacy of seeking to reduce the U.S. trade deficit without raising U.S. savings rates.

In Brexit Britain, Taking Back Control Means the Opposite
Lionel Laurent (Bloomberg View) Jan 7, 2019
Whether it’s blue passports or air travel, the U.K. looks incapable of going it alone.

China’s Old Stimulus Game Gets Another Spin
Anjani Trivedi (Bloomberg View) Jan 7, 2019
Cranking up debt-fueled projects has lifted shares of construction and engineering companies. But the benefits are likely to be limited to big, state-run firms.

Hedge Fund Returns Should Be All Over the Place
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jan 7, 2019
The wide dispersion in returns shows the funds are working as designed.

Bolsonaro Was Not Elected to Take Brazil as He Found It
Ernesto Henrique Fraga Araujo (Bloomberg View) Jan 7, 2019
Latin America’s biggest democracy has a bigger global role to play.

Where Have All the Safe Havens Gone?
Benjamin J. Cohen (Project Syndicate) Jan 7, 2019
Even at the height of the 2008 global financial crisis, which originated in the United States, global investors viewed US Treasuries as the safest asset available. But with US President Donald Trump undermining faith in the dollar, portfolio managers find themselves in rough seas with no port of call that can offer shelter from the storm.

The Euro Turns 20
Daniel Gros (Project Syndicate) Jan 7, 2019
The euro’s first 20 years played out very differently than many expected, highlighting the importance of recognizing that the future is likely to be different from the past. Given this, only a commitment to flexibility and a willingness to rise to new challenges will ensure the common currency’s continued success.

What Will Cause the Next US Recession?
J. Bradford DeLong (Project Syndicate) Jan 7, 2019
Three of the last four US recessions stemmed from unforeseen shocks in financial markets. Most likely, the next downturn will be no different: the revelation of some underlying weakness will trigger a retrenchment of investment, and the government will fail to pursue counter-cyclical fiscal policy.

The Future of Free Trade
Michael Froman (Project Syndicate) Jan 7, 2019
In the second year of his presidency, Donald Trump started to fulfill his promised “America First” agenda by launching trade wars with allies and adversaries alike. In the absence of leadership from governments, the responsibility of responding to the populist disruption now falls to the business community.

Understanding the average effect of microcredit
Rachael Meager (VoxDev) Jan 7, 2019
Microcredit trials show only moderate variation in effects across different settings, suggesting that the average effects of these loans are small.

The return on information technology
Emmanuel Dhyne, Jozef Konings, Jeroen Van den bosch and Stijn Vanormelingen (VoxEU) Jan 7, 2019
Although information technology has reshaped the way businesses operate, measuring IT capital in firms is challenging. Using an exceptionally rich firm-level dataset from Belgium, this column finds that large firms benefit more from IT than small firms, and that IT explains about 10% of the productivity dispersion. IT has contributed to Belgian GDP and productivity growth prior to the Global Crisis, but the recession seems to have led to firms to forego investment in IT. Achieving optimal IT investment levels could reinvigorate productivity growth.

How Much Do We Spend on Imports?
Galina Hale, Bart Hobijn, Fernanda Nechio and Doris Wilson (FRBSF Econ Letter) Jan 7, 2019
When U.S. shoppers buy something imported, are they also paying for local inputs? How much of what is “Made in the U.S.A.” actually is? These questions require accounting for both the U.S. components in the price of imported goods and the use of imported inputs in U.S. production. Estimates show that nearly half of spending on imports stays in the United States, paying for the local components of these goods. Over 10 cents of every dollar U.S. consumers spend reflects the cost of imports at various stages of production.

London’s financial sector will take a knock in 2019
FT View Jan 8, 2019
With or without a Brexit deal, the City’s pre-eminence will be shaken.

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping face off in global trade war
Lucy Hornby and James Politi (FT) Jan 8, 2019
The strengths and weaknesses of both presidents as the US and China meet in Beijing for talks.

Norway-style Brexit would let UK shape finance rules
Nicky Morgan (FT) Jan 8, 2019
Inside EFTA and EEA, we would have a voice, a vote and right to reject regulations.

Kim’s resignation from World Bank leaves multilateralism at stake
Kevin P Gallagher (FT) Jan 8, 2019
Choice of next president will test institution’s legitimacy and relevance.

Opec’s usual oil cut gambit unlikely to move the needle
Amrita Sen (FT) Jan 8, 2019
Saudi Arabia needs to trim quality not just volume in order to balance markets.

Development agencies turn to local currency lending
Simon Johnson (FT) Jan 8, 2019
Switch to frontier currencies aims to reduce FX risk for borrowers.

Why the world economy feels so fragile
Martin Wolf (FT) Jan 8, 2019
Political instability will make it harder to ride out a slowdown.

Banca Carige shows that Italy remains bailout master
Robert Smith (FT) Jan 8, 2019
Country’s new populist government turns to an old playbook as Genoan lender struggles.

Europe’s Boom That Wasn’t
WSJ Jan 8, 2019
A downturn looms before the upturn has fully materialized.

Asia may get trumped amid World Bank intrigue
William Pesek (AT) Jan 8, 2019
Resignation of WB head Jim Yong Kim spurs speculation that President Trump might appoint a China-skeptic or use the institution as a new stick with which to beat China and other major Asian exporters.

Banks to strike back in 2019
Brian Caplen (Banker) Jan 8, 2019
Markets are choppy and the economic outlook is grim but 2019 could be a year of banking renaissance.

Trump’s Japan Agenda Shows the Pitfalls of His Trade Strategy
Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Zhiyao (Lucy) Lu (PIIE) Jan 8, 2019
President Trump’s insistence on negotiating one-on-one trade deals, rather than plurilateral or multilateral agreements with many countries, has produced a proposed new accord with Japan. Trump maintains that the United States enjoys superior negotiating leverage in bilateral talks. But if anything, the new US agenda for Japan shows the pitfalls of that approach. It demands many concessions from Japan that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is likely to reject.

The Trump Administration’s Rush to Curb Technology Leakage Is in Danger of Backfiring
Martin Chorzempa (PIIE) Jan 8, 2019
In a bold step to prevent China from getting access to vital new US technologies, last November the Trump administration announced its first move towards imposing new controls on exports of “emerging” technologies deemed “essential to national security” in categories ranging from artificial intelligence to robotics and quantum computing. The administration has called for comments from industry and academic experts on its new policy.

Who Are the World’s Poor?
Gisela Robles Aguilar and Andy Sumner (CGD) Jan 8, 2019
It sounds like a simple question: Who are the world’s poor? Farmers, right? Well, yes, but not only. In a new CGD working paper, Gisela Robles and I take a closer look at the data on global poverty to answer this question in finer detail. We find that when poverty is measured over multiple dimensions—including education, health, and standards of living—identifying the global poor reveals some important findings.

Lose-lose scenario for Europe from ongoing China-US negotiations
Alicia García-Herrero (Bruegel/Corner) Jan 8, 2019
Without an expectation of a larger market for European exports in the absence of additional opening up by Chinese authorities, European exporters should not enjoy the ongoing China-US negotiations.

A World of Financial Gloom and Doom?
Michael Heise (Globalist) Jan 8, 2019
Why financial markets in 2019 may offer positive surprises, despite — and actually because of — the current wave of pessimism.

The Fed Is Ignoring the Biggest Lesson of 2008
Bloomberg View Jan 8, 2019
Banks should be raising capital while they still can.

Belt and Road Is More Chaos Than Conspiracy
David Fickling (Bloomberg View) Jan 8, 2019
China's flagship foreign-policy initiative is closer to a branding exercise than a master plan for geopolitical domination.

Five Fiscal Messes India Can’t Blame on the RBI
Andy Mukherjee (Bloomberg View) Jan 8, 2019
From a botched tax to an energy shambles, there’s one for every year since the Modi government came to power.

Is It Time to Give Up on the World Bank?
Mihir Sharma (Bloomberg View) Jan 8, 2019
Its outgoing president thinks he can do more to build infrastructure in the developing world by working in the private sector. He’s right.

Brazil’s Disruptor-in-Chief Should Learn From the Past
Mac Margolis (Bloomberg View) Jan 8, 2019
President Jair Bolsonaro should deepen recent reforms to kickstart the economy.

Germany Isn’t Floundering, Despite the Data
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jan 8, 2019
The car industry’s regulatory problems are still the biggest reason why the country’s economy isn’t growing as it should.

Japan First
Ian Buruma (Project Syndicate) Jan 8, 2019
Japanese nationalists, starting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, need no encouragement to follow US President Donald Trump's example. But if they do, they will echo the worst aspects of contemporary America – and throw away the best of what the US once had to offer.

The Left’s Choice
Dani Rodrik (Project Syndicate) Jan 8, 2019
In the face of resurgent right-wing populism, the left’s relative weakness partly reflects the decline of unions and organized labor groups, which have historically formed the backbone of leftist and socialist movements. But four decades of ideological abdication has also played an important role.

Shaping Europe’s Present and Future
Federica Mogherini (Project Syndicate) Jan 8, 2019
After a decade of economic and political crises, the project of European integration continues to face existential challenges. But while some observers worry about the EU’s future, its High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is confident that through continued cooperation, Europeans can secure their interests even in an era of global upheaval.

Consequences of Downward Trending Growth
David Dapice (YaleGlobal) Jan 8, 2019
Governments contend with debt and sluggish growth, and other risks pose complications.

What’s Ahead for the Stock Market in 2019
Jeremy Siegel and Gad Allon (K@W) Jan 8, 2019
The U.S. stock market ended 2018 skimming bear market territory.

Modern Monetary Theory and policy
Stan Veuger (AEI) Jan 8, 2019
Proponents of so-called Modern Monetary Theory emphasize that governments can always avoid defaulting on existing obligations denominated in a currency they themselves create. In many instances, they extrapolate from this correct observation to sweeping claims about the proper size of government and the role of monetary and fiscal policy. To the extent that these claims go beyond those of mainstream monetary doves, policymakers would be unwise to rely on them.

A new president and new role for the World Bank
FT View Jan 9, 2019
The bank’s head should be appointed on merit, not nationality.

For EU business, normality has rarely looked so challenging
Sarah Gordon (FT) Jan 9, 2019
Four years of QE are coming to an end and interest rates look likely to start rising.

Traders track down the wrong suspect for the liquidity squeeze
Megan Greene (FT) Jan 9, 2019
The Fed’s decision to unwind quantitative easing is not the culprit here.

Too early to discount prospect of Fed rate increases
Joe Rennison (FT) Jan 9, 2019
US economic data yet to clearly show that growth is fading.

Japan’s cash addiction has no easy cure
Leo Lewis (FT) Jan 9, 2019
The state’s vision of a cashless society must overcome a visceral mistrust of surveillance.

Peak financial scandal? History says not
Gillian Tett (FT) Jan 9, 2019
If you’re looking for the most scandal-plagued period, the 19th century beats the present hands down.

China’s speculative housing boom, charted
FTCR Jan 10, 2019
Officials under pressure to relax policy again but the last boom only made matters worse.

Volatility: how ‘algos’ changed the rhythm of the market
Robin Wigglesworth (FT) Jan 9, 2019
Critics say high-frequency trading makes markets too fickle amid rising anxiety over the global economy.

Europe Settles Some Tax Scores
WSJ Jan 9, 2019
Finally, glimmers of a new old way to account for tax cuts and growth.

Behind Xi’s Bluster Is a Vulnerable China
Andy Puzder (WSJ) Jan 9, 2019
Trump’s policies have America surging, while Chinese growth could slow further still.

Why the Fed Should Heed the Market
Edward P. Lazear (WSJ) Jan 9, 2019
Stock trends are the best predictor of growth. Recent volatility should give the central bank pause.

Why China clings to state capitalism
Robert Samuelson (WP) Jan 9, 2019
For Beijing to abandon its policies would mean scrapping its whole economic model. Politically, this would be hard to swallow.

US relationship is just part of China’s economic dilemma
Gordon Watts (AT) Jan 9, 2019
Xiang Songzuo, a former chief economist at the Agricultural Bank of China, spells out the problems ahead despite signs of ‘optimism’ after trade talks.

The Problem of US Labor Force Participation
Chad P. Bown and Caroline Freund (PIIE) Jan 9, 2019
Despite more robust growth than many advanced economies in Europe and Asia, labor force participation in the United States between 1995 and 2017 was weak. In other countries, job loss has manifested itself as increased unemployment as opposed to labor force exit.

Brexit: Lower Immigration, Lower Growth
Agnieszka Gehringer (Globalist) Jan 9, 2019
The uncertainty around Brexit is worsening the UK migration balance with the EU. This can have negative consequences for the British labor market.

Italy’s Populist Revolution Is Gone in 480 Seconds
Ferdinando Giugliano (Bloomberg View) Jan 9, 2019
It took only eight minutes for the populist government to greenlight a bailout for Banca Carige, if needed. This may be the first of many rude awakenings.

Saudi Arabia Is Set to Win Its Big Market Test
Marcus Ashworth (Bloomberg View) Jan 9, 2019
The kingdom’s latest giant bond sale will probably get away well given the generous spread on offer, despite political fallout from the Khashoggi murder.

Latin America Needs to Fix Its Education Deficit
Shannon K O'Neil (Bloomberg View) Jan 9, 2019
Investing more in human capital is the region’s best hope to escape the middle-income trap.

A U.S.-China Trade Deal Is Only Half the Fight
David Fickling (Bloomberg View) Jan 9, 2019
Getting to an agreement is the easy part. Enforcing Chinese compliance will be a much bigger challenge.

Why American Firms and Households Need China
Shang-Jin Wei (Project Syndicate) Jan 9, 2019
Bilateral trade statistics tell only part of the story of the Chinese market’s importance to the US economy. In particular, the availability of cheap imported goods from China lowers prices not only for US consumers, especially low- and middle-income families, but also for US businesses, supporting job creation.

