News & Commentary:

Articles/Commentary

What Fifa tells us about global power
Gideon Rachman (FT) Jun 1, 2015
If the US says there is a serious case to answer, it still carries credibility.

Assets made risky by regulator confidence
Avinash Persaud (FT) Jun 1, 2015
The impulse to usher banks on to firm ground is easy to understand.

Obama wins over public with trade push
Shawn Donnan (FT) Jun 1, 2015
Polls show more Americans than not support US agreements with other countries.

Why optimism on Europe looks justified
Stephanie Flanders (FT) Jun 1, 2015
There is less fear of outright deflation than at start of year.

The Meaning of Financial Repression
Mark Thornton (Mises Daily) Jun 1, 2015
We are repeatedly told that the unprecedented monetary stimulus by the Federal Reserve and other central banks is necessary to stimulate the economy, create jobs, and generate economic growth. The truth is that this scheme is designed to stealthily steal from the productive classes in order in enrich the unproductive financial class and the counterproductive political classes. It is a con game.

How the Fed and Markets Are Not in Sync on Interest Rates
Angel Ubide (PIIE) Jun 1, 2015
After seven years of zero interest rates, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is preparing markets for rate hikes, likely to start in September. The FOMC has not decided on the precise timing of the first rate hike but has stressed that interest rates will be increased gradually over an extended period so as not to disrupt the recovery.

Can Indonesia’s Joko Widodo Deliver on His Infrastructure Promises?
Georgina Hurst (II) Jun 1, 2015
His pledge to ramp up investment on roads and ports played a key role in President Widodo’s selection; now comes the hard part — building.

Don't Trust Asia's Booming Stock Markets
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 1, 2015
Herd mentality can move in both directions.

Latin America Already Has the Trade Deal It Needs
Justin Fox (Bloomberg View) Jun 1, 2015
The Green Revolution defused the threat of mass starvation.

Latin America Already Has the Trade Deal It Needs
Mac Margolis (Bloomberg View) Jun 1, 2015
If it weren't neglected, Mercosur could lift the region.

Achtung, Germany Needs Babies
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jun 1, 2015
The economy could sputter if today's workers don't create tomorrow's workers.

The Business Case for Sustainability
Laura Tyson (Project Syndicate) Jun 1, 2015
Investors have long feared that incorporating sustainability into their decisions would mean accepting a lower rate of return. But there is mounting evidence that sustainable investments do as well as – or even outperform – traditional investments.

China’s Jobless Growth Miracle
Keyu Jin (Project Syndicate) Jun 1, 2015
One of the most baffling features of China’s economic rise is that even with double-digit GDP growth, employment grew by a measly 1.8% annually, on average. Households, it seems, have largely missed out on the benefits of rapid development.

Seize the Sustainable Future
Simon Zadek (Project Syndicate) Jun 1, 2015
For the first time in years, a healthy dose of optimism seems to be in order, as the global economy recovers and becomes increasingly green. And yet the risk remains that recent gains will be frittered away if policymakers, business leaders, and investors focus on short-term concerns at the expense of long-term threats.

How default affects political survival in networked democracies
Jeffrey Chwieroth, Cohen R. Simpson and Andrew Walter (VoxEU) Jun 1, 2015
Many fear that a Greek default would lead voters elsewhere in Europe to favour default over austerity. This column argues that it is more likely to have the opposite effect. Network interdependencies among countries affect the domestic politics of default because defaults are both rare and vivid. Foreign default increases the propensity for voters to punish their governments for failing to repay external private creditors.

Macroprudential Policy in a Microprudential World
John C. Williams (FRBSF Econ Letter) Jun 1, 2015
Events of the past decade have refocused attention on the potential contributions of monetary policy and macroprudential approaches to fostering financial stability. However, monetary policy is poorly suited for dealing with financial stability concerns. Instead, given the scarcity of explicit macroprudential tools in the United States, microprudential regulations and supervision are used to achieve macroprudential goals.

Duda's Economic Populism
Hilary Appel and Mitchell A. Orenstein (FA) Jun 1, 2015
Poland's new president and the future of neoliberalism.

Aiming High
Charles Kenny (F&D) Jun 1, 2015
New development goals could spur progress toward better-quality life around the world.

Straight Talk: Path to Development
Christine Lagarde (F&D) Jun 1, 2015
International partnership, commitment, and flexibility are essential to improve the global condition.

A Chain Unbroken
Marja Ruotanen, Gianluca Esposito, and Petya Nestorova (F&D) Jun 1, 2015
Outlawed almost everywhere, slavery lives on in the dark recesses of the global economy.

Capital Idea
Selim Elekdag and Dirk Muir (F&D) Jun 1, 2015
By increasing spending on infrastructure, Germany will help not only itself, but the entire euro area.

The Rich and the Great Recession
Bas Bakker and Joshua Felman (F&D) Jun 1, 2015
Focusing on middle-class behavior to explain the U.S. boom and bust may be too narrow.

Negative bets on China shares unwise
Henny Sender (FT) Jun 2, 2015
Going short equities means taking on the central bank itself.

Do not shut out vulnerable from banking
Mark Carney and Bertrand Badré (FT) Jun 2, 2015
Financial abandonment is not something that can be ignored.

No investor wins if they are all the same
John Kay (FT) Jun 2, 2015
Diversification is essential but herding behaviour means that every asset is linked.

The future belongs to cities of the west
Simon Kuper (FT) Jun 2, 2015
These are places where today’s 0.1 per cent, the most mobile class in history, might want to live.

EM most at risk of bond market ‘tantrums’
Gene Frieda (FT) Jun 2, 2015
Any liquidity challenges in a sell-off will appear first in emerging markets.

China After the Bubble
Bloomberg View Jun 2, 2015
Easing its stock market down to more rational levels won't be painless.

Is China Repeating Korea's Mistakes?
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 2, 2015
The economy is growing on the back of household debt.

The New Authoritarians
Pankaj Mishra (Bloomberg View) Jun 2, 2015
Rulers like Vladimir Putin persuade the ruled to live in a make-believe world.

Does Greece Have a Diabolical Plan B?
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jun 2, 2015
A German economist says time is on Greece's side.

Getting Inequality Wrong
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jun 2, 2015
Many of us have a skewed picture of income distribution.

How to Default on Sovereign Debt
Odette Lienau (Project Syndicate) Jun 2, 2015
The financial brinkmanship over Greece’s debts has raised the question of whether (or when) the country will default on its sovereign debt. As Greek officials consider their options, they would do well to bear in mind that there are better and worse ways to default.

The G-7’s Sustainability Mission
Caio Koch-Weser (Project Syndicate) Jun 2, 2015
When the G-7's leaders meet next week in Germany, they should use the occasion to take the first steps toward avoiding the most dangerous consequences of global warming. Governments and regulators should adopt several policies that would stimulate private-sector investment in cleaner forms of energy.

China’s Pursuit of a New Economic Order
Zhang Jun (Project Syndicate) Jun 2, 2015
China has faced major challenges in carving out a global role befitting its economic might within the existing system. That is why China's government has lately scaled up its efforts to recast the world order – in particular, the monetary and trading systems – on its own terms.

Accounting for Inertia in Geopolitical Forecasting
Rodger Baker (Stratfor) Jun 2, 2015
Geopolitics, at least in the sense that we practice, is neither deterministic in its approach to understanding nations and their interactions nor simply synonymous with current events or international relations.

Why Greece Will Cave—and How
George Tsebelis (FA) Jun 2, 2015
Alexis Tsipras and the debt negotiations.

China’s WTO accession and exports: Impact by firm ownership
Ryuhei Wakasugi (VoxEU) Jun 2, 2015
The Chinese government significantly restructured and modernised its economy to gain WTO accession in December 2001. This column examines how WTO entry affected different types of firms. It finds that both private and State-owned firms became more productive after WTO entry yet these productivity gains did not translate into a higher propensity to export for State-owned enterprises.

Euphoria grips China’s stock market
David Pilling (FT) Jun 3, 2015
There is a fin de siècle feeling and today’s stresses are the most serious since the end of the 1990s.

In defence of Europe’s long holidays
Sarah Gordon (FT) Jun 3, 2015
‘Les grandes vacances’ can have a positive impact on productivity, research suggests.

Investment: Revaluing commodities
Gregory Meyer and John Authers (FT) Jun 3, 2015
Two pioneering academics make the case for commodity index investments.

An Open Letter to Republicans on the Ex-Im Bank
Jeb Jensarling (WSJ) Jun 3, 2015
Where is the justice in risking the taxes of average Americans to fatten the coffers of a moneyed elite?

Improving the world economy’s B-minus grade
OECD Insights Jun 3, 2015
Global growth will gradually strengthen towards its pre-crisis trend rate by late 2016 as activity becomes more evenly shared across the major economies and overall external imbalances are less marked than in the run-up to 2007,

People Are Worried About Bond Market Liquidity
Matt Levine (Bloomberg View) Jun 3, 2015
As you might have heard.

The Impunity Trap
Jeffrey D. Sachs (Project Syndicate) Jun 3, 2015
The ability of leaders of powerful organizations to flout the law for personal gain is one of the more glaring manifestations of inequality. FIFA – which reelected its president just days after 14 former and current executives were indicted for corruption and fraud – is merely the most obvious recent example of this.

Europe’s Pointless Deficit Targets?
Benedicta Marzinotto (Project Syndicate) Jun 3, 2015
The fiscal rules of the EU have undergone much-needed improvements in recent years, but much more needs to be done. In addition to suffering from a lack of clarity on key issues, EU fiscal policy remains overly focused on short-term goals, reflected in its needless emphasis on nominal deficit targets within annual budget cycles.

Macroprudential supervision in the Eurozone: Beware of excessive expectations
Niklas Gadatsch, Tobias Körner, Isabel Schnabel and Benjamin Weigert (VoxEU) Jun 3, 2015
There is a broad consensus that financial supervision ought to include a macroprudential perspective that focuses on the stability of the entire financial system. This column presents and critically evaluates the newly-created macroprudential framework in the Eurozone, with a particular focus on Germany. It argues that, while based on the right principles, the EU framework grants supervisors a high degree of discretion that entails the risk of limited commitment and excessive fine-tuning. Further, monetary policy should not ignore financial stability considerations and expect macroprudential policy to do the job alone.

Why investors will make 100-year loans
Ralph Atkins (FT) Jun 4, 2015
Petrobras century bond makes more sense than first appears.

An offer that Greece should not refuse
Philip Stephens (FT) Jun 4, 2015
It is evident Tsipras cannot deliver. Pain is unavoidable with or without default.

Ready money means merger market problems
Gillian Tett (FT) Jun 4, 2015
A dark interpretation of the M&A boom is of a financial system drowning in cash and credit Read more >>

Human error, infallible algorithms
David Siegel (FT) Jun 4, 2015
Technology beats people especially when they are sick or tired.

That 1914 Feeling
Paul Krugman (NYT) Jun 4, 2015
Despite good intentions on both sides, it is not certain that a deal will be reached between Greece and its creditors.

The Latest Bond Panic
WSJ Jun 4, 2015
Draghi tells the truth about volatility, and the markets prove his point.

US House of Representatives Gears Up for Trade Skirmish
Bridges, Volume 19, Number 20 Jun 4, 2015
The US House of Representatives resumed session this week, with lawmakers soon expected to take up controversial legislation that would grant President Barack Obama with renewed "fast track" trade powers.

EU Parliament Ctte Approves Draft TTIP Recommendations
Bridges, Volume 19, Number 20 Jun 4, 2015
Members of the European Parliament's international trade committee (INTA) signed off last week on a series of draft recommendations for what it would like to see in a planned trade deal with the US, including a highly-anticipated position on the investment protection component of the talks.

