In today’s hyper-connected world, analysis has become a mere commodity. Retrieving it – let alone information – is like drinking from a fire hydrant. For example, Googling “global economic growth" yields 61 million results; “Eurozone deflation”, 1 million; “tensions in south-east Asia”, 2 million, and so on... It should therefore come as no surprise that we get easily lost in this myriad of information and analysis.
In the face of analysis overload, it becomes invaluable to sift, select and frame the issues and opinions that matter. This is why The Monthly Barometer came up with a Weekly Selection of op-eds and articles. Each week, we select just five of them (out of hundreds that are sent to us by our network) that we frame in two or three sentences. These five pieces convey in a succinct and accessible manner the thinking of people whose opinions matter the most in a variety of macro fields: economics, geopolitics, society, environment, technology and psychology. They constitute a “formidable” shortcut to complex analysis by offering insights and snapshots that can be read in just a few minutes and are easy to digest. For those keen to make sense of today’s world, The Weekly Selections are a must-read. They constitute the best antidote to information and analysis overload.
As a new service, The Monthly Barometer is now offering to its subscribers, and a potentially much larger group, a curation of all The Weekly Selections. On any given macro issue, it will be possible to access the best thinking at the tap of key. This service should therefore be of particular interest to researchers and students enabling them as it does to grasp with ease “who said what and when”.
Subscribers of the Monthly Barometer can access curated Weekly Selections as part of their subscription.
Researchers and students who do not wish to subscribe to The Monthly Barometer can access them on a pay-as-you-wish basis. Please pay an amount that corresponds to the value you attach to the product. If you don’t want to pay, remember the following: “If something online is free, you are not the customer – you are the product” (Jonathan Zittrain, George Bemis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government).
Curation of weekly selections – A distillation of the opinions that count!
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Kenneth Rogoff-
ECONOMICS, Inequalities, Real estate
Noah Smith, "The threat coming by land"
Quartz - 9 Sep 2015
Since 1950 the share of residential property value as a percentage of GDP has increased dramatically in European countries, but the phenomenon is global, driven by an increase in the demand for desirable locations - an inherently scarce commodity that pushes up the value of land. What ultimately determines the value of modern land is the incentive to locate close to other people, but this creates “externalities”. A possible solution, politically difficult, is to tax the value of locations. (reads in about 5 mn)
Published in Weekly selection 11 September 2015
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GEOPOLITICS, China, ECONOMICS, Real estate
Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng, "Great Cities and Ghost Towns"
Project Syndicate - 18 Sep 2014
Andrew and Xiao, both from the Fung Global Institute, argue that China’s ghost towns will merely prove to be “potholes on the path to development” and explain why they are not “harbingers of doom”. This is a powerful and must-read argument, especially for those, like us at The Monthly Barometer, who view the impending collapse of Chinese property prices as number one global economic risk.
Published in Weekly selection 20 September 2014
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Time Fernholz, "Will widly expensive housing devour the economies of wealthy countries?"
Quartz - 15 Aug 2014
Looking at housing prices to critic some of Piketty’s results, the journalist observes that the explanation for the huge increases in housing prices isn’t embedded in the buildings, but in the land. He concludes by stating: “Housing will eat the economy—everybody needs it, but it will be worth more and more, and land-owners will be the capitalists in command, unless we do a better job increasing the supply of housing”.
Published in Weekly selection 16 August 2014
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