Rewriting the Future of Work
Bruno Dobrusin (Project Syndicate) Jan 9, 2019
Three common assumptions skew economists' forecasts of automation’s impact on employment. Addressing each is essential to protect workers’ rights and change the fatalistic storyline of the prevailing narrative.

Italy’s Writing on the Wall
Harold James (Project Syndicate) Jan 9, 2019
It is often said that Italy’s divergence from the rest of Europe, in terms of per capita income, started either with the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 or with the adoption of the euro in 1999. But this chronology masks a more profound transformation in modern Italy.

India’s Great Wall of Equality
Jayati Ghosh (Project Syndicate) Jan 9, 2019
While gender inequality is nothing new for India, the unabashed and vehement misogyny displayed in response to a Supreme Court decision to allow women into a temple in Kerala state is notable. In this context, displays of unity and commitment to equality are not just uplifting, but also vitally important to India's future.

Regulating the Disrupters
Jean Tirole (Project Syndicate) Jan 9, 2019
Today’s leading technology firms have achieved ever greater concentration in their respective markets, and thrown into sharp relief the need for new antitrust policies, labor laws, and tax regimes. As policymakers confront this sprawling regulatory challenge, they must be prepared to question long-held principles and adopt a flexible approach.

Globalization at a Crossroads
Gordon Brown (Project Syndicate) Jan 9, 2019
Over the course of the past decade, the world has changed more than at any other time since the World War II era. And, as economic and geopolitical power seeps away from the West, the United States, rather than leading a new multilateral front, has embarked on a self-defeating project of atavistic unilateralism.

When History Matters Little: Political Hierarchy and Regional Development in China, AD 1000-2000
Ying Bai and Ruixue Jia (VoxChina) Jan 9, 2019
Regime changes in China between AD 1000 and 2000 systematically altered the relative importance of different regions in the political hierarchy of that time. The evolution of Chinese provincial capitals and economic activities during this period throws light on how political factors shape economic geography. Employing a panel dataset across 261 prefectures, we find that while a prefecture definitely benefits from gaining provincial capital status in terms of population density and urbanization, the economic advantage of provincial capital prefectures shrinks greatly after losing capital status — implying that a prestigious past does not always matter for current local development. This finding differs from a large body of literature concerning path dependence. To understand the underlying factors, we document that not only public offices but also important production factors such as human capital and transportation networks alter their geographical location with the change in provincial capital status, which suggests that: 1) We cannot simply consider provincial capitals as consumption-intensive “parasite cities”; and 2) The state can play a critical role in overcoming the inertia in the location of economic activity through providing infrastructure.

The powers and pitfalls of quantitative easing
Wei Cui and Vincent Sterk (VoxEU) Jan 9, 2019
The effects of quantitative easing are poorly understood, in part because standard models of monetary policy predict that it doesn't work. This column uses a model in which households can be unequal and hold assets with different degrees of liquidity to show that quantitative easing can provide a powerful stimulus to the macroeconomy, and that it avoided a large decline in output and inflation during 2009. Nevertheless, side-effects on inequality mean that social welfare tends to be lower under quantitative easing than under conventional policy.

Retail investors are not noise traders
Manapol Ekkayokkaya, Suppasit Jirajaroenying and Christian Wolff (VoxEU) Jan 9, 2019
Retail investors are generally considered to be uninformed noise traders, but a recent literature suggests that such investors accumulate novel information about smaller stocks. Using new data from Thailand, this column argues that retail investors systematically outperform institutions, especially domestic institutions. In addition, retail investors have a comparative advantage in executing trades of small stocks.

The economics of cryptocurrency pump and dump schemes
JT Hamrick, Farhang Rouhi, Arghya Mukherjee, Amir Feder, Neil Gandal, Tyler Moore and Marie Vasek (VoxEU) Jan 9, 2019
The surge of interest in cryptocurrencies has been accompanied by a proliferation of fraud, largely in the form of pump and dump schemes. This column provides the first measure of the scope of such schemes across cryptocurrencies. The results suggest that the phenomenon is widespread and often quite profitable, and highlight the need for concerted efforts from industry and regulators to fight cryptocurrency price manipulation.

Economics as a moral tale
John Rapley (Aeon) Jan 9, 2019
The development sector set out to summon the magic of capitalism from the ashes of communism. How is it going

US-China Economic Relations: From Conflict to Solutions—Part II
Jiming Ha and Adam S. Posen (PIIE) Jan 9, 2019
Outright trade war between the world's two largest economies would be devastating to the working people of both countries, as well as destructive to the future of the entire world economy.

Brexit is the certain route to a divided Britain
Philip Stephens (FT) Jan 10, 2019
MPs should not bow to claims that a second referendum would lead to trouble.

Economics benefits from other subjects
Jean Tirole (FT) Jan 10, 2019
It is time to emulate Enlightenment thinkers and stop separating the social sciences.

The ‘China shock’ is not as bad as Trump thinks
Gillian Tett (FT) Jan 10, 2019
Growth in service sector jobs belies the president’s vision of American ‘carnage’.

How Remainers should handle...remaining
Simon Kuper (FT) Jan 10, 2019
‘Abandoning Brexit will be damaging--but then so are all the UK’s other options’.

China’s economy defies the odds
Steve Johnson (FT) Jan 10, 2019
Growth has tripled that of comparable countries — but few can follow its lead.

Investors Were Spooked About Profits. Now Come the Facts.
Matt Phillips (NYT) Jan 10, 2019
After the worst year for stocks in a decade, investors are eager to hear what executives expect in 2019 as companies report fourth-quarter earnings.

Trump might win his trade war with China
Henry Olsen (WP) Jan 10, 2019
The president knows the secret to negotiating: Be willing to walk away.

The fate of the dollar will shape financial markets in 2019
Economist Jan 10, 2019
After rising by 7% against a basket of currencies in 2018, where is it headed next?

China’s economy shows more signs of running out of gas
Gordon Watts (AT) Jan 10, 2019
Beijing pins its hopes on trade war solution amid optimistic signs from the US as economic slowdown continues.

A Closer Look at the World Bank’s Sizable China Portfolio
Scott Morris and Gailyn Portelance (CGD) Jan 10, 2019
China continues to borrow an average of $2 billion a year from the World Bank, making it one of the Bank’s top borrowers—despite being the world’s second-largest economy and itself a major global lender, according to our study released today.

How the Fed Can Engineer a Soft Landing in the Economy
Timothy A Duy (Bloomberg View) Jan 10, 2019
The central bank needs to be nimble, like in the 1990s, to keep the economy from falling into a recession.

Two Ways May Could Just End the Brexit Standoff
Therese Raphael (Bloomberg View) Jan 10, 2019
And hardliners in her Conservative party are likely to hate both.

Don’t Be So Sure Hyperinflation Can’t Hit the U.S.
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jan 10, 2019
Some progressives back piling on even more debt to pay for social programs. That could be risky.

Fully Filling the Global Fund
Jeffrey D. Sachs , Guido Schmidt-Traub and Vanessa Fajans-Turner (Project Syndicate) Jan 10, 2019
In a world divided by conflict and greed, the Global Fund’s fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria is a matter of enlightened self-interest and a reminder of how much humanity can accomplish when we cooperate to save lives. For public and private donors, that means providing the financing needed to eliminate all three scourges by 2030.

Disrupting Multilateral Climate Finance
Håvard Halland and Justin Yifu Lin (Project Syndicate) Jan 10, 2019
If the world is to avert climate calamity, multilateral finance institutions must begin looking to large institutional investors as their partners and clients. The creation of a new global climate finance facility, appropriately ring-fenced from current financing initiatives, could help.

Shelter from the Storm in 2019
Barry Eichengreen (Project Syndicate) Jan 10, 2019
In thee coming year, global economic, financial, and political stability will depend on outcomes in four areas. And what happens on one front is likely to affect the prospects for positive outcomes on all the others.

Whither the Chinese Consumer?
Jim O'Neill (Project Syndicate) Jan 10, 2019
Between 2010 and 2017, consumer spending in China increased by almost $3 trillion dollars, and global brands came to rely on the Chinese market for a growing share of sales. But now that Apple has revised downward its expected revenues, citing slowing Chinese growth, the outlook for such firms – and for the world economy – has dimmed.

The New Old Populism
Sebastián Edwards (Project Syndicate) Jan 10, 2019
As populist politics takes hold in developed countries, Latin America’s long experience with such governments is instructive. Ultimately, the lower- and middle-income voters who support populist leaders typically find themselves worse off than they were before.

What Next for Global Trade?
Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg (Project Syndicate) Jan 10, 2019
In 2018, US President Donald Trump finally turned his protectionist words into action by imposing sweeping tariffs on imports from allies and adversaries alike. But while Trump’s use of tariffs to protect domestic industry is not new, his attacks on the larger trading system certainly are.

Banking integration in the EMU: Let’s get real!
Mathias Hoffmann, Egor Maslov, Bent Sørensen and Iryna Stewen (VoxEU) Jan 10, 2019
Bank-to-bank lending in the euro area has increased, direct cross-border lending has not. The column shows that dependence on domestic banks reduces risk-sharing in a crisis, reducing GDP growth in affected country-sectors. Benefits from banking integration are only robust to global shocks if banking integration takes the form of cross-border lending to firms and households.

Eurozone blip threatens to become a downturn
FT View Jan 11, 2019
Evidence is building up of broad-based European economic weakness.

Renminbi rally sparks talk of tacit G20 pact
Steve Johnson (FT) Jan 12, 2019
Fed turns more dovish in return for Beijing strengthening currency speculate onlookers.

The west should not miss the Africa opportunity
Aboubaker Omar Hadi (FT) Jan 11, 2019
Preconceived ideas and inadequate analysis prevent investment into the continent.

Hedging's the Smart Way to Play the Yuan Rally
Shuli Ren (Bloomberg View) Jan 11, 2019
Buying insurance against a reversal in the Chinese currency is far cheaper than it was a year or two ago.

Brexiters Know a Bad Trade When They See One
Lionel Laurent (Bloomberg View) Jan 11, 2019
Crispin Odey thinks Brexit will be canceled. He’s not alone.

Selling Africa’s Good News Stories
Shayera Dark (Project Syndicate) Jan 11, 2019
Low pay and precarious work conditions for most African journalists lead many to seek work with Western news outlets. But that leads to other problems, such as an over-emphasis on crises, strife, and other issues viewed as relevant to Western audiences.

Risks to the Global Economy in 2019
Kenneth Rogoff (Project Syndicate) Jan 11, 2019
Over the course of this year and next, the biggest economic risks will emerge in those areas where investors think recent patterns are unlikely to change. They will include a growth recession in China, a rise in global long-term real interest rates, and a crescendo of populist economic policies.

Why Is Immigration Different from Trade?
Amar Bhidé (Project Syndicate) Jan 11, 2019
There is no doubt that immigration brings a host of benefits, both to immigrants themselves and to the native-born population. But if broadly beneficial immigration is to be sustained, destination countries must acknowledge and address the real risks that it raises.

Will the Rule of Law Hold?
Leszek Balcerowicz (Project Syndicate) Jan 11, 2019
There can be no definitive answer. Still, the rule of law and the institutions that sustain it – whether courts, elections, or independent public agencies – have proven to be a source of greater resistance than many populist leaders expected, and more resilient, perhaps, than democratic forces dared to hope.

Breaking the Brexit impasse
Toke Aidt, Jagjit Chadha and Hamid Sabourian (VoxEU) Jan 11, 2019
Unanimous agreement on the UK’s Brexit question is clearly not going to be achievable. But as this column argues, using a sequential voting system, it is within reach to structure the democratic process so that a voting procedure is fair to all views and the outcome is preferred by a majority to any other alternatives.

The effect of machine learning on credit markets
Andreas Fuster, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Tarun Ramadorai and Ansgar Walther (VoxEU) Jan 11, 2019
The use of machine learning in credit allocation should allow lenders to better extend credit, but the shift from traditional to machine learning lending models may have important distributional effects for consumers. This column studies the effect of machine learning on mortgage lending in the US. It finds that machine learning would offer lower rates to racial groups who already were at an advantage under the traditional model, but it would also benefit disadvantaged groups by enabling them to obtain a mortgage in the first place.

Parliament is slowly taking back control of Brexit
Catherine Haddon (FT) Jan 12, 2019
But there remains much to do if it is stop Britain leaving the EU with no-deal.

India’s a Land of Cities, Not Villages
Reuben Abraham and Pritika Hingorani (Bloomberg View) Jan 12, 2019
And unless politicians start acting that way, its burgeoning metropolises could grow well-nigh unlivable.

The Road Ahead for the DRC
Aditi Lalbahadur (Project Syndicate) Jan 12, 2019
Félix Tshisekedi’s apparent victory in the Democratic Republic of Congo's long-postponed presidential election should be a cause for celebration, at home and throughout the Congolese diaspora. But the transition now facing the DRC is certain to be long, perilous, and frustrating.

The public cost of excess private debt
Samba Mbaye, Marialuz Moreno Badia and Kyungla Chae (VoxEU) Jan 12, 2019
Since the financial crisis researchers have extensively explored the dangers of excessive public debt, but excessive private debt has received less attention. This column documents a common form of indirect private sector bailout that goes largely unnoticed. Whenever households and firms are caught in a debt overhang and need to deleverage, governments come to the rescue through a countercyclical rise in public debt. This indirect substitution takes place even in the absence of a crisis.

Recessions and bear markets — the terrible twins
Gavyn Davies (FT) Jan 13, 2019
A global recession is unlikely this year, unless a bear market causes one.

The EU should kill off the UK’s chance of delaying Brexit
Wolfgang Münchau (FT) Jan 13, 2019
For Theresa May’s deal to pass, Brussels must remove the option of stalling Article 50.

The anti-Europeans have a plan for crippling the European Union
Anne Applebaum (WP) Jan 13, 2019
Nationalists and populists are coordinating their efforts ahead of a crucial European vote.