EU, Japan Leaders Pledge to Speed Up Trade Talks
Bridges, Volume 19, Number 20 Jun 4, 2015
Leaders from the EU and Japan agreed last week at a Tokyo summit to speed up the pace of their bilateral trade negotiations, which have been underway since 2013. The push to advance the discussions comes as both trading partners are also working to advance other "mega-regional" trade talks, namely the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

WTO's Azevêdo Warns of Slow Progress in Doha Talks as July Deadline Approaches
Bridges, Volume 19, Number 20 Jun 4, 2015
Talks aimed at crafting a work programme for resolving the outstanding areas of the WTO's Doha Round are still not reaching the "necessary convergence" in order to meet an end-July deadline, Director-General Roberto Azevêdo warned the global trade body's members this week.

Japan's Peter Pan Problem
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 4, 2015
QE won't fly unless the public thinks it will.

The IMF's Unusual Advice to the Fed
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jun 4, 2015
Call for delay of U.S. hike is a rare shot across the bow.

China Isn't Done Growing Yet
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jun 4, 2015
The slowdown now is a stumble, not a collapse.

A Speech of Hope for Greece
Yanis Varoufakis (Project Syndicate) Jun 4, 2015
When US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes delivered his famous address in Stuttgart in September 1946, he proved that hope could be a force for good in post-war Europe. A similar speech by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, delivered in a Greek city, could go a long way toward initiating positive change in the European Union today.

Magna Carta at 800
Peter Singer (Project Syndicate) Jun 4, 2015
Because Magna Carta attempted to set limits to political power without grounding these limits in the sovereignty of the people, it demonstrated a problem with which philosophers have grappled for even longer than 800 years. From where do the principles that constrain rulers come, if from neither the rulers nor their subjects?

Green Depreciation and European Recovery
Thomas Fricke and Xavier Timbeau (Project Syndicate) Jun 4, 2015
Europe must find a way to cement its economic recovery while intensifying the fight against climate change. An accelerated depreciation scheme for green investment would be a highly efficient way to accomplish both goals.

India – A Silicon Valley for Emerging Markets?
Dinesh C. Sharma (YaleGlobal) Jun 4, 2015
India’s tech firms target consumers in fast-growing emerging markets – and attract acquisition attention, too

Trends and prospects for private-sector deleveraging in advanced economies
Serkan Arslanalp, Reinout De Bock and Matthew Jones (VoxEU) Jun 4, 2015
Major advanced economies have made mixed progress in repairing the private sector’s balance sheets. This column explores private sector deleveraging trends and calls for a set of policies that will return debt to safer levels. Monetary policies should support private sector deleveraging and policymakers should not ignore the positive impact of debt restructuring and write-offs on non-performing loans.

The economic consequences of austerity
Amartya Sen (New Statesman) Jun 4, 2015
The judgements of our financial and political leaders are breathtakingly narrow. I consider the alternatives.

Give Obama trade-promotion authority
Condoleezza Rice (WP) Jun 5, 2015
It’s a critical tool in the conduct of U.S. diplomacy.

Brazil's Potential Output: A Case of Cognitive Dissonance?
Monica de Bolle (PIIE) Jun 5, 2015
The International Monetary Fund's most recent World Economic Outlook (WEO) report (IMF 2015) confirms many economists' continued low expectations for Brazil's potential output and growth.

China Vs. the West: The Renewables Arms Race
John Mathews (Globalist) Jun 5, 2015
How should the West respond to China becoming a renewables superpower?

Does Outsourcing Explain the Wage Gap?
Peter R. Orszag (Bloomberg View) Jun 5, 2015
Maybe, though corporate performance might be the real reason.

Hong Kong Embraces China's Bubble
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 5, 2015
Doing business with the mainland's restless traders is a bad idea.

Managing the Age of Disruption
Richard Dobbs, James Manyika and Jonathan Woetzel (Project Syndicate) Jun 5, 2015
At a time when powerful forces are disrupting the global economy, bold predictions are even more likely than usual to be wrong. Each of four “great disruptions” is transformational on its own, and all are amplifying the effects of the others, producing fundamental and unpredictable changes on a scale the world has never seen.

Europe’s Last Act?
Joseph E. Stiglitz (Project Syndicate) Jun 5, 2015
Greece has met its creditors’ demands far more than halfway. Yet Germany and Greece’s other creditors continue to demand that the country sign on to a program that has proven to be a failure, and that few economists ever thought could, would, or should be implemented.

Drones for Development
J.M. Ledgard and Scott MacMillan (Project Syndicate) Jun 5, 2015
Unmanned aerial vehicles have populated the nightmares of people around the world in recent years, largely owing to their military and potentially malign applications. But cargo drones embody what the World Bank’s Jim Yong Kim calls the “science of delivery,” promising to get essential goods and services to the neediest people.

Rethinking informality
Ravi Kanbur and Michael Keen (VoxEU) Jun 5, 2015
The ‘informal’ economy presents a key challenge for developing-nation policymakers due to its labour-market and tax-revenue implications. Informality is usually defined as the complement to formality, i.e. any activity that isn’t covered by a clear set of laws. This column argues that such a definition risks obscuring more than it reveals, by failing to understand and address the varieties of informality that exist. Sensible policy should focus on tailored interventions across different categories of taxpayer, not on reducing aggregate informality.

Secular stagnation: The time for one-armed policy is over
Willem Buiter, Ebrahim Rahbari and Joe Seydl (VoxEU) Jun 5, 2015
Stagnation is gripping several of the world’s largest economies and many view this as secular, not transient. This column argues that many economies need both demand-side stimulus and supply-side reform to close the output gap and restore potential-output growth. A combined monetary-fiscal stimulus – i.e. helicopter money – is needed to close the output gap, and this should be accompanied with extensive debt restructuring, policies to halt rising inequality, and additional public infrastructure investment.

Deutsche, stuck in middle of global finance
John Gapper (FT) Jun 7, 2015
Jain and Fitschen personified the muddled sense of identity at the heart of the company.

Two dismal economic plans for Greece
Wolfgang Münchau (FT) Jun 7, 2015
Without reform the country cannot coexist with northern Europe in a monetary union.

Shunning Beijing’s AIIB was a mistake
Robert Zoellick (FT) Jun 7, 2015
Washington needs to learn from this embarrassing experience.

Tug of war as central banks seek control
Mohamed El-Erian (FT) Jun 7, 2015
Starting point of ridiculously low yields was vulnerable to upset.

China migration: Toil and trouble
Tom Mitchell (FT) Jun 7, 2015
Labour shortages give workers a stronger hand but scepticism about the justice system is widespread.

Trade and Trouble
Salvatore Babones (FA) Jun 7, 2015
What China can learn from the 1640 economic bust.

The gravity of high-skilled migration policies
Mathias Czaika and Christopher Parsons (VoxEU) Jun 7, 2015
Immigration policies can potentially attract and select high-skilled workers. This column provides a new assessment of the effectiveness of migration policies. Points-based (or supply-based) systems increase both the absolute numbers of high-skill migrants and the skill composition of international labour flows. Conversely, demand-driven systems – usually based on the principle of job contingency – are shown to have a rather small, even negative effect.

Chinese deals hint at European ambitions
Patrick Jenkins (FT) Jun 8, 2015
Next destination for acquisitive groups may be Germany.

Tug-of-war as central banks seek control
Mohamed El-Erian (FT) Jun 8, 2015
Starting point of ridiculously low yields has fuelled volatility.

Trade Deficit Myths
WSJ Jun 8, 2015
A case study in protectionist misinformation.

Living on less than two dollars a day: OECD Forum Discovery Lab
Xavier Godinot and René Locqueneux (OECD Insight) Jun 8, 2015
A debate with over 50 Forum participants on living on less than two dollars a day.

Technology Needs Capital To Produce Economic Growth
Frank Shostak (Mises Daily) Jun 8, 2015
Technology, while important, must always work through the investment of capital in order to generate economic growth.

Why the West should welcome Chinese yuan's inclusion into the SDR
Li-Gang Liu (SCMP/PIIE) Jun 8, 2015
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is now conducting a review to consider including the renminbi (RMB) in the basket of special drawing right (SDR) currencies and will make a final decision at the end of the year. At issue for the review is whether the RMB is a 'freely or widely used currency' in trade and financial transactions.

Anti-Militarism: A Source of Modern German Confidence
Michael Vlahos (Globalist) Jun 8, 2015
With nothing left to prove on battlefields, Germany can pursue other tasks and strategies.

China's Boom in Old-Fashioned Business
Adam Minter (Bloomberg View) Jun 8, 2015
Direct sales are soaring, because trust is prized in a chaotic economy.

BRICs Hit a Wall
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 8, 2015
Emerging markets are dragging down the global economy.

Subplots Cloud Greek Drama
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jun 8, 2015
Acrimony distracts from the country's quest to stay in the euro zone.

U.S. Can't Import the Scandinavian Model
Megan McArdle (Bloomberg View) Jun 8, 2015
The enviable growth there is driven by the American economy.

How Warren Would Expand Trade With Asia
Peter R. Orszag (Bloomberg View) Jun 8, 2015
Dredging Boston Harbor would have at least as big an effect as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The Quiet Financial Revolution Begins
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Project Syndicate) Jun 8, 2015
Steadily and indisputably, the financial services industry – with which we all interact, whether as borrowers, savers, investors, or regulators – has embarked on a multiyear transformation. This process, slow at first, has been driven by the combined impact of two sets of factors.

Rethinking Inflation Targeting
Axel Weber (Project Syndicate) Jun 8, 2015
Over the last two decades, inflation targeting has become the predominant monetary-policy framework. But, as we have seen in the period since the 2008 financial crisis, this approach cannot support long-term monetary stability in a complex and constantly evolving economy.

Carry along trade: Evidence from Italy
Virginia Di Nino (VoxEU) Jun 8, 2015
The high-flying productivity of exporting firms is one of the reasons governments promote exporting. This column presents new evidence on ‘carry along trade’, i.e. exports by firms who did not produce the final good. In Italy, about a quarter of manufacturing exports involve goods sold by a manufacturer which is not the actual producer. These firms hold a sizeable productivity premium and many superstar firms are not super-producers.

Retail globalisation and household welfare: Evidence from Mexico
David Atkin, Benjamin Faber and Marco Gonzalez-Navarro (VoxEU) Jun 8, 2015
Much attention has been paid to supermarkets descending on developing nations, not least because retail is traditionally a big employer. Presenting evidence from Mexico, this column argues that the debate about new foreign retail outlets should focus far more on how supermarkets can greatly reduce the cost of living for the vast majority of local households rather than restricting attention to potentially adverse effects on nominal incomes within the retail sector.

Borders globalisation cannot erase
John Kay (FT) Jun 9, 2015
In an interconnected world, it remains hard to remove barriers.

Corporate China goes on a borrowing binge
Henny Sender (FT) Jun 9, 2015
Despite some alarming numbers, fears of a debt crisis have diminished.

Why China is blowing an equity bubble
John Plender (FT) Jun 9, 2015
High valuations will make it easier and cheaper to recapitalise state-owned firms.

Greeks chose poverty, let them have it
Francesco Giavazzi (FT) Jun 9, 2015
It is clear that citizens have no appetite for modernising society.

How the Next Financial Crisis Will Happen
Stephen A. Schwarzman (WSJ) Jun 9, 2015
A liquidity drought can exacerbate, or even trigger, the next financial crisis.

Stock Boom Chokes China's Reform Plan
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 9, 2015
Who wants to buy all-important bonds when equities are this hot?