Why the Fed and Markets Don’t Agree on Interest-Rate Prospects
Mohamed Aly El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jan 13, 2019
Despite strong U.S. jobs data, investors expect the central bank to stop hiking this year and cut in 2020 and 2021.

Japan braces for economic headwinds
Masahiko Takeda (EAF) Jan 13, 2019
Japan’s economic conditions continue to be neither too hot nor too cold. But nor are they — in Goldilock’s territory — quite just right.

The Pension Fund Problem Just Got Much Worse
Aaron Brown (Bloomberg View) Jan 13, 2019
A simple extrapolation of the recent trend lines suggest a crisis around 2023, as assets are wiped out even if returns rebound.

Xi’s Leading China Toward Stagnation
David Fickling (Bloomberg View) Jan 13, 2019
The president’s emphasis on self-reliance could steer the nation into the middle-income trap.

What All That Oil Really Means for the Saudis
Julian Lee (Bloomberg View) Jan 13, 2019
We now know exactly how massive the Saudi reserves are. How will the kingdom make this work for them?

The impact of China’s slowdown is spreading
FT View Jan 14, 2019
Trade war with the US has exposed a deeper economic malaise.

Cracks are opening in the global monetary system
Russell Napier (FT) Jan 14, 2019
Central bankers have bought growth by sacrificing financial stability.

Brexit spells trouble for Europe’s derivatives market
Philip Stafford (FT) Jan 14, 2019
Reclassification of futures contracts could push up margin requirements.

Greece is running out of time to fix its banks
Frances Coppola (FT) Jan 14, 2019
Political turmoil and slowing demand are hitting efforts to reform the financial sector.

Brexiters’ delusions on trade die hard
Gideon Rachman (FT) Jan 14, 2019
Proponents of ‘Global Britain’ underestimate just how difficult it is to do deals.

China Is a Dangerous Rival, and America Should Treat It Like One
Derek Scissors and Daniel Blumenthal (NYT) Jan 14, 2019
Enough with the endless talks and handshakes. We need to untie the American economy from China.

Debt Denial Is a Threat to America
Desmond Lachman (WSJ) Jan 14, 2019
‘Modern monetary theory’ rests on dangerous, false premises. The U.S. won’t grow its way out of the red.

Will 2019 be a year of lay-offs?
Ben Kwok (AT) Jan 14, 2019
Corporations across multiple sectors worldwide are tightening their belts and cutting workforces.

EU budget implications of a no-deal Brexit
Zsolt Darvas (Bruegel) Jan 14, 2019
A no-deal Brexit would mean the UK’s contributions to the EU budget fall to zero as of March 30th 2019. The author here calculates an estimate of the budget shortfall that would have to be covered in this case, and how the burden would fall across different member states.

What 2019 could bring: A look inside the crystal ball
Michael Baltensperger (Bruegel) Jan 14, 2019
Economic performance prospects in Europe, the US and Asia in 2019. We start off by reviewing commentaries and predictions about the euro zone, which many commentators expect to perform below potential as uncertainties continue to dampen a still robust recovery.

U.S. Policy Outlook for 2019: Trade Risks Continue, But Might Not Escalate
Libby Cantrill (PIMCO) Jan 14, 2019
In our outlook for 2019, we believe politics and policy out of Washington will continue to drive – and in some cases, weigh on – markets, much like they did in 2018.

Germany’s Economy Could Soon Need a Boost
Bloomberg View Jan 14, 2019
If the slowdown persists, Berlin’s fiscal conservatives might have to think the unthinkable.

Japan’s Not Back Yet
Daniel Moss (Bloomberg View) Jan 14, 2019
In a November speech, the BOJ’s governor came close to declaring the end of deflation and the dawn of a new era. Now that seems premature.

The EU Faces Its Make-or-Break Moment on Taxes
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jan 14, 2019
The bloc will decide whether to limit the smaller member states’ ability to set their own levies to attract companies.

Brexit Knocks the Wind Out of the U.K. Economy
Therese Raphael (Bloomberg View) Jan 14, 2019
Slowly and surely, the uncertainty over Brexit is taking a toll.

A Brexit Lesson From the Cradle of Democracy
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jan 14, 2019
Greece and Macedonia’s approach to a highly polarizing national issue shows representative democracy can often work better than plebiscites.

Battling Eight Giants with Basic Income
Guy Standing (Project Syndicate) Jan 14, 2019
The post-1945 income distribution system is irretrievably broken, threatening the market economy. And traditional redistributive tools such as direct taxes, collective bargaining, and labor regulations cannot put things right.

Let’s Get Real About Purpose
Mariana Mazzucato (Project Syndicate) Jan 14, 2019
For too long, the value of economic activity has been measured purely by its price. By recognizing that value is created collectively by business, government, and civil society, it is possible to create a more purposeful type of capitalism.

The World Needs Europe
Jean-Claude Juncker (Project Syndicate) Jan 14, 2019
Having emerged from centuries of bloodshed to become the poster child for integration and collaboration, Europe has a distinct service to offer the rest of the world. With the international order coming apart and populist nationalism on the rise, now is the time for the European Union to show leadership, both at home and abroad.

Harnessing the Fintech Revolution
Agustin Carstens (Project Syndicate) Jan 14, 2019
Artificial intelligence, smartphones, and a wide range of new digital technologies could make banking and financial services significantly more efficient and accessible. But not all disruptive innovations are positive, and policymakers must figure out how to regulate them in a way that serves the common good.

The ECB’s performance during the crisis
Ashoka Mody and Milan Nedeljkovic (VoxEU) Jan 14, 2019
The ECB’s actions in the wake of the Global Crisis have been described as hesitant, relative to other central banks. Based on analysis of financial markets' response to the ECB's interventions during the euro crisis, this column argues that central bank interventions are effective if they clearly signal a commitment to reinvigorating the economy and if they address the source rather than the symptom of financial stress. The ECB did not follow these principles, limiting its ability to improve financial market sentiment.

Border walls
Treb Allen, Caue Dobbin and Melanie Morten (VoxEU) Jan 14, 2019
A vigorous debate exists about the economic benefits of building a border wall between the US and Mexico. Yet, empirical evidence to guide the debate has lagged behind. This column studies the economic impact of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which built 550 new miles of fence on the US–Mexico border. At a construction cost of $7 per person, the fence led to a small reduction in migration but had negligible effects on the economy, with high-skilled US workers losing $4.60 per year in income, and low-skilled US workers gaining just $0.36 per year.

Does Ultra-Low Unemployment Spur Rapid Wage Growth?
Sylvain Leduc, Chitra Marti, and Daniel J. Wilson (FRBSF Econ Letter) Jan 14, 2019
The unemployment rate ended 2018 at just under 4%, substantially lower than most estimates of the natural rate. Could such an ostensibly tight labor market lead to a sharp pickup in wage growth from its recent moderate pace, such that the relationship between wage growth and unemployment is not always linear? Investigations using state-level data show no economically significant nonlinearity between wage growth and unemployment that would predict an abrupt jump in wage growth.

US banks wake up to an easy money hangover
FT View Jan 15, 2019
Balance sheets are strong, but business is going to become tougher.

Turn away from market puts China growth at risk
Nicholas Lardy (FT) Jan 15, 2019
Credit is flowing to state-owned companies, not more productive private ones.

Accountability for Brexit
WSJ Jan 15, 2019
A defeat for Theresa May leaves Parliament in charge.

A Major EU Tax Flub
WSJ Jan 15, 2019
Brussels deploys the steamroller against states with low rates.

No worries on China trade, plenty of worries for central banks
David Goldman (AT) Jan 15, 2019
The world economy is floating on a sea of liquidity – roughly $12 trillion including from the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan.

China’s cooling economy will increase unemployment pressures
Gordon Watts (AT) Jan 15, 2019
Amid a myriad of disappointing data, Beijing rolls out moves to boost jobs in case of a protracted slowdown and a breakdown of trade talks with the US.

Brexit damage is done
Brian Caplen (Banker) Jan 15, 2019
Jobs and assets that move out of the UK due to Brexit are not coming back. But banks can learn management lessons from the prime minister’s mistakes.

The middle class is growing around the world, but many remain unhappy
Homi Kharas (Brookings) Jan 15, 2019
The global middle class now encompasses a majority of the world’s people—so why aren’t more people celebrating? A possible reason behind this paradoxical relationship between increased prosperity and declining happiness levels.

Europe Needs a Revolution in Investment Fund Fees
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jan 15, 2019
Regulators need to step in to safeguard the retirement savings of EU investors from the ravages of too-high fees.

Markets Will Be Directed by the Dollar and China
John Authers (Bloomberg View) Jan 15, 2019
The greenback and the Asian nation’s economy are good leading indicators. Also, passive investing in Europe, Mexico, and Brexit.

The U.S. Is a Meritocracy. That Doesn’t Mean It’s Fair.
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jan 15, 2019
A study shows that most of those with the top 1 percent of incomes are people who work, not the idle rich. But there’s still inequality.

Brexit No-Dealers Are Down, But They're Not Out
Therese Raphael (Bloomberg View) Jan 15, 2019
The position of many Brexiters has hardened as their fantasies have been exposed as a sham. While they’ve been weakened, they still have support.

Italy Passes a $34 Billion Vote of Confidence
Marcus Ashworth (Bloomberg View) Jan 15, 2019
Demand for Rome’s sale of long-dated bonds has exceeded 30 billion euros, way ahead of supply. That doesn’t mean the country is out of the woods yet.

Brazil and Mexico Are Tired of Being Global Good Guys
Mac Margolis (Bloomberg View) Jan 15, 2019
Latin America’s biggest powers have some second thoughts about the liberal international order.

Is China Really Cheating?
Stephen S Roach (Bloomberg View) Jan 15, 2019
The evidence of Chinese malfeasance on trade, technology and intellectual property is a lot thinner than most people assume.

China’s Growth Machine No Longer Looks Unstoppable
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jan 15, 2019
The debt-powered stimulus the country used to steer through the Great Recession is starting to look like a drag.

How US Monetary Policy Has Tamed China
David Lubin (Project Syndicate) Jan 15, 2019
In any emerging economy, there is an important connection between the health of the capital account and that of the domestic economy. A fragile capital account, and the economic self-doubt it can create, are hardly strong foundations for aggressive Chinese foreign policy.

Trump’s Brain Drain
Anne O. Krueger (Project Syndicate) Jan 15, 2019
Though higher-education services are a major US export and a key source of domestic innovation and economic growth, this key sector is often lost in debates about trade and the current account balance. But with foreign enrollment in US universities now declining in the age of Donald Trump, Americans should not be surprised if their own tuition bills go up.

The Leader the World Bank Needs
Homi Kharas and Eswar Prasad (Project Syndicate) Jan 15, 2019
At a time when populists and nationalists around the world are challenging the legitimacy of leading multilateral institutions, the World Bank Group must select a new president. The preferred candidate should be someone who will double down on the Bank's mission of helping developing countries address urgent challenges.

Disruption, Concentration, and the New Economy
Raghuram Rajan (Project Syndicate) Jan 15, 2019
The rise of Big Tech has ushered in broad structural economic changes that academics and policymakers are only just beginning to understand. Still, some trends are already discernible, and they raise urgent questions about the future of competition, innovation, and inequality in the United States and around the world.

Debt overhang, rollover risk, and corporate investment in Europe
Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, Luc Laeven and David Moreno (VoxEU) Jan 15, 2019
Euro area corporate sector investment collapsed post-crisis, especially in periphery countries. The column uses firm and bank data to investigate whether corporate debt accumulated during the boom years was responsible. Firms with higher leverage or firms that borrowed more decreased investment more, especially when linked to weak banks. These channels explain about 60% of the decline in aggregate corporate investment during the crisis.

The mixed success of the Stability and Growth Pact
Jasper De Jong and Niels Gilbert (VoxEU) Jan 15, 2019
The Stability and Growth Pact has been criticised by some for imposing fiscal tightening during recessions, and by others for a lack of compliance. Using a database of all country-specific Excessive Deficit Procedure recommendations since the introduction of the euro, this column shows that the corrective arm of the pact, which is procyclical by design, is an important driver of euro area fiscal policy. The preventive arm, which is designed to avoid the need for such procyclical policies, is much less effective and reform of the pact should focus on addressing this.

Brexit: Blame it on the banking crisis
Nicholas Crafts (VoxEU) Jan 15, 2019
Brexit in 2019 and the banking crisis in 2007 to 2009 are usually seen as unrelated events. This column argues that they are in fact closely connected. The austerity policies embarked on in response to the fiscal damage resulting from the banking crisis triggered the protest votes of left-behind voters, which at the margin allowed Leave to win the referendum vote. The implication is that the economic costs of the banking crisis are much larger than is usually supposed.

Why 2019 won’t be a rerun of 2016 for emerging markets
Bhanu Baweja (FT) Jan 16, 2019
Policymakers will be mindful of the risk of fear feeding on itself

Yen’s erratic moves test the ‘haven’ thesis
Katie Martin (FT) Jan 16, 2019
Fourth-quarter fall in Japan’s currency challenges traders’ long-held assumptions.

The euro at 20: the eurozone is doomed to succeed
Martin Wolf (FT) Jan 16, 2019
The single currency endures, but significant adjustments are necessary.

Responsible technology can transform lives
Eric Jing (FT) Jan 16, 2019
By being creative, groups can work together to benefit the world’s underprivileged.

Theresa May’s Brexit plan isn’t dead yet
George Will (WP) Jan 16, 2019
In the end, May’s rejected agreement might seem marginally less unpalatable than, and the only alternative to, a hard Brexit.

With booming global debt, we’re entering unexplored territory
Robert Samuelson (WP) Jan 16, 2019
“There’s been a breathtaking accumulation of debt in the last decade or so,” one economist says.

5 puzzles in the international economy
Homi Kharas (Brookings) Jan 16, 2019
The global economy continues to baffle economists who generate clever answers to puzzles but not always in convincing fashion. This is not new—Maurice Obstfeld and Ken Rogoff discussed six major puzzles in international macroeconomics almost two decades ago. Here are five issues where I feel the need to take a view in 2019 because the implications are so large. But these are also areas where I have limited conviction either through my own work or through my reading of the literature.

Building Defenses Against the Next Economic Downturn
David Lipton (IMF) Jan 16, 2019
The global economy faces a number of complex challenges from technological change and globalization, and the lingering effects of the 2008-9 financial crisis. At the same time, we are witnessing lower levels of trust in the core institutions that have helped to deliver tremendous growth and prosperity over the past 40 years. These developments threaten to fragment the international order that has governed the global economy.

Long Live Globalization
Lee Howell (Project Syndicate) Jan 16, 2019
Though belief in globalism – a top-down conspiracy to impose an international system that trumps national sovereignty – may be dead, globalization is alive and well. An effective and resilient international order, comprising strong nation-states, thus remains essential.

Run Down the Brexit Clock
Yanis Varoufakis (Project Syndicate) Jan 16, 2019
The terrifying prospect of a no-deal Brexit on March 29 remains in play after the British Parliament emphatically rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement with the EU. Although it is tempting to reset the clock and give negotiations more time, that instinct must be resisted.

Making Every Development Dollar Count
Bjørn Lomborg (Project Syndicate) Jan 16, 2019
In international polls and on the world stage, developing countries are very clear about their priorities: improved healthcare and education, more and better jobs, less corruption, and solutions to nutritional challenges. Unfortunately, these areas are not necessarily where rich countries direct funds.

Global Taxation for the Digital Age
Gillian Tans (Project Syndicate) Jan 19, 2019
The European Commission’s proposal to create an EU digital services tax is aimed mainly at multinational tech giants. But should the tax take effect, it will be Europe’s own startups and digital ecosystems that pay the highest price.

Trump’s Trade Game
Dani Rodrik (Project Syndicate) Jan 16, 2019
In 2018, US President Donald Trump finally followed through on his “America first” trade strategy. Yet it is already clear that his policies will have little impact on trade growth, and even less effect on China's behavior.

The economic geography of innovation
Peter Egger and Nicole Loumeau (VoxEU) Jan 16, 2019
Innovative activity is unevenly distributed geographically, with regional characteristics such as global market accessibility or an innovation-promoting policy environment affecting the spatial distribution. Using global data on regional characteristics, regional patenting output, and innovation-promoting policy environments, this column examines the origins of innovation clusters, and particularly the role of R&D tax policy instruments, in attracting innovative firms. It estimates that innovation-promoting R&D tax policy instruments contribute to about one-tenth of the long-term economic growth around the globe.

Explaining China’s Latest Catch in Africa
Oana Burcu and Eloïse Bertrand (Diplomat) Jan 16, 2019
In Burkina Faso, peer pressure – not just checkbook diplomacy – helped motivate the switch from Taiwan.

The World Bank Needs to Join the 21st Century
Nancy Birdsall (FP) Jan 16, 2019
Whoever takes up the World Bank presidency should recognize that the institution needs a new direction to address modern challenges, including climate change.

What's Ahead for Housing in 2019?
Mark Vitner, Charlie Dougherty and Matthew Honnold (WF) Jan 16, 2019
The housing market lost considerable momentum over the course of 2018. Looking ahead into 2019, a pause in interest rate increases might help revive the housing market, or, at a minimum, help stem the erosion in home buying experienced during the last nine months of 2018.

PM must put country before party to fix Brexit
FT View Jan 17, 2019
A non-partisan approach is needed to avoid the chaos of a no-deal exit from the EU.

German industry’s plan to face the China steamroller
Ben Hall (FT) Jan 17, 2019
BDI business lobby urges rule changes to allow creation of European champions.

EM groups will pay heavy price for gorging on debt
Jonathan Wheatley (FT) Jan 17, 2019
Less investment for growth and yet more borrowing beckons.

Being bullish on oil is getting harder and harder
David Sheppard (FT) Jan 17, 2019
Data suggest investors have increased long positions but the market remains wary.

May seeks a talking cure for her Brexit woes
Henry Mance (FT) Jan 17, 2019
But it threatens to be a dialogue falling on deaf ears.

Germany’s China Problem
Anna Sauerbrey (NYT) Jan 17, 2019
Berlin is walking a thin line between its strongest ally and its biggest trading partner.

The risks of a recession are rising — and Trump might be to blame
Catherine Rampell (WP) Jan 17, 2019
And thanks to the shutdown, the government isn’t releasing many of the critical data points economists examine for signs of trouble.

The two issues that undermined the E.U.
Fareed Zakaria (WP) Jan 17, 2019
Brexit shows that the E.U. needs more than just tinkering.

Controversy surrounds the economic numbers game in China
Sebastien Falletti (AT) Jan 17, 2019
Clashing opinions about GDP growth has reignited an old debate about the credibility of the country’s data.

As China’s debt soars, the market for buying bad loans revs up
Economist Jan 17, 2019
Where most see peril, a hardy few see profits.

Brexit, mother of all messes
Economist Jan 17, 2019
Solving the crisis will need time—and a second referendum.

UK: Exit from Brexit — and Think About Japan
Uwe Bott and Stephan Richter (Globalist) Jan 17, 2019
Why Britain needs to pause Article 50, prepare a second referendum and think of Japan’s economic fate.

Will Jeremy Corbyn Rescue Britain from its Brexit Disaster?
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard (PIIE) Jan 17, 2019
The humiliating rebuff dealt to Prime Minister Theresa May over her compromise proposal to leave the European Union, followed by the failure of a "no confidence" vote the next day, has been described as an unprecedented head-snapping turn of events in British politics.

A Double Bind for the World Trade Organization
Ronald Orol (Brink) Jan 17, 2019
In November 2018, the World Trade Organization agreed to investigate the legality of U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Whether the tariffs are legal or not, recent U.S. trade policy restricts the WTO’s ability to function well.

Don't Ignore These Industrial Warning Signs
Brooke Sutherland (Bloomberg View) Jan 17, 2019
Tariff concerns and margin woes at bellwether Fastenal could have knock-on effects.

America Must Face Reality on China
P.H. Yu (Project Syndicate) Jan 17, 2019
For all the economic rivalry and political disagreement between the United States and China, a catastrophic outcome is unlikely, so long as the US faces reality in three ways. Above all, Americans should recognize that trying to defeat or contain China economically will not solve their problems at home.

Africa’s Historic Pivot
Célestin Monga (Project Syndicate) Jan 17, 2019
It might not be obvious to the casual observer, but Africa is undergoing something of a revolution when it comes to economic policymaking. Risking recrimination and worse from their traditional Western patrons, the continent’s governments are finally demonstrating a willingness to chart their own course.

Predicting recessions using term spread at the zero lower bound
Ralf Fendel, Nicola Mai and Oliver Mohr (VoxEU) Jan 17, 2019
The flattening of the US yield curve has left academics, central bankers and market commentators divided, with one camp interpreting it as a sign of impending recession (in line with historical patterns), and the other camp arguing that this time is different given unprecedented changes in monetary policy and other structural forces. This column argues that the ECB’s quantitative easing programme undermined the performance of term spreads as predictors of recessions. It suggests and tests a modified term spread and several other variables that are more successful at predicting recessions.

The Costly Blessings of Old Age
Joseph Chamie (YaleGlobal) Jan 17, 2019
World’s aging trends, powerful and irreversible, require rethinking of pension and long-term care programs.

The Retreat of African Democracy
Nic Cheeseman and Jeffrey Smith (FA) Jan 17, 2019
The autocratic threat is growing.

Chinese investment: State-owned enterprises stop globalizing, for the moment
Derek Scissors (AEI) Jan 17, 2019
Chinese investment around the world fell sharply in 2018. The decline was most evident later in the year and among state-owned enterprises. These companies also engaged in fewer power construction projects. The number of countries in the Belt and Road Initiative keeps expanding, but activity levels per country are flat. One explanation for weakness in various Chinese efforts to “Go Out” is caution in drawing down foreign exchange reserves. The US has restricted Chinese investment, but it was already small in size in 2018. Serious problems remain—for example, theft and coercive transfer of technology. Firms violating American law should face sanctions, not just investment bans.

Jack Bogle: selfless preacher of the passive revolution
FT View Jan 18, 2019
Financial pioneer helped people invest their money wisely and cheaply.

China’s fourth-quarter GDP: five things to watch
Gabriel Wildau (FT) Jan 18, 2019
Investors are searching for clues as to the severity of the country’s economic slowdown.

Davos climate concerns contain clues for policymaking
Gillian Tett (FT) Jan 18, 2019
The environment has replaced the economy and finance on the global elite’s worry list.

Mifid II hysteria over analyst research appears misplaced
Ben McLannahan (FT) Jan 18, 2019
Claims that new EU regulations will leave smaller companies unloved are questionable.

Geopolitical dangers abound for global oil supply
Anjli Raval (FT) Jan 18, 2019
Doubts linger over the steadiness of production in Iran, Nigeria, Libya and Venezuela.

Stop worrying about Brexit — it’s time to invest in UK assets
Merryn Somerset Webb (FT) Jan 18, 2019
For investors, too much misery may now be embedded in the price of UK assets.

The Economic Cost of the U.S. Shutdown Showdown
Libby Cantrill and Tiffany Wilding (PIMCO) Jan 18, 2019
While we believe the shutdown on its own would have only a modest impact on growth, the combined impact of this and other short-term drags on the economy could slow first-quarter growth close to the zero mark.

Why hasn’t technology improved government effectiveness?
Shanta Devarajan (Brookings) Jan 18, 2019
Over the past 20 years, the increase in computing power by about eight to 10 orders of magnitude has brought the costs of using digital technologies down to a tiny fraction of their year 2000 levels.

US-EU Trade Negotiations: A Daunting Mission
Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Zhiyao (Lucy) Lu (PIIE) Jan 18, 2019
The Trump administration’s trade team has embarked on the extremely challenging task of negotiating a free trade agreement with the European Union.

Federal Reserve Forward Guidance Is Alive and Well
Timothy A Duy (Bloomberg View) Jan 18, 2019
The new keyword is “patient,” and it clearly means the central bank is on hold for the time being.

Bank Indonesia Should Get a Star for Good Behavior
Daniel Moss (Bloomberg View) Jan 18, 2019
After doing all the right things to steady the economy, the central bank ought to be able to consider rate cuts, particularly with the Fed on pause.

‘Modern Monetary Theory’ Is a Joke That’s Not Funny
Michael R Strain (Bloomberg View) Jan 18, 2019
Yes, a government that issues its own currency can pay its bills. But piling up debt for no urgent reason is lunacy.

Greece’s Tsipras Still Has a Shot at Greatness
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jan 18, 2019
If the prime minister can get his Macedonia deal approved, his final months in office will help offset his failures during the economic crisis.

How the EU Plans to Punish Hungary and Poland
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jan 18, 2019
Imposing sanctions may be easier said than done for the EU.

The World Economy Goes Hollywood
Anatole Kaletsky (Project Syndicate) Jan 18, 2019
In a world where “nobody knows anything,” investors may be no better than film-studio moguls at predicting the future. If so, then markets, instead of being predictive, become increasingly reactive, simply extrapolating recent events.

Trade Outlook: In Low Visibility, Trust Your Gauges
Tim Quinlan (WF) Jan 18, 2019
Economics is seldom an exact science. Forecasting trade dynamics amid the uncertainty introduced by tariffs is already like flying through fog. When visibility is low, pilots have to trust their gauges. But as the government shutdown drags on, a number of economic indicators which rely on government funding are not being published, so we are without all our usual instruments.

The weakness in trade goes beyond a tariff war
FT View Jan 19, 2019
Economies with surpluses should do more to boost domestic demand.

Bigger risks to US Treasuries than China playing games
Joe Rennison (FT) Jan 19, 2019
Investors focused on the US-China spat should look at broader market shifts.

It will be hard to wipe Brexit blot from asset landscape
Michael Mackenzie (FT) Jan 19, 2019
Messy political saga is hitting sterling, stocks and UK’s economic reputation.

Trump’s Tariffs Are Killing American Steel With Kindness
David Fickling (Bloomberg View) Jan 19, 2019
Investors simply don’t believe that the current good times will last. They’re right to be skeptical.

Why the Quants Aren’t Adding Up
Satyajit Das (Bloomberg View) Jan 19, 2019
Black-box investing strategies supposedly based on rocket science are vulnerable to a host of inherent biases, which are now being exposed.

Advocates of an open economy face rough road
Martin Wolf (FT) Jan 20, 2019
Much depends on the evolution of domestic politics in high income countries, especially the US.

China’s Xi Jinping is no Davos man
Rana Foroohar (FT) Jan 20, 2019
Trump takes the heat but Beijing is hardly a champion of internationalism.

The self-fulfilling prophecy of a no-deal Brexit
Wolfgang Münchau (FT) Jan 20, 2019
The EU will not bend on the withdrawal deal, even through fear of disruption.

The Fed’s balance sheet is (mostly) a red herring
Gavyn Davies (FT) Jan 20, 2019
QE had significant economic and market impact but QT will not be so important.

The once brightest and best need to wise up and listen
John Gapper (FT) Jan 20, 2019
A chill has descended on international commerce that Davos will not easily shrug off.

Save US capitalism by liberating companies
Steven Pearlstein (FT) Jan 20, 2019
Politicians should make it easier to nominate board directors.

China’s Slowdown Looms Just as the World Looks for Growth
Keith Bradsher (NYT) Jan 20, 2019
In the past, China has helped to pull the global economy out of weak spots. This time, it might not come through.

Vietnam’s Politburo clamps down
David Brown (EAF) Jan 20, 2019
The public, initially sceptical that the party-state's campaign against corruption would endure, has been impressed as indictments piled up against a long list of senior officials and businessmen.