The QE Placebo
Daniel Gros (Project Syndicate) Jun 9, 2015
It has now been nearly half a year since the European Central Bank declared its intention to buy some €1.1 trillion worth of eurozone government bonds. Contrary to the claims of the policy’s supporters, there is little evidence so far that the policy is working.

A New Birth for Social Democracy
Kemal Dervis (Project Syndicate) Jun 9, 2015
Nowadays, with the global economy undergoing fundamental transformation, workers worldwide are coming under significant pressure. Particularly in developed economies, social policies must adjust to provide the support that vulnerable populations need.

China’s Global Governance Challenge
Stephen S. Roach (YaleGlobal) Jun 9, 2015
AIIB’s founding members, led by China, could develop new standards for global governance.

Inflation expectations spur consumption
Francesco D'Acunto, Daniel Hoang and Michael Weber (VoxEU) Jun 9, 2015
Theory suggests that higher inflation expectations increase the likelihood that people will buy durable goods. This column presents evidence showing that this works for more educated, working-age, high-income, and urban households. A natural experiment from Germany shows us that the effect of inflation expectations on readiness to spend is causal and that monetary and fiscal policies that increase inflation expectations can therefore successfully spur aggregate consumption in the short run.

Luxury goods face a global reckoning
John Gapper (FT) Jun 10, 2015
The China crackdown shows what can occur suddenly to conspicuous consumption.

Reasons to fear a ‘triple taper tantrum’
Manoj Pradhan (FT) Jun 10, 2015
Central banks have no contingency plan for a revival of growth.

Fed risks inflating next housing bubble
Jason Cummins (FT) Jun 10, 2015
Near zero rates stimulate demand and could push prices higher than last time.

Emerging markets: Trading blow
Jonathan Wheatley and James Kynge (FT) Jun 10, 2015
After years of boosting global growth, developing economies now a major drag on world economy.

China’s Troubling Robot Revolution
Martin Ford (NYT) Jun 10, 2015
Will automation gut the country’s labor force, just as it needs consumer spending to bolster economic growth?

Last Protectionist Gasp
WSJ Jun 10, 2015
Free trade opponents invent an immigration plank that doesn’t exist.

Ignore Obama and vote for trade-promotion authority
George F. Will (WP) Jun 10, 2015
The president will be gone in 19 months, but the U.S. economy will continue to benefit from free trade.

Shrinking China: A Demographic Crisis
Gordon G. Chang (WA) Jun 10, 2015
The question of who will rule Asia in the 21st century, China or India, might already be decided: China’s population may peak by the end of the decade, with economic decline almost sure to follow.

Trade: The experts go to war
Simon Johnson (PIIE/Politico) Jun 10, 2015
In an interview with Politico this week, Ambassador Michael Froman stressed high import tariffs on American goods imposed by the 11 countries with which he is negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). His implication is that the TPP will dramatically lower such tariffs, boosting US exports, significantly increasing the size of our economy, and helping most Americans.

Janet Yellen Gives Asia the Jitters
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 10, 2015
Emerging markets nervously eye Washington's interest rates.

Bank of Japan Hands Off to Abe
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 10, 2015
Kuroda hints that he will push no more stimulus.

What Game Is Greece Playing?
Mark Buchanan (Bloomberg View) Jun 10, 2015
Is it chicken, a prisoner's dilemma or ultimatum?

The G-7 Embraces Decarbonization
Jeffrey D. Sachs (Project Syndicate) Jun 10, 2015
This week’s G-7 meeting at Schloss Elmau in the Bavarian Alps marked a major breakthrough in climate-change policy. The seven largest high-income economies made the revolutionary decision to end their economies' dependence on fossil fuels during this century.

China the Responsible Stakeholder
Barry Eichengreen (Project Syndicate) Jun 10, 2015
Rather than recoiling in fear, the international community should encourage China’s constructive engagement in governing the global economy. The first step toward that goal should be to take a more nuanced view of China’s recent policy initiatives.

The Chimera of Currency Manipulation
Jeffrey Frankel (Project Syndicate) Jun 10, 2015
If the US were to insist that “strong and enforceable currency disciplines” be part of trade agreements, as some in Congress are demanding for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the EU, no deals would be concluded. Other countries would refuse – and they would be right.

The Long-Term Investment Challenge
Angel Gurría (Project Syndicate) Jun 10, 2015
An extended global economic slump may be inevitable, but it can be mitigated. Adopting policies to facilitate and reward long-term investments will be key to exiting the current crisis and boosting the world’s potential for growth in the future.

Why sovereigns repay debts to external creditors and why it matters
The conventional wisdom in Greece is that the nation has suffered years of excessive, Troika-imposed austerity in a short-sighted effort to extract maximum repayment. This column argues that, in fact, Greece was a net receiver of Troika funds from 2010 to mid-2014, with a modest reverse flow since Greece stalled on its reforms. Both sides have negotiated in their self interest – influenced by bargaining threat points that have had everything to do with the direct costs of default and little to do with Greece’s concern about its reputation for making repayments.
With Greece on the edge and Argentina confronting adverse legal decisions, thinking about sovereign default is a front-burner issue. This column discusses how recent experience casts light on relative merits of the two main conceptual approaches to modelling sovereign lending and default – the reputation approach and the punishment approach.

The modern Greek tragedy
Jeremy Bulow and Kenneth Rogoff (VoxEU) Jun 10, 2015
The conventional wisdom in Greece is that the nation has suffered years of excessive, Troika-imposed austerity in a short-sighted effort to extract maximum repayment. This column argues that, in fact, Greece was a net receiver of Troika funds from 2010 to mid-2014, with a modest reverse flow since Greece stalled on its reforms. Both sides have negotiated in their self interest – influenced by bargaining threat points that have had everything to do with the direct costs of default and little to do with Greece’s concern about its reputation for making repayments.

Inequality of opportunity as a policy construct
Ravi Kanbur and Adam Wagstaff (VoxEU) Jun 10, 2015
Reducing inequality of opportunity, rather than inequality of outcome, is often heralded as an appropriate target for policy. This column explores the challenges of identifying inequality of opportunity. Disentangling how effort and circumstance contribute to outcomes is difficult, and this leads to a tendency to underestimate inequality of opportunity. This lends support for generalised social protection measures in dimensions such as income, health and education, irrespective of whether the outcomes can be specifically attributed to circumstance or to effort.

QE's impact on long-term yields: New thinking
Jens Christensen and Signe Krogstrup (VoxEU) Jun 10, 2015
Quantitative easing (QE) is thought to work by reducing expected future short-term policy rates and the supply of long-term bonds. This column argues that a third channel may be at work, namely a reserve-induced portfolio balance channel. It operates through the increase in central bank reserves on commercial banks’ balance sheets and is independent of which assets the central bank purchases. Central banks can implement QE programmes through purchases of other assets than long-term bonds and still reduce long-term yields.

What bond turbulence says about inflation
Ralph Atkins (FT) Jun 11, 2015
Too early to say markets signal decisive move away from deflation.

Chinese optimism woos a tough US crowd
Gillian Tett (FT) Jun 11, 2015
Alibaba’s founder believes that global trade could create a shining future.

Split verdict on the bullying over Greece
Aristides Hatzis (FT) Jun 11, 2015
Conflicting narratives of debt crisis are schematic but contain elements of truth.

What bond turbulence says about inflation
Ralph Atkins (FT) Jun 11, 2015
Too early to say markets signal decisive move away from deflation.

Seriously Bad Ideas
Paul Krugman (NYT) Jun 11, 2015
The financial crisis has given remarkable staying power to false explanations of big events. And they continue to warp policy.

Greece, a Financial Zombie State
NYT Jun 11, 2015
European officials need to produce a realistic plan to revive the country’s devastated economy.

The Return of Growth Economics
WSJ Jun 11, 2015
Passing a trade bill would mark the start of a new policy direction.

Prepare for serious turbulence in Russia
Sergei Guriev (WP) Jun 11, 2015
The West should think about how to ease the transition of power, should the current regime collapse.

G-7 Leaders Aim for TTIP Outline By Year's End, Make Global Climate Push
Bridges, Volume 19. Number 21 Jun 11, 2015
Leaders from the G-7 countries agreed on Monday to aim for an immediate acceleration of negotiations for a bilateral trade and investment deal between the US and EU, including an outline of such an agreement "as soon as possible, preferably by the end of the year."

African Leaders Launch Tripartite Free Trade Area
Bridges, Volume 19. Number 21 Jun 11, 2015
African heads of state have launched the largest free trade area across Africa, the Tripartite FTA (TFTA), during the Third Tripartite Summit held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt that ended Wednesday

Let’s Hope Machines Take Our Jobs: We Want Wealth, Not Jobs
Peter St. Onge (Mises Daily) Jun 11, 2015
The job-threatening rise of the machines is an economically illiterate meme that refuses to die.

China's Answer to Europe's Needs
Adam Minter (Bloomberg View) Jun 11, 2015
Will trade run one way along the New Silk Road?

Pimco Sold Itself Some Bonds
Matt Levine (Bloomberg View) Jun 11, 2015
Possibly because it was worried about bond market liquidity.

France's Thwarted Economic Glory
Justin Fox (Bloomberg View) Jun 11, 2015
It might top Germany, but not with policies like these.

Finance Stumps World's Best Minds
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jun 11, 2015
The old ideas unraveled in the financial crisis.

European banks: Healing continues
Jan Schildbach (DB Research) Jun 11, 2015
European banks had a successful start into 2015. Business activity improved, asset quality did so as well and profitability rose again, as the rebalancing of the industry made further progress. The ECB’s new large-scale market interventions helped strengthen sentiment in financial markets, and contributed to the continuing decline in the euro exchange rate – which on balance may have been beneficial for banks.

Should Washington Fear the AIIB?
Foreign Affairs Jun 11, 2015
The AIIB represents the start of a fundamental challenge to the current global multilateral order. True or false?

Desperate Millions Flee Poverty, Persecution and Inequality
Joergen Oerstroem Moeller (YaleGlobal) Jun 11, 2015
Nations must tackle root causes of disorderly migration – or expect more economic crises and armed conflict.

The Muddled Case for Trade Agreements
Dani Rodrik (Project Syndicate) Jun 11, 2015
With global trade negotiations deadlocked for years, regional agreements – long a dormant route to trade liberalization – are back with a vengeance. But the two biggest, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, seem to be about corporate capture, not liberalism.

A Greek Suicide?
Anatole Kaletsky (Project Syndicate) Jun 11, 2015
The good news is that a Greek default, which has become more likely after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ provocative rejection of what he described as the “absurd” bailout offer by Greece’s creditors, no longer poses a serious threat to the rest of Europe. The bad news is that Tsipras does not seem to understand this.

Why Iceland can now remove capital controls
Jon Danielsson and Ásdís Kristjánsdóttir (VoxEU) Jun 11, 2015
Iceland has just announced it is getting rid of its capital controls. This column argues that the government’s plan is a credible, efficient and fair plan to lift the costly and misguided controls.

WTO success: No trade agreement but no trade war
Ralph Ossa (VoxEU) Jun 11, 2015
The WTO has so far failed to deliver any significant multilateral trade liberalisation. However, this column argues that concluding from this that the WTO is a failure would clearly be premature. Its punchline is that the WTO’s success at preventing trade wars far outweighs its failure to promote trade talks. Overall, the WTO is therefore much more successful than the ailing Doha Round suggests.

Disaster risk and asset pricing
Jerry Tsai and Jessica Wachter (VoxEU) Jun 11, 2015
The high equity premium and high volatility in equity markets have long been a puzzle. This column discusses how rare, economy-wide disasters can account for this conundrum, as well as for patterns in prices, consumption, and interest rates during the Great Recession.