China Inc. Is Battling a Crisis of Confidence
Anjani Trivedi (Bloomberg View) Jan 20, 2019
Easing measures have done little to inspire optimism in the industrial sector. There’s no quick fix for this one.

How OPEC Is Helping U.S. Oil Reach a Tipping Point
Julian Lee (Bloomberg View) Jan 20, 2019
America is set to become a net oil exporter in 2020, and the group’s oil ministers should take some of the credit.

The mixed success of the Stability and Growth Pact
Oded Galor, Ömer Özak and Assaf Sarid (VoxEU) Jan 20, 2019
Evidence suggests that ancient regional variations in geographical characteristics contributed to the differential formation of culturaland linguistic traits, which in turn shaped development and inequality in today’s world. This column discusses how geographical characteristics are linked to the emergence of long-term orientation and the future tense, how they shaped distinct gender roles and possibly contributed to the emergence of grammatical gender, and how ecological diversity is connected to the emergence of hierarchical societies and reflected in politeness distinctions in language.

The raid on the Reserve Bank of India is risky
FT View Jan 21, 2019
Modi needs to recognise the value of credible central bank independence.

Falling demand is the energy sector’s next challenge
Nick Butler (FT) Jan 21, 2019
Consolidation is needed to keep it attractive to investors.

Fear of the unknown grips China’s leaders
Tom Mitchell (FT) Jan 21, 2019
Beijing is discovering that market sentiment is hard to predict.

Debt machine: are risks piling up in leveraged loans?
Joe Rennison and Colby Smith (FT) Jan 21, 2019
In the first in a series, regulators fear that looser lending standards for lowly-rated companies could precipitate the next downturn.

China’s Economy, by the Numbers, Is Worse Than It Looks
Keith Bradsher (NYT) Jan 21, 2019
New figures suggest the economic outlook may be improving but that growth has slowed more than the headline figure shows.

The Xi Jinping Slowdown
WSJ Jan 21, 2019
China’s weakest growth in 30 years shows the logic of a trade deal.

A Growth Debate for Germany
WSJ Jan 21, 2019
The main center-right party’s new leader weighs tax reform.

Tokyo’s lost decade: Lessons for Beijing, Bangkok and London
William Pesek (AT) Jan 21, 2019
The Japanese economy is not in a recession just yet, but its recent past holds lessons for capitals across Asia – and beyond.

Data dump illustrates China’s economic challenges
Gordon Watts (AT) Jan 21, 2019
Analysts and economists query GDP growth rate of 6.6% amid concerns of a slowdown and trade war talks between Washington and Beijing.

How to Establish More Balance in the Top-Heavy U.S. Economy?
George R. Tyler (Globalist) Jan 21, 2019
The U.S. model of shareholder capitalism only benefits the top 10% of society. Northern Europe’s codetermination model expands economic opportunity.

China's Plan to End Its U.S. Trade Surplus Is a Red Herring
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jan 21, 2019
The country’s leaders probably aren’t be willing to accept the risks or sacrifices.

India's Bankruptcy Code Had Teeth. Now It's Got Dentures.
Andy Mukherjee (Bloomberg View) Jan 21, 2019
Faced with a high-profile test, the country’s revamped insolvency code is already on the brink of failure.

China's Slowdown Forces the Rest of Asia to Rethink
Daniel Moss (Bloomberg View) Jan 21, 2019
The region’s smaller trade-dependent economies are in a tight spot now that their biggest patron is struggling. A new growth model will be hard to come by.

Europe Has a China Problem, Too
Leonid Bershidsky (Leonid Bershidsky) Jan 21, 2019
The German industrial lobby is proposing a rethink of trade ties based on cooperation, not confrontation.

Mario Draghi, You Have a Serious Problem
Marcus Ashworth (Bloomberg View) Jan 21, 2019
The ECB needs to wake up to the danger of Europe’s slowdown becoming a recession. There is one tool for further stimulus, though: the TLTRO.

Where Is Europe’s Brexit Policy?
Clive Crook (Bloomberg View) Jan 21, 2019
The U.K. has set a new standard for political paralysis — but the EU has little to boast about.

Decision Time for the Future of Corporate Taxation
José Antonio Ocampo (Project Syndicate) Jan 22, 2019
Despite some recent steps in the right direction, the current international tax system is outdated and fails to prevent egregious tax avoidance by digital multinational companies. The world needs a corporate tax system that is fit for the digital economy and benefits developing and developed countries alike.

Macron’s Great Gamble
Jean Tirole (Project Syndicate) Jan 21, 2019
After weeks of facing down protests and riots by the "yellow vests," French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a national public consultation to determine where citizens stand on a number of pressing issues. But while a genuinely inclusive national debate may be just what France needs, it also could backfire spectacularly.

What Next for China’s Development Model?
Michael Spence (Project Syndicate) Jan 21, 2019
Even if China maintains its market-oriented reform momentum, tensions with the West are unlikely to be resolved quickly. While steps can be taken to reduce these tensions, they cannot be easily eliminated, which means that they will probably be a key factor shaping the future of China’s development model.

The Great Reconstruction
Klaus Schwab (Klaus Schwab) Jan 21, 2019
New technological advances are not just upending traditional economic and political arrangements, but also altering what it is to be a member of society. The changes now underway will fuel further serious disruptions unless they are managed cooperatively and proactively at the global level.

The Metamorphosis of Central Europe
Ivan Krastev (Project Syndicate) Jan 21, 2019
Many liberals are shocked by the rise in recent years of xenophobic nationalism in Poland and Hungary, given that both have made substantial economic progress since joining the European Union. But that simply means that Central Europe’s turn toward populism cannot be explained in economic terms.

Where are we in the economics of industrial policies?
Dani Rodrik (VoxDev) Jan 21, 2019
Research on industrial policy has taken off, leading to a better understanding of when such policies effectively harness economic development.

The impact of Brexit uncertainty on UK exports
Meredith Crowley, Oliver Exton and Lu Han (VoxEU) Jan 21, 2019
Uncertainty over the future of the world trading system is at its highest since the introduction of GATT in 1947. The US-China trade war and suggestions that President Trump intends to withdraw the US from the WTO have significantly raised uncertainty in the global economy. Meanwhile, uncertainty over the future of the UK-EU trading relationship spiked on 15 January when the UK parliament overwhelmingly rejected the negotiated terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. This column documents that an earlier period of heightened trade policy uncertainty for the UK – the period following the Brexit referendum in June 2016 – depressed the UK’s international trading activity, with some UK businesses choosing to not enter the EU market while others chose to exit.

Automation in the transition region
Cevat Giray Aksoy and Ralph De Haas (VoxEU) Jan 21, 2019
Technological innovation can help to shift labour from sectors with low levels of productivity (such as agriculture) to higher-productivity sectors (manufacturing and, increasingly, services), with a profound impact on the nature of work and the types of skills that are in demand in the workplace. This column examines how this transformation is impacting jobs and employment across emerging Europe. The findings suggest that robotisation can explain only 13% of the total decline in the employment rate observed in these countries between 2010 and 2016.

Value chain integration: Export-oriented versus domestic-oriented firms
Bernhard Michel, Caroline Hambÿe and Bart Hertveldt (VoxEU) Jan 21, 2019
Domestic value creation is shaped by how and to what extent economies integrate into global value chains. This column argues that further insights can be gained by distinguishing export-oriented and domestic market firms in standard indicators of global value chain integration and participation. Using data for Belgium, it documents that export-oriented firms differ from domestic market firms in terms of input structure and import patterns. These two types of firms play different roles in determining the nature of a country’s global value chain participation.

Forget the investment losses of 2018, stocks will rebound
Ken Fisher (FT) Jan 22, 2019
The third year of US presidencies is positive 90 per cent of the time.

The rise of the populist authoritarians
Martin Wolf (FT) Jan 22, 2019
Elites must consider their responsibility for the worldwide resurgence of strongmen.

Five US market regulation forecasts for 2019
Annette L Nazareth and Gabriel D Rosenberg (FT) Jan 22, 2019
Davis Polk lawyers expect changes to Volcker rule and guidance on cryptocurrencies.

End of European QE could hit other markets
Kate Allen (FT) Jan 22, 2019
Investors in other parts of the world should be looking on nervously.

Algorithms are an easy scapegoat for volatile markets
David Siegel (FT) Jan 22, 2019
Computer-driven trading draws suspicion that obscures the advantages of algos.

Watching Brexit Fall Apart
Sylvie Kauffman (NYT) Jan 22, 2019
The referendum to leave the European Union was won on a promise to “take back control.” On the Continent, we wonder whether the British have lost not only control but their minds.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Tax Hike Idea Is Not About Soaking the Rich
Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman (NYT) Jan 22, 2019
It’s about curtailing inequality and saving democracy.

A Second Brexit Vote Could Worsen the Chaos Created by the First
Max Fisher and Amanda Taub (NYT) Jan 22, 2019
The first vote on whether Britain should leave the European Union created more problems than it solved. A second could do much the same — or even worse.

Are we in for a global slowdown this year?
Mohamed A. El-Erian (WP) Jan 22, 2019
The risk is there but so are these needed preventative steps.

The euro area is back on the brink of recession
Economist Jan 22, 2019
After two decades of underperformance, that should not be surprising.

Rules of the Road: How China’s Belt and Road Initiative Compares to the IMF
Patrick Carr (Global Comment) Jan 22, 2019
While the maintenance of a critical eye when reviewing this titanic project is a must, the west can’t offer comment without a little bit of self-reflection first.

Are regulators on top of shadow banks?
Brian Caplen (Banker) Jan 22, 2019
Where shadow banking is driving credit creation, regulators are liable to find their efforts to calm things down meeting with political resistance. India and China are both in focus.

Chinese Investment Has Tilted Back Towards State-Owned Firms
Nicholas R. Lardy and Zhiyao (Lucy) Lu (PIIE) Jan 22, 2019
One important sign of China's progress in economic reform is the relative share of private and state investment out of total investment. Between 2006 and 2011, the share of private investment rose quickly as new sectors won access to bank loans and the domestic equity market. But starting in 2012, the pace of private investment growth slowed, and by 2015, the state began gaining a foothold again.

Trillions for the SDGs? Time for a Rethink
Nancy Lee (CGD) Jan 22, 2019
In 2015, the world enthusiastically signed on to the challenge of transforming billions to trillions of dollars of private finance for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The idea was to use public and private development aid to unlock much more commercial private finance for sustainable growth and poverty reduction in developing countries. Four years later, the hoped-for trillions are nowhere in sight. In fact, we have reached the stage where we need to decide whether to change the goals we set in 2015 or take a hard, critical look at the institutions we rely on to propel mobilisation of private finance for sustainable development.

How Will Increased External Uncertainties Shape Latin America’s Economic Growth and Stability in 2019?
Liliana Rojas-Suarez (CGD) Jan 22, 2019
As we start out 2019, a growing consensus has been forming among experts and market participants: the increased volatility in international capital markets and rising trade tensions of 2018 will not abate in 2019, and in fact may have adverse spillover effects on economic growth and stability of emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). How will this challenging international environment shape prospects for Latin America?

Joyless growth in China, India, and the United States
Indermit Gill (Brookings) Jan 23, 2019
During the last few weeks of 2018, I spent time in Washington, D.C., Beijing, and New Delhi, the capitals of the largest high-income, upper-middle income, and lower-middle income economies, respectively. This blog’s title conveys both my findings and my forecast for 2019: Upbeat economies, and downcast people.

EU-UK: How to Break the Brexit Deadlock
Paul Goldschmidt (Globalist) Jan 22, 2019
The departure of the UK from the EU would be a blow to the EU’s strategic capabilities. Special action is required to help London over the hump.

Relax. The IMF's Forecast Isn’t That Bad
Daniel Moss (Bloomberg View) Jan 22, 2019
The lender nips and tucks its numbers again. The picture painted is less dramatic than the hand-wringing suggests.

Are India’s Budget Numbers Bogus?
Mihir Sharma (Bloomberg View) Jan 22, 2019
The government’s own auditor has raised questions about the many strategies it’s using to disguise the extent of fiscal spending.

What to Expect From the ECB's Policy Meeting
Mohamed Aly El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jan 22, 2019
Europe’s growth slowdown means the central bank might have to revisit its unconventional interest-rate and balance-sheet measures.

China Wants to Dominate the Internet
Emily de La Bruyere and Nathan Picarsic (Bloomberg View) Jan 22, 2019
Its new geopolitical strategy is a threat to open networks. America and its allies must respond.

The Trade Deal China Wants Isn’t Just Bad, It May Be Illegal
James L Bacchus (Bloomberg View) Jan 22, 2019
Buying up $1 trillion in goods from the U.S. may sound like a juicy offer, but it could expose Beijing to billions in penalties.

Arab States Should Beware of Indexes Bearing Easy Money
Karen E Young (Bloomberg View) Jan 22, 2019
Foreign capital blindly following emerging-market indexes can be a disincentive for real economic reform.

Europe’s Next Two Fronts in Its War on Google
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jan 22, 2019
The U.S. internet giant is under pressure over both privacy and intellectual property violations.

Brexit Demands a New British Politics
Guy Verhofstadt (Project Syndicate) Jan 22, 2019
Now that British Prime Minister Theresa May's negotiated Brexit agreement has been soundly rejected by the House of Commons, the United Kingdom finds itself at a crossroads. The country's future depends largely on whether its political leaders can put cooperation and the national interest before adversarial partisanship.

The Right Investments to Address the Human Capital Crisis
Kristalina Georgieva (Project Syndicate) Jan 22, 2019
The world faces a growing human capital crisis that demands urgent attention. By making the right investments in people, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, we can help to give them the health, knowledge, and skills they need to realize their full potential.

Morality and Money Management
Robert J. Shiller (Project Syndicate) Jan 22, 2019
Following his recent death, Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle was widely and generously eulogized – and justifiably so. But if everyone followed Bogle’s investment strategy, market prices would turn into nonsense and would provide no direction to economic activity.

Trump, Macron, and the Poverty of Liberalism
Kishore Mahbubani (Project Syndicate) Jan 22, 2019
If liberals want to defeat populists, there is only one route: regain the trust of the voters that form much of their base. The choice for liberals is clear: they can feel good by condemning their opponents, or they can do good by attacking the elite interests that have contributed to their opponents' success.

Cooperation for a New Age of Volatility
Sri Mulyani Indrawati (Project Syndicate) Jan 22, 2019
As advanced economies take the low road toward a new world of great-power rivalries, it is worth remembering that cooperation is what staved off a global depression just ten years ago. In the face of today's rising global threats, there is no good reason why multilateralism should not prevail once again.

The Right Way to Rebalance Trade
Zhu Min and Miao Yanliang (Project Syndicate) Jan 22, 2019
The Trump administration’s introduction of sweeping protectionist measures was one of the defining economic-policy developments of 2018. By embracing a bilateral perspective on national current accounts, the US government has made it clear that it will risk the long-term costs of tariffs for the sake of short-term political goals.

Retooling Europe’s economy
Debora Revoltella (VoxEU) Jan 22, 2019
Europe is at risk of falling behind its global competitors. In a period of radical technological transformation, European firms are investing too little, with a gap both in tangible and intangible investment compared to the US. This column calls for a ‘retooling’ of Europe’s economy in relation to skills, innovation finance, the business environment, infrastructure, and deepening the Single Market.

Nonmanufacturing as an Engine of Growth
Huiyu Li (FRBSF Econ Letter) Jan 22, 2019
In official statistics, manufacturing is the top contributor to U.S. productivity growth despite its shrinking share of employment. However, official numbers tend to understate growth among new producers that improve on existing producers, which is more prevalent outside of manufacturing. Accounting for such missing productivity growth shows that it plays a larger role in sectors such as retail trade and services. Also, the relative contribution of manufacturing to productivity growth has dropped significantly. These findings suggest that nonmanufacturing may be an increasingly important engine of U.S. growth.

Is the Eurozone Economy Close to Recession?
Nick Bennenbroek and Michael Pugliese (WF) Jan 22, 2019
The recent slowdown in Eurozone economic growth has sparked fears that the bloc may be approaching, or already in, a recession. In this report, we identify a couple simple rules of thumb that may allow readers to monitor the economic data for signs of an imminent recession in the Eurozone.

If parliament cannot resolve Brexit, a new referendum is needed
FT View Jan 23, 2019
MPs should extend Article 50 and test support for other exit options.

Europe can break the Brexit impasse
Bob Diamond (FT) Jan 23, 2019
The UK has been more central to the bloc than many on the continent realise.

Yet another Brazilian scandal imperils vital reforms
Jonathan Wheatley (FT) Jan 23, 2019
‘Mensalinho’ uproar risks wrecking Bolsonaro bid to mend deficit-ridden pensions system.

Why the rise of the robots hasn’t happened just yet
Gavin Jackson (FT) Jan 23, 2019
Rather than eradicating jobs, technology has facilitated a shift in who is working.

A trucker’s guide to post-Brexit disruption
Chris Giles (FT) Jan 23, 2019
As fears grow of a return to customs checks, the FT follows a British driver on his tightly-scheduled journey across the continent.

Junk bonds’ nasty year-end offers clues to next downturn
Robin Wigglesworth (FT) Jan 23, 2019
Investors should watch out for vanishing liquidity and credit downgrades.

Italy’s business community says goodbye to la bella vita
Rachel Sanderson (FT) Jan 23, 2019
Expansionary budget and government policies fuel concern in the corporate world.

Governments won’t fund sustainable development. Will private finance step in?
Gillian Tett (FT) Jan 23, 2019
Trillions of dollars of ‘dead money’ could help the world address poverty, hunger and climate change.

An ‘Old Testament Approach’ to Trade
WSJ Jan 23, 2019
A few Republicans want to give Trump unilateral authority on tariffs.

An Independent Fed Isn’t ‘Loco,’ It’s Effective
Alan S. Blinder (WSJ) Jan 23, 2019
Unelected technocrats are exactly the type of people you should want making monetary-policy decisions.

Japan facing major risk of recession this year
William Pesek (AT) Jan 23, 2019
The latest numbers indicate a serious downturn in Northeast Asia trade, and headaches for Abe.

Headlines about China’s weak growth are somewhat misleading
Economist Jan 23, 2019
Slowness is in the eye of the beholder.

Greece Has a Chance to Get Over Some Bad Blood
Marcus Ashworth (Bloomberg View) Jan 23, 2019
Blockbuster bond sales from Spain and Italy suggest there could be room for Greece to ride on their coattails and soak up investor demand.

The Case for a European Bounce? Ask the ECB
John Authers (Bloomberg View) Jan 23, 2019
The euro zone’s banks need to be stabilized first. Also, the new sick men of Europe.

There Actually Is a Brexit Consensus Among U.K. Voters
Matt Singh (Bloomberg View) Jan 23, 2019
To find it, don’t ask what they want, but rather what they can live with.

The Three Revolutions Economics Needs
Edmund S. Phelps (Project Syndicate) Jan 23, 2019
The silence of most economists on the underlying causes of the political ructions erupting throughout the West – and on what, if anything, can be done to restore economic vigor – has been deafening. And it provides further evidence of the profession's refusal to acknowledge the need for change.

An African Opportunity for Post-Brexit Britain
Zuneid Yousuf (Project Syndicate) Jan 23, 2019
Managing the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be challenging for everyone, but there is no doubt that a UK set to depart from the EU faces added uncertainty. As a post-Brexit Britain finds its place in the world, it would be well advised not to overlook Africa.

Techies, trade, and skill-biased productivity
James Harrigan, Ariell Reshef and Farid Toubal (VoxEU) Jan 23, 2019
Economists have studied the nexus between labour demand, globalisation, and technology adoption for decades, but quantifying the relative importance of these factors is challenging. Using firm-level data from France, this column proposes a new measure of productivity based on the number of workers in technology-related occupations. It finds large effects of importing, ICT, and R&D on the relative demand for skilled workers through their effects on productivity. Interestingly, the demand for both skilled and unskilled workers rises when firms hire ‘techies’ or engage in offshoring.

Sorry, Britain, You’re Just Not That Important for Europe
Simon Tilford (FP) Jan 23, 2019
Britain’s exit from the European Union won’t affect the big questions about Europe’s future.

The Investor Seth Klarman Offers a Warning. Davos Should Listen
Evan Osnos (New Yorker) Jan 23, 2019
Klarman, a low-key but highly influential investor, believes that shortsighted business practices are imperilling public confidence in capitalism.

Risks of second Brexit referendum must now be run
Martin Wolf (FT) Jan 24, 2019
Another vote will be divisive — but what is happening is already splitting the country.

Nurturing entrepreneurs is key to reducing inequality
Shakes Motsilili (FT) Jan 24, 2019
Initiatives to assist small businesses will help tackle high unemployment.

The steam has gone out of globalisation
Economist Jan 24, 2019
A new pattern of world commerce is becoming clearer—as are its costs.

Nurturing entrepreneurs is key to reducing inequality
Shakes Motsilili (FT) Jan 24, 2019
Initiatives to assist small businesses will help tackle high unemployment.

China Opens the Door to U.S. GMOs
James C. Collins Jr. (WSJ) Jan 24, 2019
The decision is a boon to farmers and a milestone for agronomic innovation.

Davos is a microcosm of the world — and the outlook is grim
Fareed Zakaria (WP) Jan 24, 2019
Can an international system without leaders survive?

Rising costs of China’s stimulus addiction
William Pesek (AT) Jan 24, 2019
As President Xi Jinping turns Beijing’s stimulus-industrial complex up to 11, 'Minsky moment' risks only increase.

Lower tail risk favors emerging markets
David P. Goldman (AT) Jan 24, 2019
Assets that looked extremely risky last year - including higher-yielding EM currencies and Chinese stocks - are now looking increasingly attractive.

What does a possible no-deal Brexit mean?
Guntram B. Wolff (Bruegel) Jan 24, 2019
With Brexit getting closer, it is still extremely difficult to predict which one of the possible outcomes will materialise. Guntram Wolff examines what exactly it would mean for the UK to 'crash out' of the EU, for both parties.

Assessing Global Financial Stability
Tobias Adrian (IMF) Jan 24, 2019
Let me describe to you what the IMF sees as some of the major factors that could put growth at risk.

Xi Jinping: Smooth Talker vs. Brass-Knuckle Operator
Stephan Richter (Globalist) Jan 24, 2019
China’s president talks high-mindedly about economic globalization. Sounds good, until you see his latest global export strategy – tools for human control.

The U.S.-China Cold War Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better
Tyler Cowen (Bloomberg View) Jan 24, 2019
That’s because the major issue between the two nations is not trade or ideology but a lack of trust.

Venezuela’s in Crisis. The Oil Market Doesn’t Care
David Fickling (Bloomberg View) Jan 24, 2019
Traders may be too sanguine. The country is still an important source of heavy crude for U.S. refiners.

Give the BOJ a Break
Daniel Moss (Bloomberg View) Jan 24, 2019
The central bank is buffeted by the same factors as its global peers – and homegrown challenges that are tougher to tackle.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro Dials It Back in Davos
Raphael Rottgen (Bloomberg View) Jan 24, 2019
The “tropical Trump” serves up economic reform, not populist clickbait.

Fund Managers Dodge a Brexit Bullet
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jan 24, 2019
The industry may just get through the regulatory turmoil unscathed.

Israel’s Economy Is Too Strong to Argue About
Matthew A Winkler (Bloomberg View) Jan 24, 2019
Soaring indicators show how far the country has come as a fateful election approaches.

Russia Can’t Decide Whether It’s Rich or Poor
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jan 24, 2019
A spat between one of the architects the post-Soviet economy and an official of the Putin regime poses an important question.

Hold the Outrage About Soaring Wealth Inequality
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jan 24, 2019
There is a huge gap, but reports that it widened a lot last year are based on dubious analysis.

Airbus Rips Apart the Imperial Delusions of Brexit
Chris Bryant (Bloomberg View) Jan 24, 2019
Some Brexiters think the U.K. could go it alone in aircraft-making. To which the only sensible response from Europe should be: “Go ahead and try.”

Draghi Sells a Lemon, and the Market Buys It
Marcus Ashworth (Bloomberg View) Jan 24, 2019
The ECB president managed to reverse a dismal currency reaction to the central bank’s change in outlook by looking on the bright side.

The World’s Responsibility to Educate
Serigne Mbaye Thiam (Project Syndicate) Jan 24, 2019
Every country has the responsibility to ensure that all children – including girls and those from disadvantaged backgrounds – get a good education. Senegal’s experience highlights the challenges and opportunities that many low- and middle-income countries face in meeting this goal.

How Globalization Killed Our Mother
Matthew Caruana Galizia, Andrew Caruana Galizia, and Paul Caruana Galizia (Project Syndicate) Jan 24, 2019
While investigative journalists have joined forces to expose globalized crime and corruption, justice and law enforcement remain largely national. Law-enforcement authorities should follow journalism's lead and urgently develop the sort of international networks that organized crime has perfected.

The AI Threat to Open Societies
George Soros (Project Syndicate) Jan 24, 2019
In an age of populist nationalism, open societies have increasingly come under strain. But the threat of atavistic ideological movements pales in comparison to that posed by powerful new technologies in the hands of authoritarians.

Productivity effects of internationalisation through the domestic supply chain
Bruno Merlevede and Angelos Theodorakopoulos (VoxEU) Jan 24, 2019
Studies of the implications of trade openness for local economies rarely address the domestic supply chain. This column examines whether indirect effects of internationalisation affect the domestic supply chain. Micro-level data for manufacturing firms across 19 EU countries, combined with input-output tables, show that domestic access to intermediate inputs that are also exported leads to higher levels of efficiency.

Negative interest rate policy and the bank lending channel
Gauti Eggertsson and Lawrence H. Summers (VoxEU) Jan 24, 2019
Several central banks implemented negative policy rates in response to the financial crisis, but there is little consensus on the overall effect of this policy. This column examines the transmission of policy rates to bank lending rates, focusing on the case of Sweden. While the first two cuts in negative territory by the Riksbank appear to have been transmitted to lending rates, transmission seems to have broken down for the second two cuts. The findings suggest diminishing returns on interest rate cuts at negative rates.

Britain Is Stumbling Toward the Worst Possible Brexit
Rachel Shabi (Nation) Jan 24, 2019
A no-deal exit is what civil servants now consider most likely—and it is one that sections of the British public, in full kamikaze mode, are clamoring for.

The global economy’s cylinders are starting to sputter
FT View Jan 25, 2019
As the eurozone joins the slowdown, first-quarter growth will be weak.

Seeds of doubt sown on the slopes of Davos
Roula Khalaf (FT) Jan 25, 2019
Saving the planet becomes a growing part of the conversation at the World Economic Forum.

Nations move to avoid global ecommerce ‘splinternet’
Rana Foroohar (FT) Jan 25, 2019
Group seek to restart stalled WTO talks on rules covering cross-border data.

How Tariffs Stained the Washing Machine Market
Jim Tankersley (NYT) Jan 25, 2019
A year after the Trump administration tried to help American manufacturers of laundry equipment, prices are up, sales have fallen and stock prices are down.

Sherrod Brown Sends Regrets
WSJ Jan 25, 2019
The Democrat was supposed to support new Nafta. Guess not.

Chinese buying clouds Bangkok’s property outlook
Peter Janssen (AT) Jan 25, 2019
Currency controls, lending restrictions and new regulations on speculative buying could all conspire against Chinese interest in the Thai capital's hot but cooling condo market.