Trade Deal's Setback Left Wall Street Unmoved. Why?
Justin Wolfers (NYT) Jun 12, 2015
The market's indifference to Friday's surprising development suggests the stakes are lower than they appear for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Greece: The Confrontational End-Game Is Here
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard (PIIE) Jun 12, 2015
Now that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has alienated the European Commission, which is his government’s only potential ally in the creditor group known as the Troika—European Commission, European Central Bank (ECB), and International Monetary Fund (IMF)—no credible bridge-builders are left to save Athens from itself. Further confrontation and escalation seem most likely (60 percent).

Canada, Tomorrow's Superpower
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jun 12, 2015
It just needs more people.

Greece: The Implacable Meets the Incorrigible
Bloomberg View Jun 12, 2015
It's hard to imagine things could get worse between Greece and its creditors, but they just did and the possibility of default is closer. The Greeks have been exasperating, but the IMF and the EU are as much to blame. The solution remains available and clear: reform for debt relief.

Tsipras's Gambit Won't End Greece's Crisis
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jun 12, 2015
IMF and ECB must sign off on any deal.

Zimbabwe's Play Money Finally Gets the Axe
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jun 12, 2015
A tale of monetary mismanagement and billion-dollar bills.

The Right Food Fight
Kenneth Rogoff (Project Syndicate) Jun 12, 2015
The question of the extent to which governments should regulate or tax addictive behavior has long framed public debate about alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and other goods and services. And now, in the US – the mother of global consumer culture – the debate has turned to the fight against the epidemic of childhood obesity.

China’s Real Reform Challenge
Adair Turner (Project Syndicate) Jun 12, 2015
Whereas Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan depended on export-led growth to catch up with the developed economies, China is simply too large to be able to continue to depend on external markets. To reach the next stage of development, it will need to forge its own growth path, which will require taking on powerful vested interests.

Why America Should Join the AIIB
Paolo Mauro (Project Syndicate) Jun 12, 2015
The US should get off the sidelines and use its influence to help shape the design of China's new investment bank. In exchange for participating, the Obama administration should insist that the focus be on financing infrastructure projects that reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and meet the highest environmental standards.

What went wrong in Greece and how to fix it
Paolo Manasse (VoxEU) JUn 12, 2015
Greece’s problem came from the bursting of a debt-financed growth bubble inflated with the help of EZ membership. This column argues that the inevitable adjustment was more painful than necessary. The fiscal consolidation was too tight and too front-loaded, and, importantly, structural reform wasn’t properly sequenced. By concentrating on labour market rather than product market reforms, the sharp wage fall could not be paralleled by a similar reduction in prices, and now soaring inequality is undermining support for needed reforms.

Industrial clusters, subsidies, and local capture
Marius Brülhart and Helen Simpson (VoxEU) Jun 12, 2015
The evidence on how industry-level agglomeration affects government taxation is mixed. This column argues that local governments offer subsidies to favour pre-existing employment in locally agglomerated industries. This finding is in line with theories of policy capture rather than government taxation of agglomeration benefits.

The world economy: Watch out
Economist Jun 13, 2015
It is only a matter of time before the next recession strikes. The rich world is not ready.

The War of Ideas: Does it Exist? Can it be Won?
Stephan Richter (Globalist) Jun 13, 2015
What is the big idea (or set of ideas) the West is battling about?

Migration Realism
Kofi A. Annan (Project Syndicate) Jun 13, 2015
It is time to accept the reality that human migration cannot be stopped. Action is needed on four fronts to manage the flows of people in ways that benefit migrants’ countries of origin, transit, and destination.

The Futility of Our Global Monetary Experiment
David Stockman (Mises Daily) Jun 13, 2015
We’re in an experiment of monumental proportions.

Global trade agreements have a new role
Lawrence Summers (FT) Jun 14, 2015
There must be clear signs that international economic diplomacy will turn to broader concerns.

Greece has nothing to lose by saying no to creditors
Wolfgang Munchau (FT) Jun 14, 2015
If it were to default on its official-sector debt, France and Germany stand to forfeit €160bn.

Mexico: Clearing out
Jude Webber and Gina Chon (FT) Jun 14, 2015
Mexican banks say US regulatory clampdown has damaged legitimate activity

China's Unsettling Stock Market Boom
NYT Jun 14, 2015
The sharp increase in stock prices could put the financial system at risk of big losses.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership and a President’s Legacy
Peter Baker (NYT) Jun 14, 2015
The 12-nation deal President Obama has been negotiating in Asia could be imperiled, not by uncertainty abroad, but by challenges at home trying to convince Democrats of the deal’s importance.

The Mythical Link Between Income Inequality and Slow Growth
Matthew Schoenfeld (WSJ) Jun 14, 2015
From 2011-13, the five most ‘unequal’ countries in the OECD grew nearly five times faster than the others.

The retreat of ‘peak oil’
Robert J. Samuelson (WP) Jun 14, 2015
Oil is not inexorably fading from the world stage.

Stand Back: China's Bubble Will Burst
Clive Crook (Bloomberg View) Jun 14, 2015
Beijing may come to regret talking up equity ownership.

India Chooses IPhones Over Asset Bubbles
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 14, 2015
A rare central bank that won't enable government complacency.

Culture and global sourcing
Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Bohdan Kukharskyy and Gérard Roland (VoxEU) Jun 14, 2015
Multinational firms often have to grapple with ‘make-or-buy’ decisions – whether to integrate certain activities or source them out. This column argues that culture is a neglected but important determinant of a multinational firm’s global sourcing decisions. Using US data, it shows that there is a negative relationship between cultural distance and intra-firm trade. Firms are more likely to integrate their foreign suppliers into firm boundaries if they are based in a country that is culturally similar to the US.

Winners and losers from share buybacks
Rick Rieder (FT) Jun 15, 2015
Global economy is witnessing a redistribution of wealth and income.

Four games the Greeks may be playing
Gideon Rachman (FT) Jun 15, 2015
Negotiations look increasingly like a deadly scene in ‘Rebel Without A Cause’.

Renminbi is ready for the global stage
Eswar Prasad (FT) Jun 15, 2015
The currency’s rise could be a force for change.

The tricky business of rebranding banks
Patrick Jenkins (FT) Jun 15, 2015
When it comes to names, globalisation is going into reverse.

How Best to Manage a Housing Boom
IMF Survey Jun 15, 2015
Housing booms are best managed by policies other than monetary policy, and then only if a boom is judged to be a problem.

U.S. Is Land of the Full-Time Job
Justin Fox (Bloomberg View) Jun 15, 2015
The rest of developed world has switched to part-time, temp work.

Why Russia Still Attracts Immigrants
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jun 15, 2015
Abundant menial jobs and cheap money transfer networks are a draw.

The Fed Won't Ruin Bond Markets
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jun 15, 2015
History shows that rate hikes rarely trigger panic.

Congress Undermines U.S.'s Global Standing
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jun 15, 2015
Failure of trade vote is latest destructive bit of theater.

End “Extend and Pretend” With Greece
Lucrezia Reichlin, Elias Papaioannou, an Richard Portes (Project Syndicate) Jun 15, 2015
The current talks between Greece and its creditors show little will on either side to overcome the failures of the past five years: the "troika" maintains its myopic focus on fiscal austerity; Greece remains reluctant to reform. With the economy in free fall, both sides need to accept that “extend-and-pretend” is no solution at all.

A Rule of Law for Sovereign Debt
Joseph E. Stiglitz and Martin Guzman (Project Syndicate) Jun 15, 2015
To avoid economic and political instability, governments sometimes need to restructure their debts. But, in the absence of an international rule of law for doing so, the world pays a higher price than it should: a poorly functioning debt market, marked by unnecessary strife and costly delays in addressing problems when they arise.

Quantitative easing: Who’s backing currency?
Pierpaolo Benigno and Salvatore Nisticò (VoxEU) Jun 15, 2015
In the aftermath of the Global Crisis, many central banks have engaged in unconventional purchases of risky securities. Such operations can entail possible losses on their balance sheets. This column argues that neutrality of open-market operations holds only in specific policy regimes, such as when central banks’ losses are covered by taxes levied on the public sector. In absence of such support, losses should be resolved through a prolonged increase in inflation.

The currency union effect on trade: Redux
Reuven Glick and Andrew K Rose (VoxEU) Jun 15, 2015
The Economic and Monetary Union in Europe has recently been the source of a lot of pain. Its economic benefits often seem a lot harder to measure. This column reconsiders earlier opinions on the trade effects of currency unions using the latest data and methodologies. It suggests the euro has at least a mildly stimulating effect on exports. However, the switches and reversals across methodologies do not make allowances for any bold statements.

Is TPP in peril?
Gary Clyde Hufbauer (VoxEU) Jun 15, 2015
The Trans-Pacific Partnership – a trade deal involving the US and 11 partners – has been imperilled by parliamentarian manoeuvres in the US Congress. This column explains the complex links between the trade deal and the Congressional vote and discusses the next steps.

TPP, FDI, and ‘good jobs’ in the US
Theodore H. Moran and Lindsay Oldenski (VoxEU) Jun 15, 2015
The fate of the TransPacific Partnership rests on US Congressional decisions that will be taken in the next few days. This column discusses research that shows TPP is likely to be pro-jobs, pro-trade, and pro-investment. Blocking the TransPacific Partnership is not a way for members of the US Congress to show that they care about the creation of good jobs in the US.

Greece: A credible deal will require difficult decisions by all sides
Olivier Blanchard (VoxEU) Jun 15, 2015
Greece’s negotiations with its creditors is at a critical point. This column, by the IMF’s Chief Economist, discusses the offer made to the Greek government. For the deal to work, the Greek government needs a credible budget plan for attaining the targeted surpluses, and European creditors need to agree to significant additional financing, and to debt relief sufficient to maintain debt sustainability. Under the existing proposal, debt relief can be achieved through a long rescheduling of debt payments at low interest rates.

Central banks stash cash for unwind shock
Henny Sender (FT) Jun 16, 2015
BoJ has allocated 25% of its QE profits to higher reserves.

Divorce Greece in haste, repent at leisure
Martin Wolf (FT) Jun 16, 2015
Neither Greeks nor their partners should imagine a clean break if they leave the euro.

Boring banking makes a comeback
John Kay (FT) Jun 16, 2015
The dealmakers may have had their time as the balance of power tips back to traditional ways.

Investors board Chinese train maker
Tom Mitchell (FT) Jun 16, 2015
Combined railway entity takes fast track to export market but slow line to reform.

Oil: Leaner times for ‘Fort McMoney’
Gregory Meyer (FT) Jun 16, 2015
Canada’s oil sands industry is choked of investment after price collapses.

Trade and the Presidency
WSJ Jun 16, 2015
Candidates who oppose free trade don’t belong in the Oval Office.

Mischaracterizing and Exaggerating Fossil Fuel Subsidies
Gary Clyde Hufbauer (PIIE) Jun 16, 2015
Subsidies are rampant in today's world economy, and they generally do more harm than good. Governments usually fail when they try to pick industrial winners, while subsidies to support industrial losers are hard to phase out. International disciplines contained in the World Trade Organization are weak and seldom enforced.

R.I.P., Free-Trade Treaties?
John Cassidy (New Yorker) Jun 16, 2015
Free trade and globalization have failed to deliver the promised benefits to ordinary Americans.

Greater Asia: A China-Russia Entente?
Dmitri Trenin (Globalist) Jun 16, 2015
Russia is rapidly aligning itself with new allies in the East, hoping to gain dominance in Eurasia.

Europe Asks the Impossible of Greece
Clive Crook (Bloomberg View) Jun 16, 2015
No government can credibly commit to doing the politically impossible.

China Breaks Out of Asia's Orbit
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 16, 2015
Improved financial clout may prove a mixed blessing.

Greece's Tremors Felt in Italy and Spain
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jun 16, 2015
Euro zone risks existential crisis amid contagion.

Falling Inequality Defies Piketty's Dark Vision
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jun 16, 2015
An old idea suggests that worldwide wealth differences will keep falling.

How to Defend a Post-Greece Euro
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jun 16, 2015
Dusting off the plan for euro bonds.

Expect the Fed to Favor a September Rate Hike
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jun 16, 2015
Signaling a slow and shallow cycle of increases.

The IMF’s “Tough Choices” on Greece
James K. Galbraith (Project Syndicate) Jun 16, 2015
The International Monetary Fund’s chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, recently asked a simple question: “How much of an adjustment has to be made by Greece, how much has to be made by its official creditors?” Unfortunately, his answer betrays a stunning failure to come to terms with the evidence of the last five years.

Totalitarianism 2.0
Andrei Kolesnikov (Project Syndicate) Jun 16, 2015
The political theorist Hannah Arendt once wrote that, under totalitarian regimes, the state is the only force that shapes the condition of society. Russia under President Vladimir Putin may not be there yet, but it certainly is moving in that direction.

Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng (Project Syndicate) Jun 16, 2015
Despite slowing economic growth, China, together with Hong Kong, has recorded $29 billion in initial public offerings so far this year – almost twice the funds raised in US markets. Why has the pace and scope of innovation in China begun to increase, and why now?

The Endgame in Greece
Jeffrey D. Sachs (Project Syndicate) Jun 16, 2015
After months of wrangling, the showdown between Greece and its European creditors has come down to a standoff over pensions and taxes. The Greek government is right to have drawn the line, while the EU could pay dearly for its petulance.

Throwing Sand In the Wheels: How Foreign Trade Distortions Slowed LDC Export-Led Growth
Simon J Evenett and Johannes Fritz (VoxEU) Jun 16, 2015
The Global Crisis resulted in many trade barriers and distortions. This new eBook argues that least developed countries were hard hit by these barriers. Drawing on Global Trade Alert data, it argues that these barriers reduced these nations’ exports by 30% during the period 2009 to 2013 – over a quarter of a trillion US dollars in total.

Politics influences WTO enforcement
Paola Conconi, David DeRemer, Georg Kirchsteiger, Lorenzo Trimarchi and Maurizio Zanardi (VoxEU) Jun 16, 2015
Economic cycles patently influence politics. This column explores an unexplored avenue of political economy research by assessing whether US politicians file international trade disputes to win votes. It turns out they do. This means that disputes might be brought earlier or later than they otherwise would – potentially costing lots more than they should – and that violations in industries that are deemed unimportant by electioneering politicians go unpunished.

Make Way for the RMB
Paola Subacchi (FP) Jun 16, 2015
If the IMF wants to keep Beijing in the tent, it's time to reward China's progress on making its currency more free market-friendly.

Confucius will not purge graft from China
Michael Schuman (FT) Jun 17, 2015
It is wishful thinking to suppose proverbs can substitute reform.

Lenders of the revolution look familiar
John Gapper (FT) Jun 17, 2015
Goldman Sachs, hedge funds and investment trusts muscle into online consumer lending.

ECB must resist call to smooth bond moves
Michael Heise (FT) Jun 17, 2015
A QE buying spree might push up inflation expectations further.

All Will Benefit from Steps to Cut Excessive Inequality—Lagarde
IMF Survey Jun 17, 2015
Lifting the “small boats” of the poor and middle class can build both a fairer society and a stronger economy, IMF head Christine Lagarde says, telling a Brussels conference that growing and excessive inequality has become a problem for economic growth and development.

China's the Reason U.S. Needs Trade Pact
Noah Feldman (Bloomberg View) Jun 17, 2015
TPP is a valuable and necessary tool in the cool war.

What If Greece Just Disappeared?
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jun 17, 2015
If Greece defaulted and dropped out of the European Union, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Principles and Politics Align Against Trade
Jonathan Bernstein (Bloomberg View) Jun 17, 2015
Democrats and Republicans have different motivations for opposing Obama's agenda.

The Tragedy of the Climate Commons
Petros Sekeris (Project Syndicate) Jun 17, 2015
By now, the danger from climate change and other forms of environmental degradation is so evident that it seems crazy to ignore it. But our collective failure to take effective action in the face of such threats is not the result of having leaders who are insane or irrational.

The Bloom Is off the BRICS
Michael J. Boskin (Project Syndicate) Jun 17, 2015
A few years ago, pundits and policymakers were predicting that the BRICS countries would be the new engines of the global economy. But now, with all five countries facing serious challenges to growth, they will have to double down on pro-market reform if they are to avoid the dreaded middle-income trap.

China’s International Growth Agenda
Michael Spence (Project Syndicate) Jun 17, 2015
For most of the past 35 years, China’s policymakers had no strategy to ensure that others – especially the neighbors – gained from the country’s economic transformation. But now China does have such a strategy, or at least is rapidly developing one, and it extends well beyond Asia, to Eastern Europe and the east coast of Africa.

Immigration, trade and productivity in services
Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano, Giovanni Peri and Greg C. Wright (VoxEU) Jun 17, 2015
International trade in services and immigration are among the fastest growing aspects of globalisation. Using UK data, this column explores the links between these phenomena. Immigrants promote exports of final services to their home countries, while also reducing imports for some intermediate services, and bringing productivity gains to the labour market. In designing immigration policies, it is important that the potential impact on exports and offshoring activities are carefully considered.

Microcredit: Neither miracle nor mirage
Orazio Attanasio, Britta Augsburg, Ralph De Haas, Heike Harmgart and Costas Meghir (VoxEU) Jun 17, 2015
There have been intense debates on whether microfinance can lift people out of poverty. Summarising research across seven countries, this column argues that microcredit is a useful financial tool but not a powerful anti-poverty strategy. There are also no significant benefits in terms of education or female empowerment. Yet, microcredit does allow low-income households to better cope with risk and to enjoy greater flexibility in how they earn and spend money.

While America Dithered
Barry D. Wood (TIE) Jun 17, 2015
The G-20 prospered.

QE and Oil Prices
Philip K. Verleger, Jr. (TIE) Jun 17, 2015
Why the United States will be the new arbiter of oil inventories.

The Inflation Debate
John M. Berry (TIE) Jun 17, 2015
Why Team Yellen will move cautiously.

Could America Soon Have an Inflation Problem?
Various (TIE) Jun 17, 2015
Is the United States flirting with an inflation problem? Moreover, what are the risks of policy error on the inflation issue? Are Fed policymakers today behind the curve on the inflation front? Or is talk of monetary tightening playing with fire?

The History of Debt Relief
Klaus C. Engelen (TIE) Jun 17, 2015
From de Larosière to Rhodes, Mulford to Ortiz, and Herrhausen to Gurría, the struggle for debt solutions goes on.

Merkel’s big reason to hold on to Greece
Gillian Tett (FT0 Jun 18, 2015
People close to the chancellor say she is prepared to see Athens tumble out of the euro.

A bloated Fed prepares to shape up
Philip Stephens (FT) Jun 18, 2015
The balance sheet should shrink to a more normal size after seven or eight years.

How bitcoin could rock the back office
Daniel Davies (FT) Jun 18, 2015
Electronic currency can help standardise securities settlements.

Can ECB halt damaging effects of Grexit?
Ralph Atkins (FT) Jun 18, 2015
Market expectations of central bank capability may be too high.

WTO Members Debate Lighter Agricultural Tariff Cuts
Bridges, Volume 19, Number 22 Jun 18, 2015
WTO members are debating whether to explore lesser agricultural tariff cuts as part of a push to finalise the long-running Doha Round of trade talks, sources have said.

EU, Mexico Set Sights on 2015 Launch of Trade Talks
Bridges, Volume 19, Number 22 Jun 18, 2015
Leaders from the EU and Mexico confirmed last Friday that they would be launching negotiations to update their "Global Agreement," aiming to start the talks for revamping the economic, political, and cooperation pact by year's end.

Rise of the Chest-Thumpers
Pankaj Mishra (Bloomberg View) Jun 18, 2015
Leaders in all three nations are using nationalism to revive the authority of the state.

Industry 4.0: China seizes an outstanding opportunity in the “Year of Innovation”
Stefan Heng (DB Research) Jun 18, 2015
Industry 4.0 (also known as integrated industry, industrial internet) is currently the subject of intense debate. This megatrend sets out to change the way goods and services are created and distributed, reshaping the industrial landscape on a national and global scale. China intends to play a leading role in this digital evolution. A wide range of policies have been initiated and sizeable progress in various areas has been made. The country is determined to seize the outstanding opportunity at hand, as the recently unveiled “Made in China 2025” plan underlines. China still has a long road ahead. However, with its new plan it combines a long-term vision with concrete actions in the proclaimed “Year of Innovation”.

Wasting Food in a Hungry World
Bjørn Lomborg (Project Syndicate) Jun 18, 2015
Hunger is a complex problem, exacerbated by financial pressure, volatile commodity prices, natural disasters, and civil wars. Simple policies like investing in improved infrastructure and agricultural research in developing countries – not anti-wastage campaigns in rich countries – are the most efficient ways to fight malnutrition.

Part I: Another Type of European Democracy: The Emergence of Modern Greece
Heinz Richter (Globalist) Jun 18, 2015
Clientelism in Greece became a means of coercion to integrate the individual into society.

A programme for Greece: Follow the IMF’s research
Ashoka Mody (VoxEU) Jun 18, 2015
The Greek crisis continues to take centre stage in policy debates. This column provides insight on the topic using evidence from three recent IMF studies. A suggested programme for Greece includes debt relief (debt equal to 50% of GDP and payable over 40 years), scaling down the banking system, and setting a flat 0.5% of GDP primary surplus over the next three years.

Banks are not loanable-funds intermediaries: Macroeconomic implications
Zoltan Jakab and Michael Kumhof (VoxEU) Jun 18, 2015
Problems in the banking sector played a seriously damaging role in the Great Recession. In fact, they continue to. This column argues that macroeconomic models were unable to explain the interaction between banks and the macro economy. The problem lies with thinking that banks create loans out of existing resources. Instead, they create new money in the form of loans. Macroeconomists need to reflect this in their models.

How Nazi schooling amplified anti-Semitism
Nico Voigtländer, Hans-Joachim Voth (VoxEU) Jun 18, 2015
Radical beliefs and violent hatred are back in the headlines and worrying policymakers around the world. This column discusses new research that suggests that, in the case of Nazi Germany, subjecting an entire population to the full power of a totalitarian state was extremely effective in instilling lasting hatred. Extremist views are still three times higher among Germans born in the 1930s than those born after 1950. However, family and the social environment can isolate young minds from the effects of indoctrination at least to some extent.

Part II: British Greece: The Political Culture of a Protectorate
Heinz Richter (Globalist) Jun 19, 2015
How British and American influence shaped modern Greek politics.

The anachronistic trade agreement
Harold Meyerson (WP) Jun 19, 2015
To protect U.S. workers, the Trans-Pacific Partnership would have to be shored up significantly.

Brazil's All Business With Its Bad Neighbors
Mac Margolis (Bloomberg View) Jun 19, 2015
Venezuela's infrastructure projects matter more to Brazil than its political prisoners.

Ignorance Fuels Europe's Anti-Immigration Victories
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jun 19, 2015
Countries with strong anti-immigrant parties aren't the ones with the most immigrants.

In or Out? Greeks Should Vote on Euro
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jun 19, 2015
The public should decide the country's future currency.