Lousy isn’t risky
David P. Goldman (AT) Jan 25, 2019
The big story this year isn’t the dead-cat bounce of equity markets following the December panic, but the de-risking of markets.

Government Spending Doesn't Create Economic Growth
Frank Shostak (Mises Wire) Jan 25, 2019
According to many commentators, outlays by government play an important role in the economic growth. In particular, when an economy falls into a slower economic growth phase the increase in government outlays could provide the necessary boost to revive the economy so it is held.

Why a No-Deal Brexit Would Be Bad for Developing Countries
Hannah Timmis (CGD) Jan 25, 2019
Last week, the British Parliament rejected the Prime Minister’s EU Withdrawal Agreement by a resounding 432 votes to 202, making the odds of a no-deal Brexit greater than ever. Having survived a motion of no-confidence, the government now has fewer than 70 days to devise an alternative exit plan that MPs will support. If it fails, then under Article 50, the UK will leave the EU without an agreement on 29 March.

Delaying the ECB’s Liftoff
Andrew Bosomworth (PIMCO) Jan 25, 2019
We think Thursday’s downgraded growth assessment is a precursor to two changes in the ECB’s monetary policy stance later this year.

Protect Turkey's Central Bank From Interference
Bloomberg View Jan 25, 2019
Turkey’s parliament has given President Erdogan too much sway over economic matters.

Emerging-Market Junk Bonds Looking Good? Think Again
Shuli Ren (Bloomberg View) Jan 25, 2019
Borrowers' rush to issue debt in dollars begs the question of why they aren't doing so at home.

Venezuela’s Crisis Isn’t All Bullish For Oil
Liam Denning (Bloomberg View) Jan 25, 2019
Tighter supply of its heavy crude could squeeze already thin refiner profit margins, hitting demand.

Brexit Will Make the U.S. and Europe Less Safe
James G Stavridis (Bloomberg View) Jan 25, 2019
Washington must repair the military breach between the U.K., France and Germany.

The Euro’s First 20 Years
Jeffrey Frankel (Project Syndicate) Jan 25, 2019
According to public opinion polls, 20 years after its introduction, the euro is highly popular, with 64% of eurozone citizens supporting the common currency. This offers hope that, if the eurozone’s leaders can learn from past mistakes, the monetary union will survive and even thrive in the future.

How to Eat to Save the World
Modi Mwatsama and Howard Frumkin (Project Syndicate) Jan 25, 2019
With the global population set to reach ten billion by 2050, the challenge of feeding the world in a healthy and sustainable way will only deepen. Meeting that challenge will require major, long-term systemic changes.

The Chinese Railways Remolding East Africa
Nicholas Muller (Diplomat) Jan 25, 2019
Chinese-financed transport infrastructure projects are fundamentally changing connectivity in East Africa.

America’s Short-Lived Oil Resurgence
Deepak Gopinath (YaleGlobal) Jan 25, 2019
Potential fracking slowdown, due to short well life cycles, could curb US oil power abroad.

Central banks do their best to ease nerves
Michael Mackenzie (FT) Jan 26, 2019
Markets remain at the mercy of policymakers in Beijing and Washington.

Diminishing returns: hedge funds keep it in the family
Robin Wigglesworth, Lindsay Fortado and Laurence Fletcher (FT) Jan 26, 2019
Lower income and higher costs are forcing some funds to close, but others are shunning outsiders to look after their own money.

Economic uncertainty and fertility cycles
Bastien Chabé-Ferret and Paula Gobbi (VoxEU) Jan 26, 2019
Between the early 1940s and the late 1960s, the secular decline in fertility that started at the turn of the 19th century in most developed countries was interrupted by a massive baby-boom. This column argues that although much attention has focused on this boom, fertility rates preceding it were abnormally low. The evidence suggests that economic uncertainty can explain a substantial part of the major swings in fertility over the 20th century.

Where are the protesters?
Isabelle Mayault (LRB) Jan 26, 2019
In a world where the 26 richest people own as much as the poorest 50 per cent, you might have expected to see massive protests outside the Kongresszentrum in Davos. Over the past ten years, however, the once thriving mobilisation against the World Economic Forum has lost steam.

Delay Brexit and make time to consult the public
Gordon Brown (FT) Jan 27, 2019
Level with the people about the detailed costs and benefits of leaving the EU.

Will we see a rerun of a market meltdown, just like in 2016?
Gavyn Davies (FT) Jan 27, 2019
Many observers believe global recession risks are high this year.

Another tech bubble could be about to burst
Rana Foroohar (FT) Jan 27, 2019
We are in the late stages of a credit cycle, with too much money chasing too little value.

Oil market will soon feel heat of Venezuela turmoil
Nick Butler (FT) Jan 27, 2019
Further conflict could see the energy industry become the focal point of unrest.

Do not underestimate EU integration drive
Wolfgang Münchau (FT) Jan 27, 2019
The treaty signed by France and Germany sets a significant agenda.

The World Economy Just Can’t Escape Its Low-Growth, Low-Inflation Rut
Neil Irwin (NYT) Jan 27, 2019
Just when we thought we were out, global deflationary forces have pulled us back in.

Venezuelan Spring
Mary Anastasia O'Grady (WSJ) Jan 27, 2019
The people are destitute, angry and tired of socialism. They want it to end.

China’s economy is certainly slowing but growth is still robust
Yiping Huang (EAF) Jan 27, 2019
Industrial upgrading, economic policy battles and trade friction with the United States all contributed to the slowdown in China last year. If the government is able to fine-tune its economic policies and adopt counter-cyclical measures, China can still achieve a robust pace of economic growth this year — as long as trade friction risks remain under control.

Why the Fed Is Likely to Signal Greater Policy Flexibility
Mohamed Aly El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jan 27, 2019
The central bank must balance continuing to please markets and responding to domestic economic strength.

There’s No Path to a Fast Recovery in Venezuelan Oil
Julian Lee (Bloomberg View) Jan 27, 2019
Whatever happens with Maduro, years of underinvestment and mismanagement have taken their toll on the country’s oil industry.

China’s Banks Are Desperate for Capital
Christopher Balding (Bloomberg View) Jan 27, 2019
Lenders can’t continue this pace of loan growth without a bigger cushion. Beijing needs to make fundraising easier.

MPs should take a ‘no-deal’ Brexit off the table
FT View Jan 28, 2019
Acting in the national interest means avoiding a hard exit from the EU.

No more heroes for the global elite
Gideon Rachman (FT) Jan 28, 2019
The message from the World Economic Forum this year was that enthusiasm and ideas are in short supply.

Trump's Tariffs Don't Explain the Drop in Steel Shares
Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Euijin Jung (PIIE) Jan 28, 2019
The New York Times and the Council on Foreign Relations both attribute 2018 fourth quarter weakness in steel shares to Trump's "national security" tariffs. But the recent 11 percent drop in steel prices (figure 1) mainly reflects fears of a slowing global economy, forecast by the International Monetary Fund1 and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and lamented at Davos. While escalating trade tensions are among key risks to the global economy, the US-China battle, doubts about Brexit and the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and Trump's fascination with auto tariffs loom far larger than steel tariffs.

US: How to Combat Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing?
Frank Vogl (Globalist) Jan 28, 2019
The continuing hijacking of the global financial system by terrorist organizations and organized crime must be stopped.

Being Bullish on China Bank Stocks Is a Losing Game
Shuli Ren (Bloomberg View) Jan 28, 2019
They’re cheap and monetary easing should be good for profits, but there are other reasons to be wary.

The Brexit Europe Should Want
Clive Crook (Bloomberg View) Jan 28, 2019
The best answer requires back-to-basics thinking, which is why it won’t happen.

Now Banks Look Like They’re Worried About Brexit
Mark Whitehouse (Bloomberg View) Jan 28, 2019
Lenders have moved business out of London for two quarters in a row.

Ranking the Trump Economy
Matthew A Winkler (Bloomberg View) Jan 28, 2019
The president brags about U.S. prosperity. But conditions improved more under his predecessors. (Even Carter.)

India Doesn’t Need a Bold Budget Now
Mihir Sharma (Bloomberg View) Jan 28, 2019
Voters aren’t going to believe expansive populist promises anyway, given how close the country is to elections.

Risk Switch Just Flipped to `On' in China Stocks
Nisha Gopalan (Bloomberg View) Jan 28, 2019
Replacement of the chief securities regulator suggests the emphasis has shifted to growth from stamping out abuses.

The Fed Should Consider Lowering Rates
Narayana Kocherlakota (Bloomberg View) Jan 28, 2019
It’s falling short of its goals for both inflation and employment.

A Simple Fix to Address Income Inequality
Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan (Bloomberg View) Jan 28, 2019
Help more people make use of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Brexit Sweat and Tears
Chris Patten (Project Syndicate) Jan 28, 2019
For years after World War II, Britons were aware of the palpable shift in the country’s fortunes. But there was a deep aversion to accepting the UK’s diminished status, and the failure – beginning with Winston Churchill – of successive generations of politicians to address it is what has led to the current impasse.

Warnings from the Global Trade Cycle
Stephen S. Roach (Project Syndicate) Jan 28, 2019
The global trade cycle is facing major stress in 2019, downward revisions have just begun, and the risk of a major slowdown in world GDP growth cannot be minimized. In a still tightly connected world, no major economy will be an oasis.

Why China Must Save Less
Zhang Jun (Project Syndicate) Jan 28, 2019
China’s rapid investment-led growth in recent decades has been fueled by high levels of national savings, but this unbalanced development path appears increasingly risky. The country must now reduce its excessive savings by shifting to a model focused on domestic consumption and opening up the service and non-trade sectors.

Can a “No-Deal” Brexit Be Avoided?
Gordon Brown (Project Syndicate) Jan 28, 2019
British Prime Minister Theresa May's party is divided, her cabinet is split, and perhaps half its members are jostling to succeed her. To ensure an orderly withdrawal from the European Union, her government has only one option.

How Europe’s Populists Can Win by Losing
Mark Leonard (Project Syndicate) Jan 28, 2019
The European Parliament elections this May have been described as a make-or-break moment for the future of the European project – and for good reason. With plans to form a populist united front, Euroskeptic parties need only capture one-third of parliamentary seats to bring EU governance to a crawl.

A European fiscal capacity can avoid permanent transfers and improve stabilisation
Jan Stráský and Guillaume Claveres (VoxEU) Jan 28, 2019
Calls to complement national automatic stabilisers and the ongoing financial integration in the euro area with a common fiscal instrument have provoked a mixed response. This column, part of the VoxEU debate on euro area reform, uses a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of the euro area to show that fiscal risk sharing brings an additional layer of stabilisation compared to national stabilisers, particularly when monetary policy is constrained by the effective lower bound. It also argues that an unemployment reinsurance scheme could be designed in such a way that it would benefit all members of the currency area and would not lead to permanent transfers among countries.

Trade and growth in the age of global value chains
Carlo Altomonte, Laura Bonacorsi and Italo Colantone (VoxEU) Jan 28, 2019
Amid Brexit and protectionist moves by President Trump, many observers are warning about the negative effects that a rise in trade barriers could have on growth. This column first highlights the important role acquired by deep-water ports as main hubs for trade during 1995-2007 and how they have allowed countries to gain from trade. It then shows that becoming embedded in global value chains is a powerful determinant of growth, even if it implies that a growing share of gross exports represents value added that has been produced in foreign countries.

Huawei charges cripple prospects for US-China trade deal
Tom Mitchell (FT) Jan 29, 2019
Storm will evoke bitter memories for China’s top negotiator as he arrives in Washington.

Eurasian Economic (dis)Union
Martin Miszerak (FT) Jan 29, 2019
The bloc has not ‘re-Sovietised’ the region and is stretched by competing priorities.

Help the low skilled ride out the rise of the robots
Sarah O'Connor (FT) Jan 29, 2019
Adult training tends to be taken up only by those already well-educated. This must change.

Markets braced for recession are an opportunity
Maya Bhandari (FT) Jan 29, 2019
The declines in equities in December mean there are now pockets of value for investors.

The debt is still out of control
Robert Samuelson (WP) Jan 29, 2019
Five takeaways from “The Budget and Economic Outlook” by the Congressional Budget Office.

Brexit alarm bells ring in the UK and Asia
Jonathan Gorvett (AT) Jan 29, 2019
There is an increasing sense of alarm amongst UK-based companies – both Asian and non-Asian alike.

Korea’s global foreign-currency bonds emerge as safe havens
Lee Shin-Hyung (AT) Jan 29, 2019
But while they have proven extremely popular recently, some analysts say they are yet to endure a serious crisis.

After the ESM programme: Options for Greek bank restructuring
Alexander Lehmann (Bruegel) Jan 29, 2019
With the end of the Greece support programme, authorities now have scope to focus on the legacy of NPLs and excess private-sector debt. Two wide-ranging schemes are under discussion. They should be assessed in terms of required state support, likely investor appetite for problematic bank assets, and institutional capacity to manage a complex new organisation tasked with debt restructuring.

A TV Drama Spawned in India's Financial Shadows
Andy Mukherjee (Bloomberg View) Jan 29, 2019
Zee may attract interest from a string of global media and tech companies. The winner will have bankrupt lender IL&FS to thank.

Mario Draghi Searches for the Crash Mats
Ferdinando Giugliano (Bloomberg View) Jan 29, 2019
The ECB president was headed for a perfect 10 for his performance in saving the euro. But an incipient slowdown risks spoiling his routine.

A Watershed’s Coming for China’s $11 Trillion Bond Market
Shuli Ren (Bloomberg View) Jan 29, 2019
Beijing has an incentive to push yields below 3 percent. With deflation threatening, it may not be too late to join the rally.

Reaping the Benefits of African Economic Integration
Célestin Monga (Project Syndicate) Jan 29, 2019
Africa must industrialize to diversify away from natural resources and create jobs for its fast-growing young population. And by boosting intra-continental trade, consumption, and investment, regional integration can be a strong vector for improving productivity, building manufacturing powerhouses, and developing credible African brands.