EU Leaders Need an Emergency Plan B for Greece
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jun 19, 2015
Meeting should focus on preparing for the worst.

The Climate Pope
Johan Rockström (Project Syndicate) Jun 19, 2015
Pope Francis’s just-released encyclical on the environment sends a powerful message not just to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, but to the rest of the global population as well. Firmly rooted in science, the document recognizes the need for urgent action as the world confronts potentially catastrophic climate change.

Revolution and Reaction in Biopharming
Henry I. Miller (Project Syndicate) Jun 19, 2015
The technology known as "biopharming," which uses genetic engineering to induce agricultural crops to synthesize high-value pharmaceuticals, emerged with great promise about 15 years ago. Unfortunately, progress has since stalled, owing to the vehement risk-aversion of regulators.

Taking the BRICS Seriously
Shashi Tharoor (Project Syndicate) Jun 19, 2015
What the BRICS countries have in common is their exclusion from the places they believe they deserve in the current world order. This month's first-ever BRICS parliamentary forum was just the latest in an expanding array of institutions and formal structures that the group has launched with the aim of changing that.

Greece: Seeking a way forward
Elias Papaioannou, Richard Portes and Lucrezia Reichlin (VoxEU) Jun 19, 2015
Greece seems to be on the verge of an agreement that would release much needed funds. This column argues that an agreement on completion of the second programme will not restore confidence, nor will it resolve the deep economic, financial and political uncertainties that confront Greece today. The focus should swiftly shift to the design of an efficient, realistic and truly reforming new programme.

European integration: Benefits of deep versus shallow integration
Nauro F. Campos, Fabrizio Coricelli and Luigi Moretti (VoxEU) Jun 19, 2015
The imminence of the British referendum lays the European integration project at a crossroads. One tabled policy proposal is to offer different membership options – shallow integration (economic only) and deep integration (economic and political). This column presents new evidence comparing these two options. Focusing on Norway, a country that is economically but not politically associated with the EU, deep integration is estimated to bring a 6% productivity gain in the first five years, compared with shallow integration. These findings bring new economic arguments to debates about EU integration and membership.

Africa: Nigeria’s moment
Economist Jun 20, 2015
How Africa’s most important failure can at last come right

Greece and the euro: My big fat Greek divorce
Economist Jun 20, 2015
Greece and the euro zone are stuck in an abusive relationship.

Part III: Missed Opportunities: The Political Culture of Greece Since 1974
Heinz Richter (Globalist) Jun 20, 2015
How the old failings of the Greek state adapted to the era of European integration.

Greece: Seizing the Crisis’s reform opportunities
Michalis Haliassos (VoxEU) Jun 20, 2015
The Greek adjustment programme failed. This column argues that the problem lay in the programme’s design. By focusing on deficit reductions and the wrong type of reform, it failed to build up the only thing that could provide the basis for debt repayment – namely a dynamic, export-oriented productive base. A broader reform agenda that creates hope would be accepted by Greeks and it would make eventual repayment more likely. The need for some patience in reaching the final destination of this journey should no longer be an excuse for not taking the first step.

Central banks and sovereign debt crises: New evidence
Philippe Bacchetta, Elena Perazzi and Eric van Wincoop (VoxEU) Jun 20, 2015
A popular explanation for the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is self-fulfilling sentiments. What can central banks do to avoid self-fulfilling debt crises? This column argues that while in theory there are policies to make the public debt sustainable, central banks cannot credibly commit to them. The ability of a central bank to avert a self-fulfilling debt crisis is thus limited.

A way past the insanity over Greece
Willem Buiter (FT) Jun 21, 2015
Default need not trigger a sudden exit from the currency union.

The real challenge is to save the eurozone
Wolfgang Munchau (FT) Jun 21, 2015
Grexit would be the point when the EU moves from integration, via stagnation, to disintegration.

‘Digital Gold’ by Nathaniel Popper
John Gapper (FT) Jun 21, 2015
The anarchic birth of a cryptocurrency.

Time to transform world’s currency system
Ousmène Mandeng (FT) Jun 21, 2015
IMF should expand special drawing rights inclusion beyond the renminbi.

US-China: Shifting sands
Geoff Dyer (FT) Jun 21, 2015
There are concerns Washington needs a fresh approach to Beijing amid fears it is trying to push the US out of Asia.

Global Revenue Grab
WSJ Jun 21, 2015
The U.S. seems ready to join Europe’s tax harmonization scheme.

Modi's Window for Reform Is Closing
Dhiraj Nayyar (Bloomberg View) Jun 21, 2015
India's halting efforts at economic reform have been hit by scandal.

Chinese Investors Are Swimming in a Bubble
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 21, 2015
The stock market will collapse sooner, not later.

Greece and Germany Agree the Euro Can't Work
Clive Crook (Bloomberg View) Jun 21, 2015
Whatever the outcome, the EU has suffered lasting damage.

Easing Venezuela’s crash
Jackson Diehl (WP) Jun 21, 2015
With little leverage, the U.S. reaches out to the anti-American government.

The three perilous options facing Europe
Gideon Rachman (FT) Jun 22, 2015
The truth is that whatever decisions are made, all choices could lead to chaos.

Sorry from pro-euro camp would be welcome
Janan Ganesh (FT) Jun 22, 2015
For all the advantages to be eked out of an apology, the most pressing case for it is moral.

A safety net fit for the sharing economy
Arun Sundararajan (FT) Jun 22, 2015
Paid holidays and other perks should not be exclusive to the salaried.

Clearing houses do not eliminate risk
Gary Cohn (FT) Jun 22, 2015
They can be centres of risk, amplifying problems instead of alleviating them.

Lessons from the plight of Greek banks
Patrick Jenkins (FT) Jun 22, 2015
Powerful morality tale playing out for an indebted world.

India infrastructure: Built on debt
Henny Sender (FT) Jun 22, 2015
Modi’s plans to improve roads, ports and railways look set to be hampered by debt-ridden companies.

Greece: Better Than Expected, But Still Not Good News
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard (PIIE) Jun 22, 2015
The meeting of the Eurogroup of finance ministers on June 22 marked the first time after five months in office that the Greek government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras proposed reforms that the Eurogroup considered credible enough to even begin to discuss. This alone is a welcome if incomprehensibly long overdue development. But many challenges lie ahead before European authorities and Athens can pull back from the crisis.

After Greece: Germany and Europe On the Ruins of Multiple Illusions
Erwin Grandinger (Globalist) Jun 22, 2015
High time for more realism and a fundamental rethink of European structures.

If Greece Defaults, Europe's Taxpayers Lose
Mark Whitehouse (Bloomberg View) Jun 22, 2015s
They're on the hook for more than 300 billion euros.

Swiss Central Bank Tries to Ride Out European Storm
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jun 22, 2015
Limited options in response to euro-zone turmoil.

Don't Worry About the Euro; It'll Be Fine
Leonid Bershidsky (Leonid Bershidsky) Jun 22, 2015
Most Europeans, Greeks included, like their common currency.

A Yellow Star for the Jewish State?
Bernard-Henri Lévy (Project Syndicate) Jun 22, 2015
The rapid succession in recent months of efforts to delegitimize Israel is no accident: All of the recent episodes can be traced, more or less directly, to the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. It is time for BDS supporters to understand what the campaign is really about.

Why Small Booms Cause Big Busts
J. Bradford DeLong (Project Syndicate) Jun 22, 2015
By the time the global economic crisis is over, each dollar of excess investment in the housing market will likely have been responsible for roughly $6,000 in lost production. How can such a relatively small distortion in the allocation of investment cause so much economic damage?

Germany’s Power Problem
Giles Merritt (Project Syndicate) Jun 22, 2015
From think tanks and NGOs to media and business lobbying, Germans have become the EU’s foremost movers and shakers, and occupy its political institutions’ top posts. But, though indisputably the strongest and most dependable of the EU’s 28 member countries, Germany lacks a vision of where the beleaguered bloc should be heading.

Africa’s Succession Debates
Philip Gourevitch (New Yorker) Jun 22, 2015
What leaders can achieve by letting go.

Don’t sweat the debt if fiscal space is ample
Jonathan D Ostry, Atish R Ghosh & Raphael Espinoza (VoxEU) Jun 22, 2015
High public debt ratios dominate today's fiscal policy discussions. This column argues that paying down the debt involves a trade-off that balances the gains from the insurance value of low debt against the costs of an insurance premium – higher distortionary taxation. When countries have fiscal space and no real prospect of a sovereign crisis, the cost of bringing down the debt is likely to exceed the crisis-insurance benefit. The best policy might be to simply live with higher debt.

Transmission of Asset Purchases: The Role of Reserves
Jens H.E. Christensen and Signe Krogstrup (FRBSF Econ Letter) Jun 22, 2015
The Swiss National Bank expanded bank reserves as part of its unconventional monetary policy during the European sovereign debt crisis. The unprecedented expansion involved short-term rather than long-term asset purchases. This approach provides novel insights into how central bank balance sheet expansions affect interest rates. In particular, it illustrates how an expansion of reserves can lower long-term yields through a reserve-induced portfolio balance effect that is independent of the assets purchased.

Dangers of a subnormal interest rate world
John Plender (FT) Jun 23, 2015
Debt and low investment returns both present problems.

A moonshot to save a warming planet
Martin WOlf (FT) Jun 23, 2015
Improved technology might end our dependence on the burning of fossil fuels.

Road map needed for Asia infrastructure
Jennifer Hughes (FT) Jun 23, 2015
China’s planned spending has banks and other investors wondering what might be left for them.

President Obama Must Use Trade Authority to Reach Better Agreements
NYT Jun 23, 2015
Now it is up to the administration to reach deals that uphold the high standards it has promised on labor rights, the environment and other issues.

It’s the Greek politics, stupid
Anne Applebaum (WP) Jun 23, 2015
The crisis in Greece is not, at base, an economic story: It is a political one.

Why Some Countries Work Less
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jun 23, 2015
A new study shows 'leisure culture' cuts time on the job.

The IMF Bows to Putin in Ukraine
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jun 23, 2015
When it comes to sovereign debt negotiations, might makes right.

Europe Could Call It Quits on QE
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jun 23, 2015
The ECB might not need to run its bond-buying program for as long as it first thought.

Greece's Punishing Deal
Marc Champion (Bloomberg View) Jun 23, 2015
Tsipras's flirtation with default might bring about capital controls.

America, China, and the Productivity Paradox
Stephen S. Roach (Project Syndicate) Jun 23, 2015
As American and Chinese leaders meet for their annual Strategic Dialogue, they need not look far to find a shared challenge. Both are now victims of the “productivity paradox”: huge investments in information technology and Internet-enabled goods and services have been accompanied by slower growth in output per worker.

The Irrelevant Seven
Joschka Fischer (Project Syndicate) Jun 23, 2015
At a time when the emergence of large, densely populated economic powerhouses like Brazil, China, India, and Indonesia is challenging Western dominance, many believe that the current international system is due for an upgrade. But what will replace bodies like the G-7?

A New Beginning for Greece – and Europe
Dennis J. Snower (Project Syndicate) Jun 23, 2015
If the Greek government does not credibly commit to structural reforms that are in the country’s own long-term interest, a voluntary exit from the eurozone would enable it to start anew. This would also impel the EU to pursue the fiscal and structural coordination needed to enable its monetary union to function properly.

The Problem With a Small Europe
Katharina Pistor (Project Syndicate) Jun 23, 2015
Presiding over Germany’s unification in the nineteenth century, Otto von Bismarck demonstrated how to use crises to force his preferred outcome – a practice that the leaders of Europe’s creditor countries seem to be emulating today. The difference is that Bismarck’s preferred outcome actually enhanced European stability.