There Is No Sino-American Trade War
Martin Feldstein (Project Syndicate) Jan 29, 2019
Chinese negotiators recently offered to buy enough American products to reduce the bilateral trade deficit to zero by 2024. Why, then, have US negotiators rejected that as a way to end the dispute?

Two Cheers for Population Decline
Adair Turner (Project Syndicate) Jan 29, 2019
Eventual gradual population decline, provided it results from free choice, should be welcomed. Indeed, the greatest demographic challenge to human welfare is not low fertility and population aging, but rather the high fertility rates and rapid population growth still seen in Pakistan, much of the Middle East, and Africa.

When Will China Achieve Quality Growth?
Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng (Project Syndicate) Jan 29, 2019
China has not yet realized President Xi Jinping's vision of an inclusive, green, innovation-driven economy. But if policymakers continue to strengthen property rights and work to improve market confidence and foster fair competition, a breakthrough should not be far off.

An Italian Warning for France
Dominique Moisi (Project Syndicate) Jan 29, 2019
With Italy’s populist government supporting the “Yellow Vest” protests, France needs to understand how and why it has become the principal target of Italian criticism. Reckoning with this latest turn of events could help France to overcome its own internal divisions and prevent Italian-style populism from taking power in Paris.

Lessons of East Asia’s Human-Capital Development
Lee Jong-Wha (Project Syndicate) Jan 29, 2019
Given the effect of human capital on national productive and development capacities, developing countries should be placing a high priority on boosting human capital. The experience of East Asia’s prosperous economies holds valuable lessons.

Political violence shapes local fiscal institutions and state building
Rafael Ch, Jacob Shapiro, Abbey Steele and Juan F. Vargas (VoxEU) Jan 29, 2019
It is widely accepted that war between states can lead to increased fiscal capacity. Yet, there is no similarly clear, historically consistent accounting of how civil wars have affected state capacity and tax revenues. Using recent evidence from Colombia, this column shows that municipalities affected by internal conflict have tax institutions consistent with the preferences of the parties that have managed to inflict more violence in the past. Internal armed conflict can help interest groups capture municipal institutions for their own private benefit, impeding state-building.

Reports of Belt and Road’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
Nadège Rolland (FA) Jan 29, 2019
Don’t underestimate China’s resilience.

Fed chair needs to take care with messaging
FT View Jan 30, 2019
Jay Powell’s statements have sometimes confused financial markets.

China’s slowdown is of its own doing
Harry Broadman (FT) Jan 30, 2019
Blaming the trade war with the US is a dangerous mischaracterisation.

Rising volatility may boost yen but hit dollar
James McAlevey (FT) Jan 30, 2019
Greenback’s role as a haven is threatened by US debt load and cyclical shortcomings.

The challenge of one world, two systems
Martin Wolf (FT) Jan 30, 2019
Unbridled strategic competition between China and the west would be a disaster.

Theresa May’s Disastrous Dithering
Bloomberg View Jan 30, 2019
If the prime minister has a realistic new Brexit plan, she’s keeping it to herself.

India’s opposition wants a universal basic income. Does the idea stand a chance?
Milan Vaishnav (WP) Jan 30, 2019
The timing of the announcement is almost as interesting as the content.

The Hot Topic in Markets Right Now: ‘Quantitative Tightening’
Matt Phillips (NYT) Jan 30, 2019
It’s not China. It’s not the shutdown’s aftermath. The latest obsession occupying the minds of investors is the Fed’s plan to reduce the stockpile of bonds it bought during and after the Great Recession.

The Messier Brexit Gets, the Better Europe Looks
Steven Erlanger (NYT) Jan 31, 2019
The British meltdown has muted talk in other countries about quitting the E.U. But that does not mean the populist threat to Europe’s cohesion is gone.

The Fed Apologizes
WSJ Jan 30, 2019
Powell continues his rehabilitation tour, and markets applaud.

Debt trap could derail China’s high-speed train network
Gordon Watts (AT) Jan 30, 2019
Concerns are growing that Beijing’s infrastructure binge on transportation will come at a high cost.

Want Less Graft? Allow More Freedom.
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jan 30, 2019
With some surprising exceptions, corruption is seen as more likely to thrive in authoritarian countries than in democracies.

Game Theory Says Don't Bet Against a No-Deal Brexit
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jan 30, 2019
The parties are trying to play two different versions of the prisoner’s dilemma; to agree, they need to pick one.

Fed Gives Markets What They Want
Mohamed Aly El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jan 30, 2019
The central bank signals that it will be patient about further rate hikes and flexible about unwinding its balance sheet.

Satisfying the IMF Won’t Solve Egypt’s Problems
Amr Ismail Ahmed Adly (Bloomberg View) Jan 30, 2019
A $12 billion loan has helped the country recover from its financial crisis, but hasn’t fixed its fundamental economic flaws.

How a New Venezuela Can Avoid the Oil Curse
Ellen R Wald (Bloomberg View) Jan 30, 2019
Reforming Chavez-era petroleum laws can revive a formerly varied and vibrant economy.

The Fatal Flaw of Central Europe’s Illiberal Democracies
Piroska Nagy-Mohacsi (Project Syndicate) Jan 30, 2019
The divisive nature of Central Europe's quasi-authoritarian governments precludes consensus-building, and has so weakened academic freedom and independent institutions that creative policy responses to economic challenges are being stifled. As a result, the only feedback mechanism in the region is demonstrations and civil disobedience.

Reimagining Davos
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Project Syndicate) Jan 30, 2019
At the recent World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, participants made the same mistake they always do: extrapolating from the recent past rather than looking genuinely into the future. Three key changes would enable the event to fulfill its considerable potential.

From a No-Deal Brexit to a No-Brexit Deal
Hans-Werner Sinn (Project Syndicate) Jan 30, 2019
The parliamentary defeat of British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal means that all options are on the table. By addressing Britain's longstanding concerns over intra-EU migration and its attendant costs, the European Union could both set the stage for a reversal of Brexit and shore up its own long-term stability.

How Germany Lost its Einsteins
Dalia Marin (Project Syndicate) Jan 30, 2019
Recent research shows that the high inequality of opportunity associated with low inter-generational economic mobility is shrinking America's pool of potential inventors. In Germany – where social mobility is even lower than in the US – this dynamic is severely undermining innovative entrepreneurship.

The Sorry State of the World Economy
Kaushik Basu (Project Syndicate) Jan 30, 2019
Data released in January paint a bleak picture of advanced-economy prospects. Even if some emerging economies – which face serious challenges of their own – manage to pick up some of the slack, the world economy will remain encumbered by the combination of economic interconnectedness and political balkanization.

Why Brexit Will Damage Europe
Sigmar Gabriel (Project Syndicate) Jan 30, 2019
The European Union will not shatter in the wake of Brexit, and it will also overcome the economic fallout from the UK’s departure. But Brexit will damage Europe’s role in the world in a way that Europeans currently seem unable to grasp.

Over-the-counter frictions and yield spread changes
Nils Friewald and Florian Nagler (VoxEU) Jan 30, 2019
Previous studies show that conventional factors, such as firm-specific and macroeconomic variables, do a poor job of explaining yield spread changes. Using data from the US corporate bond market, this column shows that over-the-counter frictions explain around 23% in the variation of the common component and one third of the total variation in yield spread changes. The combination of search and bargaining frictions is slightly more important for the dynamics of yield spread changes than inventory frictions. The findings are broadly consistent with leading theories of intermediation frictions in over-the-counter markets.

Made in China 2025, Explained
Elsa Kania (Diplomat) Jan 30, 2019
A deep dive into China’s techno-strategic ambitions for 2025 and beyond.

Is Huawei a Pawn in the Trade War?
Robert Williams (FA) Jan 30, 2019
The politics of the global tech race.

Everything You Know About Global Order Is Wrong
Adam Tooze (FP) Jan 30, 2019
If Western elites understood how the postwar liberal system was created, they might think twice about asking for its renewal.

China Should Join the New Trans-Pacific Partnership
Peter A. Petri and Michael G. Plummer (PIIE) Jan 30, 2019
A year after President Donald Trump’s ill-advised pullout from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement in early 2017, the remaining 11 Asian and Pacific countries agreed on a deal in spite of the absence of the United States. Renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the accord took effect on December 30, 2018, and provides rigorous, up-to-date rules for Asia-Pacific trade—but it excludes the region’s two biggest economies, the United States and China. Chinese membership in the CPTPP would yield large economic and political benefits to China and other members. The CPTPP, in its current form, would generate global income gains estimated at $147 billion annually. If China were to join, these gains would quadruple to $632 billion, or a quarter more than in the original TPP with the United States. But to join the CPTPP, China would have to undertake unprecedented reforms and manage complex political challenges.

The EU cannot rescue Britain from Brexit chaos
Philip Stephens (FT) Jan 31, 2019
May’s government has shown it is not to be counted on any longer as a trusted partner.

China’s credit conundrum at heart of growth weakness
FTCR Jan 31, 2019
A return of shadow finance may be needed to stop the economic bleeding.

Banking With Beijing
WSJ Jan 31, 2019
Malaysia is the latest country to rethink Belt and Road projects.

It’s time for the wealthy to watch out
Christine Emba (WP) Jan 31, 2019
It remains to be seen whether plans to hit the one percenters will be implemented.

We have a bleak view of modern life. But the world is making real progress.
Fareed Zakaria (WP) Jan 31, 2019
It is easy to take for granted the astounding progress we’ve made.

How Russia is corrupting the liberal world order
Josh Rogin (WP) Jan 31, 2019
A convicted money launder holds key positions in international organizations.

Poor and isolated, Myanmar backs into a China debt trap
Bertil Lintner (AT) Jan 31, 2019
Myanmar's parliament hopes China will accept repayment of its debts in rice, but payback will more likely come through deep-reaching economic concessions.

The Fed: Patient Amid Rising Uncertainty
Tiffany Wilding (PIMCO) Jan 31, 2019
We think the Fed is right to be cautious in the face of rising global economic risks along with uncertainties surrounding politics and policy.

China’s Growth Playbook: How to Get Out of a Fix
Gene Frieda and Stephen Chang (PIMCO) Jan 31, 2019
After a long period of investment-driven growth, China is changing its playbook.

Europe Shouldn’t Relax Its Antitrust Rules
Bloomberg View Jan 31, 2019
A win for “continental champions” would be a loss for millions of consumers.

Surprise! Robots and Trucks Have Different Business Cycles
Anjani Trivedi (Bloomberg View) Jan 31, 2019
The fortunes of machine manufacturers diverge depending on what they make. For now, the heavy-equipment sector is looking good.

The Fed’s Bold Step Toward Main Street
Narayana Kocherlakota (Bloomberg View) Jan 31, 2019
The central bank says it’s ready to be flexible. Now it needs to show it.

India Can’t Afford to Guarantee Income
Dhiraj Nayyar (Bloomberg View) Jan 31, 2019
For all the talk of helping the poor in the next budget, politicians would do better to make the breakthrough reforms that would create jobs.

China Makes Its Presence Felt at the Fed, Quietly
Daniel Moss (Bloomberg View) Jan 31, 2019
China is the principal factor behind the U.S. central bank's pivot, even if it wasn't mentioned directly in the latest policy statement.

Brexit Leaves U.K. Assets in Purgatory
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jan 31, 2019
Investors are rightly sitting on the sidelines amid the political tumult.

The Threat of a Eurozone Recession
Lucrezia Reichlin (Project Syndicate) Jan 31, 2019
The eurozone may fall into a new recession by the end of this year, with potentially nasty political consequences. In addition to countering the cyclical slowdown, pro-European forces must urgently address the continent’s long-term structural economic problems.

Three Lessons from QE in Europe
Stefan Gerlach (Project Syndicate) Jan 31, 2019
With the European Central Bank having recently ended quantitative easing, three conclusions seem obvious: the ECB’s asset purchases had important macroeconomic benefits; the political costs of QE were much greater than anyone expected; and the whole episode was truly awful for the Bundesbank.

The EU Needs a Brexit Endgame
Jean Pisani-Ferry (Project Syndicate) Jan 31, 2019
Despite having her negotiated EU withdrawal deal soundly rejected in the House of Commons this month, British Prime Minister Theresa May is still in charge of the Brexit process. To avert a disastrous "no-deal" scenario, the bloc's leaders must continue to work with May on a compromise solution, whether it likes it or not.

A Green New Deal for Europe
Massimiliano Santini and Fabrizio Tassinari (Project Syndicate) Jan 31, 2019
With the United States repudiating climate action, Europe should step up to lead the needed structural transformation. A transnational compact uniting Europe’s liberal and progressive forces under the banner of a Green New Deal would leverage the force produced by cross-partisan consensus and broad popular support.

Optimising production: Industrial policies in networks
Ernest Liu (VoxDev) Jan 31, 2019
A study finds that promoting upstream sectors to counter resource misallocation raises aggregate efficiency.

Ownership structure and productivity of multinationals
Cagatay Bircan (VoxEU) Jan 31, 2019
Evidence is mixed on the effects of multinational activity on productivity and competitiveness in host economies. This column provides new evidence that multinationals’ productivity effects may be previously under-estimated. Results suggest that ownership structure of multinationals and foreign acquisitions play an important role in driving aggregate productivity growth.

Myth Busting Real-Time Recession Predictors
Azhar Iqbal, Abigail Kinnaman, and Shannon Seer (WF) Jan 31, 2019
Two well-known indicators of recession are the unemployment rate and the nominal fed funds rate. With the trough of the unemployment rate and the peak in the fed funds rate for the current cycle potentially in sight, and given that these inflection points are notoriously associated with recession, are near-term recession concerns warranted?

EU Offers Up a Meager Workaround to U.S. Iran Sanctions
Keith Johnson (FP) Jan 31, 2019
The new vehicle will do little to ease Iran’s economic pain, though it should help humanitarian trade.