Crisis risk building in Italy and France
Satyajit Das (FT) Jun 24, 2015
Countries seem unable to tackle structural issues.

Small-town cop who bagged the bankers
Richard Milne (FT) Jun 24, 2015
Reykjavik upended the notion of too-big-to-fail and found an escape route from economic calamity.

Investing in infrastructure
Patrick Love (OECD Insights) Jun 24, 2015
William Topaz McGonagall is universally acknowledged as the worst poet who ever wrote in the English language, but that didn’t stop him having an intuitive grasp of the economics of infrastructure investment

The Two Sides of Japan's Deficit Trap
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jun 24, 2015
The elderly and local political backers will fight spending cuts.

The Good-Governance Trap
Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Michael T. Clark (Project Syndicate) Jun 24, 2015
Contrary to popular belief, there is little evidence that implementing good-governance reforms leads to more rapid and inclusive economic and social development. In fact, the focus on governance reform – based on a wide variety of one-size-fits-all indicators – may actually be undermining developing countries' progress.

Japan Stands Up
Yuriko Koike (Project Syndicate) Jun 24, 2015
At the recent G-7 summit in Germany, Japan broke with tradition, no longer content to sit on the diplomatic sidelines. At long last, Japan is constructing a foreign policy that reflects not only the global weight of its economy, but also the impact of faraway events on its national security.

Is Financial Repression Here to Stay?
Howard Davies (Project Syndicate) Jun 24, 2015
Can savers really expect the old normal in financial markets – positive long-term interest rates on government bonds – to return? There are two powerful reasons why it may be unreasonable to expect that it ever will.

Trade and growth – end of an era?
Bernard Hoekman (VoxEU) Jul 24, 2015
The world’s trade-to-GDP ratio climbed steadily for six decades. The rise slowed even before the Global Crisis and world trade growth has been anaemic since 2010. Recent data shows it declining, leading some to wonder whether global trade has peaked. This column introduces a new eBook that examines the issue from a wide range of perspectives. No consensus emerges but it is clear that this is not just a cyclical issue – something structural changed.

The Global Trade Slowdown: A New Normal?
Bernard Hoekman and others (VoxEU) Jun 24, 2015
The post-Crisis decline in the growth rate of the ratio of global trade to GDP has been cause for some concern that global trade has peaked, and that we are now reaching a new normal in which trade levels will be weak in comparison to about a decade ago. Whether such a peak in trade was a defining moment in global trade or whether it is a cyclical phenomenon is one of the questions this eBook addresses.

Britain would not survive Brexit
Philip Stephens (FT) Jun 25, 2015
It is understood in Berlin that Cameron cannot return from negotiations admitting defeat.

Chinese share swings have wider resonance
Ralph Atkins (FT) Jun 25, 2015
Foreign investors may be deterred, hindering internationalisation.

Technology conceives the inconceivable
Richard Waters (FT) Jun 25, 2015
Some implications are too big and too revolutionary to grasp.

The modern Greek tragedy of financial crisis
Catherine Rampell (WP) Jun 25, 2015
We know how the ongoing debt crisis is going to end.

Dumping the Euro Isn’t a Cure-All: Easy Money Lets Governments Avoid Free-Market Reforms
Frank Hollenbeck (Mises Daily) Jun 25, 2015
The Greek drama continues to unfold with the risk of “grexit” becoming increasingly likely.

Trade Promotion Authority Secures Approval in US Congress
Bridges, Volume 19, Number 23 Jun 25, 2015
The US Senate approved Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) on Wednesday, just days after the House also voted in favour of the legislation. The bill is now set to go the US President's desk this week, where it is expected to be soon signed into law.

WTO Members Try to Break Farm Subsidy Logjam
Bridges, Volume 19, Number 23 Jun 25, 2015
Farm exporting countries have tabled a new informal paper on domestic agriculture subsidies at the WTO, in an attempt to move beyond the increasingly acrimonious stand-off between the US and China on farm subsidy spending.

China, Australia Sign Bilateral Trade Deal
Bridges, Volume 19, Number 23 Jun 25, 2015
Ministers from China and Australia formally signed a bilateral trade deal last week in Canberra, bringing the highly-anticipated agreement one step closer to enactment after over a decade of negotiations.

G-20 Members Implementing Fewer Trade Restrictions, WTO Says
Bridges, Volume 19, Number 23 Jun 25, 2015
Members of the G-20 coalition of major advanced and emerging economies have shown a slight slowdown in their use of trade-restrictive measures, the WTO said last week. However, the overall stock of such measures has risen by seven percent compared to the previous monitoring period, the global trade body said.

Russia's Pivot to China Is Real
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jun 25, 2015
Loans and trade are offsetting Western sanctions.

China's Latest Reform Shouldn't Be Its Last
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 25, 2015
Weak fiscal measures like looser lending will only make Beijing's problems worse.

The Diaspora Goldmine
Ricardo Hausmann (Project Syndicate) Jun 25, 2015
The relationship between diasporas and their homelands often encompasses a broad palette of sentiments, including distrust, resentment, envy, and enmity. But, since the rise of the first cities, migrants have been an invaluable asset not only to their new country, but also to their country of origin.

The Myth of Currency Manipulation
Koichi Hamada (Project Syndicate) Jun 25, 2015
Fears of currency manipulation have driven many observers to call for the inclusion in free-trade agreements of provisions prohibiting exchange-rate intervention. But such an approach would controvert the most fundamental rule of a flexible exchange-rate regime – and undermine global macroeconomic stability.

Food in the Age of Biofuels
José Graziano da Silva (Project Syndicate) Jun 25, 2015
For several years, advocates of biofuels as a weapon in the fight against climate change have faced off against those who view them as a threat to food supplies. But feeding the planet and helping to fuel its vehicles need not be mutually exclusive objectives.

Shinzo Abe’s Pivot To Asia
Bill Emmott (Project Syndicate) Jun 25, 2015
This August, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will give a major speech to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. The occasion will a momentous opportunity either to accelerate the process of rapprochement in East Asia or bring it to a halt.

Interpreting the yield curve: Pessimism or precaution?
Minouche Shafik (VoxEU) Jun 25, 2015
UK long-term yields are extraordinarily low. This could be interpreted as financial markets expecting prolonged low growth or low inflation, or both. This column argues that this view is overly gloomy. Factors pulling down today’s inflation are unlikely to be permanent, and the economic headwinds should ease gradually. Additionally, a return to productivity growth should facilitate faster potential output growth over the long term. A more likely interpretation is that low yields reflect precautionary actions by public and private financial-market participants to reduce vulnerabilities to adverse outcomes.

Economic Crisis: The Global Impact of a Greek Default
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard (PIIE) Jun 25, 2015
I will address two issues: the probability of a Greek default and its implications on the euro area and the global economy, and the exposure to the US taxpayer from loans given to Greece by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

IMF Would Be Other Casualty of Greek Default
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jun 26, 2015
Fund could lose standing as world's lender of last resort.

Shelter from the Storm in Europe
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Project Syndicate) Jun 26, 2015
To secure a prosperous future, Europe must confront three distinct challenges: the Greek crisis, Russia’s incursion in Ukraine, and the rise of populist political parties. While Europe could address each of these challenges individually with relatively little risk, all three must be addressed simultaneously.

Can China Beat Deflation?
Yu Yongding (Project Syndicate) Jun 26, 2015
After 39 consecutive months of declining producer prices, deflation is becoming a serious concern among Chinese economists and policymakers. Given slowing economic growth and massive corporate debts, China's authorities should learn from the recent past to avoid a deflationary spiral.

Why Latin America’s Center is Holding
Andrés Velasco (Project Syndicate) Jun 26, 2015
The Viennese writer Stefan Zweig allegedly said, “Brazil is the country of the future – and always will be.” Likewise, centrist politics in Latin America has perpetually been on the horizon – until now.

Economic networks for more innovative and resilient economies
Yasuyuki Todo and Petr Matous (VoxEU) Jun 26, 2015
Firm networks affect innovation and growth through diffusion of knowledge and information. This column argues that promoting ties with firms outside of the region should be an important part of cluster policies. Such ties can bring new information to the region and can enhance innovation. Distant firm partners can also help in the short-run recovery after a disaster, as was the case following the 2011 earthquake in Japan.

Linkages and economic development
Dominick Bartelme and Yuriy Gorodnichenko (VoxEU) Jun 26, 2015
Specialisation has been extensively researched at the micro and macro levels, but the middle one has received little attention. This column argues that the middle level – linkages across firms and industries within a country – can be important in economic development. Having built a database of input-output tables for a broad spectrum of countries and times, the authors show that countries with stronger linkages have indeed higher productivity.

Will Greece Make It to the Referendum?
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jun 27, 2015
The next eight days of challenges could make the vote futile.

New Ways to Finance Education
Gordon Brown (Project Syndicate) Jun 27, 2015
The world is about to set itself the goal of giving every child access to pre-primary, primary, and secondary education by 2030. Despite the vital importance of the target, achieving it will be difficult – not least because there is an intensifying funding crisis within the aid community.

Ancestry and culture
Enrico Spolaore & Romain Wacziarg (VoxEU) Jun 27, 2015
Cultural transmission occurs both vertically – from one generation to the next – and, increasingly in modern times, horizontally – within generations and across populations. Using novel data for 74 countries, this column explores how genetic relatedness between populations affects the transmission of cultural traits. A pattern of positive and significant relationships is found between genetic distance and various measures of cultural distance, including language, religion, values, and norms. This implies that populations that are ancestrally closer face lower barriers to learning new ideas and behaviours from each other.

Such a referendum is a recipe for disaster
Aristides Hatzis (FT) Jun 28, 2015
A Yes result will be a major defeat for Tsipras. He will have to resign.

China’s Debt Bomb
WSJ Jun 28, 2015
Stock volatility is the latest sign of the economy’s excessive leverage.

The next financial crisis?
Robert J. Samuelson (WP) Jun 28, 2015
Two reports suggest policies that aided recovery from the last one may be setting the stage for the next one.

Path to Grexit tragedy paved by political incompetence
Barry Eichengreen (The Conversation) Jun 28, 2015
Since our last episode, the crisis in Greece has escalated further.

Greece: Caught Between Nero and Catharsis
Stephan Richter (Globalist) Jun 28, 2015
The Syriza government has done wonders to unify the rest of the Eurozone.

Does China's Central Bank Know What It's Doing?
Bloomberg View Jun 28, 2015
As the Fed can attest, monetary policy can be hard to explain.

Defending the Chinese Model
Clive Crook (Bloomberg View) Jun 28, 2015
An intriguing argument for Chinese authoritarianism over Western democracy

China Finds a New Pump to Keep Stocks Aloft
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 28, 2015
Rate cut sends a message to traders: Keep buying.

Greek Referendum Is More Con Than Democracy
Marc Champion (Bloomberg View) Jun 28, 2015
Vote comes too late and asks the wrong question.

Greece – the day after: Time for a fresh start
Thorsten Beck (VoxEU) Jun 28, 2015
The breakdown of negotiations between Greece and the Troika comes as a shock. It is not, however, the end of the game. This column argues that the rupture can serve as a starting point for a new relationship between Greece and its creditors – an approach that does not provide fresh cash to the Greek government and does not impose specific policy reforms from outside.

Europe’s dream is dying in Greece
Gideon Rachman (FT) Jun 29, 2015
By locking the nation into a failed economic experiment the EU is destroying wealth and stability.

Do not bank on China QE to refuel stocks
Diana Choyleva (FT) Jun 29, 2015
Beijing’s local government debt swap does not create new money.

Shadow banks take lead in risky lending
Sujeet Indap (FT) Jun 29, 2015
Post-crisis crackdown leaves Wall St banks more cautious.

A failed euro would define Merkel’s legacy
Marcel Fratzscher (FT) Jun 29, 2015
Germany’s critics feel vindicated. This will be stronger if Greece leaves.

US trade: Trailing behind
Shawn Donnan (FT) Jun 29, 2015
The export-import bank is being shuttered, threatening the loss of jobs and overseas contracts.

Why Aren’t the Markets Freaking Out More About the Greek Crisis?
Neil Irwin (NYT) Jun 29, 2015
Anyone in the last three years who has bet on declines of stocks and other risky assets has lost money.

Loads of Debt: A Global Ailment With Few Cures
Peter Eavis (NYT) Jun 29, 2015
Beyond Greece and Puerto Rico, heavy borrowing is bogging down the economies of Brazil, Turkey, Italy and China.

Profligate Puerto Rico on the Brink
Daniel Hanson (WSJ) Jun 29, 2015
The governor says debts of $70 billion can’t be repaid. No wonder—serious solutions haven’t been tried.

How the euro became a weapon of mass destruction
Catherine Rampell (WP) Jun 29, 2015
European nations use the currency as a way to punish its neighbors.

Greece must sign a deal now
Various (CNBC) Jun 29, 2015
A call on Greece to sign a credible agreement with the Europeans immediately.

There's a simple solution to Greece's problems, but Europe won't try it
Adam Posen (Vox) Jun 29, 2015
There is a simple solution to the Greek crisis: the Northern European countries should write a check and end it. But they won't,

Greece Turns from Drama to Tragedy
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard (PIIE) Jun 29, 2015
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's surprise call last week for a referendum on the austerity proposals by its international creditors, followed by the shuttering of Greece's banks and stock exchange on June 29, opens a dangerous new chapter of its crisis. It could also spell the end of Tsipras's political leadership. The prime minister's moves have inflicted lasting damage to the Greek economy. The most hopeful scenario from now on is that Greek voters reject his irresponsible call for a "no" vote on the referendum and approve a return to serious negotiations with the Troika of international creditors, returning Greece to the European fold.

Greece: A Tale of Three Referendums
Denis MacShane (Globalist) Jun 29, 2015
Europe is telling the Swiss, Greeks and the British to either live by the rules — or else…

A Grexit: Yes or No?
John Cassidy (New Yorker) Jun 29, 2015
The United States is trying to persuade Greece and its creditors to strike a deal before Sunday?s big referendum.

A Referendum on Greece's Contradictions
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jun 29, 2015
Greeks will finally make a clear choice about their country's future.

Greece Comes to a Sudden Stop. Now What?
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jun 29, 2015
A lot can be done to limit the damage and place the economy on a sustainable path.

China's Magic Tricks Can't Save Its Stock Market
William Pesek (Bloomberg View) Jun 29, 2015
Beijing's usual economic levers no longer produce results.

Japan's Productivity Puzzle
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jun 29, 2015
Shinzo Abe won't accomplish much without labor reforms.

The Moral of the Greek Story
Megan McArdle (Bloomberg View) Jun 29, 2015
European leaders were wrong to think they could solve problems Athens created.

Beware of a Humiliated Greece
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) Jun 29, 2015
Decisions motivated by wounded pride rarely work out well.

The Greek Damage, in One Chart
Mark Whitehouse (Bloomberg View) Jun 29, 2015
In one year, private capital worth a third of GDP has fled.

Europe’s Attack on Greek Democracy
Joseph E. Stiglitz (Project Syndicate) Jun 29, 2015
The rising crescendo of bickering and acrimony within Europe might seem to outsiders to be the inevitable result of the bitter endgame playing out between Greece and its creditors. In fact, European leaders are finally beginning to reveal the true nature of the ongoing debt dispute, and the answer is not pleasant.

Renovating the World Order
Dominique Moisi (Project Syndicate) Jun 29, 2015
As violent conflicts and crises intensify worldwide, from Africa to Asia, it is becoming abundantly clear that there is no longer a guarantor of order – not international law or even a global hegemon – that countries view as legitimate and credible. The international system is clearly in need of an overhaul.

What is Full Employment?
Martin Feldstein (Project Syndicate) Jun 29, 2015
In an important sense, the US economy is now at full employment: The relatively tight labor market is causing wages to rise at an accelerating rate, because employers must pay more to attract and retain employees. This has important implications for policymakers – and not just at the Federal Reserve.

Emerging Markets After the Fed Hikes Rates
Nouriel Roubini (Project Syndicate) Jun 29, 2015
The prospect that the US Federal Reserve will start exiting zero policy rates later this year has fueled growing fear of volatility in emerging economies’ currency, bond, and stock markets. But, with a few exceptions lacking systemic importance, widespread distress and crises need not occur.

Squashing the Superbugs
Jim O'Neill (Project Syndicate) Jun 29, 2015
Current antibiotics are becoming increasingly ineffective, raising the risk that infections like malaria and tuberculosis could become incurable. With the G-7 leaders having committed to tackle antimicrobial resistance, it is time for the more inclusive G-20 – and especially China – to take the fight to the next level.

What we know and what we don’t about Greece’s future in Europe
Douglas J. Elliott (Brookings) Jun 29, 2015
A status update on the economic turmoil in Greece.

Grexit: The staggering cost of central bank dependence
Charles Wyplosz (VoxEU) Jun 28, 2015
This weekend’s dramatic events saw the ECB capping emergency assistance to Greece. This column argues that the ECB’s decision is the last of a long string of ECB mistakes in this crisis. Beyond triggering Greece’s Eurozone exit – thus revoking the euro’s irrevocability – it has shattered Eurozone governance and brought the politicisation of the ECB to new heights. Bound to follow are chaos in Greece and agitation of financial markets – both with unknown consequences.

How do Japanese exporters manage their exchange rate exposure?
Takatoshi Ito, Satoshi Koibuchi, Kiyotaka Sato and Junko Shimizu (VoxEU) Jun 29, 2015
Japanese firms have been struggling with the yen’s volatility ever since the peg was dropped in 1973. This column, based on a recent survey of Japanese firms, argues that many firms have managed their exchange rate exposure by using operational and financial hedging strategies. It also finds that firms employing currency hedge and invoicing exports in yen are judged by the market to have reduced currency exposures.

The difficult choices facing the Greeks
Martin Wolf (FT) Jun 30, 2015
If I were a voter, I would bemoan my government’s leftism and the eurozone’s self-righteousness.

Syriza is not Greece
Yannis Palaiologos (FT) Jun 30, 2015
Despite the acrimony Europe is still alive in the hearts of most citizens.

Protect asset managers from doom-mongers
Huw van Steenis (FT) Jun 30, 2015
Regulators should calibrate their response to risk, not inflict pain on mutual funds.

Debt clouds hang heavy over emerging Asia
Henny Sender (FT) Jun 30, 2015
Export route to economic growth also blocked as world trade slows.

Foreign groups battle for India ecommerce
James Crabtree (FT) Jun 30, 2015
Technology companies are piling in, seeking to replicate the dominance they enjoy in home markets.

Many Greeks Still Want a Deal
Jens Hainmueller and Yotam Margalit (NYT) Jun 30, 2015
A majority of voters seem willing to accept spending cuts and tax hikes if pensions, education and other areas remain untouched.

Behind the Foreign Shopping Spree for U.S. Companies
Joe Kennedy (WSJ) Jun 30, 2015
With inversions under siege, now American firms are eager to be bought—to avoid onerous corporate taxes.

The Greek Crisis Is About More Than Money
Robert D. Kaplan (WSJ) Jun 30, 2015
Greece was critical to the Cold War policy of Soviet containment. It is no less so in the age of Putin.

Down the rabbit-hole
Stefan Schneider (DB Research) Jun 30, 2015
These days, financial market commentaries are often laced with expressions such as "topsy-turvy" and "Alice in Wonderland". Recently, even Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda described the need for unconditional faith in the inflationary impact of Japanese monetary policy with a reference to Peter Pan, quoting Peter as saying that (in his world) "the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it".

Greece's Next Step: Overdue Debt and IOUs
Mohamed A. El-Erian (Bloomberg View) Jun 30, 2015
Without cash to pay its bills, the government will move closer to leaving the euro.

China Is a Communist Success Story. Kinda.
Noah Smith (Bloomberg View) Jun 30, 2015
Its state-owned enterprises show central planning can work -- to a point.

Financial Markets Call Greece's Bluff
Mark Gilbert (Bloomberg View) Jun 30, 2015
Athens badly misjudged its ability to scare the rest of Europe.

Why Greeks Will Vote 'Yes' to Europe
Matt Qvortrup (Bloomberg View) Jun 30, 2015
Europeans tend to stick together when tested.

Greeks, Welcome to the Soviet Union of 1991
Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg View) JUn 30, 2015
What happens when a country goes bankrupt and loses access to external funding.

Getting the Trans-Pacific Partnership Right
Simon Johnson (Project Syndicate) Jun 30, 2015
US President Barack Obama has promised that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will be the most progressive trade agreement in history. In that case, it should uphold international labor and environmental standards, as members of Obama’s own party are demanding.

The Future for Emerging Markets
Laura Tyson (Project Syndicate) Jun 30, 2015
Rapid changes in the global economic environment have rattled financial markets, spooked investors, and dampened interest in emerging market economies. But while emerging markets have suffered from recent uncertainty, it is too soon to rule them out as unprofitable investments.

A New Mission for the World Bank
Nancy Birdsall (Project Syndicate) Jun 30, 2015
The World Bank is considering cutting grants to organizations that support the provision of global public goods such as agricultural research and forest protection. But the Bank should be expanding, not reducing, its work in such areas.

From Bubbles to Bridges
Lucy P. Marcus (Project Syndicate) Jun 30, 2015
Boardrooms are all too often seen as secretive environments where big decisions influencing thousands of lives are made by faceless people. As people outside the boardrooms increasingly demand to hold those inside them to account, opening the avenues to communication will be critical to the long-term success of any company.

Africa’s Low-Carbon Revolution
Kevin Watkins (Project Syndicate) Jun 30, 2015
With the right regulatory environment and sufficient financing, renewable-energy technologies could transform Africa’s energy sector, bringing power to millions of the region’s citizens. Given the extent to which a lack of access to power impedes growth, job creation, and poverty reduction, there is no time to waste.

Central Banks: Printing Money Delays Domestic Structural Reforms
Will Hickey (YaleGlobal) Jun 30, 2015
Amid intense competition and quantitative easing, countries that innovate and reduce bureaucracy will be more influential

What moves the stock market?
Dan Greenwald, Martin Lettau and Sydney Ludvigson (VoxEU) Jun 30, 2015
Most theories explain the volatility of the stock market with shocks to macroeconomic fundamentals that have important consequences for growth. This column argues that the most important forces behind the longer term gains in the US stock market have not been drivers of economic growth. Instead, they have been an accumulation of random shocks which resulted in redistribution between workers and shareholders.

Greece can still avoid a catastrophic exit from the Eurozone
Domingo Cavallo (VoxEU) Jun 30, 2015
Grexit and the reintroduction of the drachma would have severe consequences for the Greek people. This column argues, based on Argentina's experience, that this would produce a sharp devaluation of the drachma, inflation, and a severe reduction in real wages and pensions. The effects would be far worse than the reductions that could have occurred as a consequence of the policies proposed by the Troika. By resuming negotiations, continuing with measures to achieve fiscal consolidation and carrying out adequate structural reforms, Greece could reverse the current situation in a sustainable way. It has the great advantage that the ECB, most European governments and the IMF are willing to resume negotiations.

No Exit
David Gordon and Thomas Wright (FA) Jun 30, 2015
Why Greece and Europe Will stay attached.