Weekly Selection
The Difference Between Worry, Stress and Anxiety (The New York Times, February 26, 2020) Most of us would agree that the past week and all [...]
The Difference Between Worry, Stress and Anxiety (The New York Times, February 26, 2020) Most of us would agree that the past week and all [...]
Nouriel Roubini, The stock market is ignoring these ‘white swan’ events that could upend everything (Market Watch, February 18, 2020) The economist argues that financial crises [...]
John Cassidy, Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth? (The New Yorker, February 10, 2020) We had a similar article last week. Worth repeating with this [...]
Stephen Roach, A Global Economy Without a Cushion (Project Syndicate, January 27, 2020) From 1990 to 2008, annual growth in world trade was 82% faster [...]
What Will the World Look Like in 2030? (The New York Times, December 26, 2019) This is almost a month old, but worth posting now and read against the background of what [...]
Ruchir Sharma, How To Invest: Ten Big Trends Of The 2020s (NDTV, January 15, 2020) The Morgan Stanley global strategist / author offers 10 predictions [...]
Michael Spence, The Challenging Arithmetic of Climate Action (Project Syndicate, February 12, 2020) The Nobel laureate puts it in plain and palatable terms: the challenge [...]
Evan Osnos, The Future of America’s Contest with China (The New Yorker, January 13, 2020) This is an in-depth essay about the defining economic and [...]
Willem Buiter, When Central Banks Go Green (Project Syndicate, January 2, 2020) The economist explains why there are financial risks associated with making the shift [...]
Ben Casselman, A Recession Hasn’t Arrived (Yet). Here’s Where You’ll See It First (The New York Times, December 12, 2019) This article offers a very [...]
Niall Ferguson, The New Cold War? It’s With China, and It Has Already Begun (The New York Times, December 2, 2019) The famous historian says [...]
Stephen Roach, After the US-China Trade War (Project Syndicate, November 25, 2019) This is an interesting take that offers much food for thought on what [...]
Pablo Fajgelbaum, Pinelopi Goldberg, Patrick Kennedy, Amit Khandelwal, The return to protectionism (VOXeu, November 7, 2019) To get a precise and rigorous sense of the impact [...]
David Graeber, Against Economics (The New York Review of Books, December 5, 2019) The anthropologist reviews Skidelsky’s “Money and Government: The Past and Future of [...]
Steve LeVine, The Economist Who Wants to Ditch Math (Medium, November 5, 2019) We are proud to include this piece that is largely based on [...]
Nouriel Roubini, The Allure and Limits of Monetized Fiscal Deficits (Project Syndicate, October 28, 2019) This is a topic that was widely discussed at the [...]
Jeffrey Sachs, Why Rich Cities Rebel (Project Syndicate, October 23, 2019) Why did governments fail to anticipate that a seemingly modest policy action (a fuel-tax [...]
Dion Rabouin, Mainstream economists are getting radical (Axios, October 11, 2019) In a world of slow growth and full of economic anomalies, some of the [...]
Jim Bianco, Central Banks Can’t Create Negative Rates by Themselves (Bloomberg Opinion, October 9, 2019)This article explains in very simple terms why there is more to [...]
Lucrezia Reichlin, Adair Turner, Michael Woodford, Helicopter money as a policy option (Vox, September 24, 2019)This article sums up a policy debate on helicopter money that [...]
Arvind Subramanian and Dani Rodrik, The Puzzling Lure of Financial Globalization (Project Syndicate, September 25, 2019)The two renowned economists observe that, although most of the intellectual [...]
Satyajit Das, Can Banks Survive Negative Rates?(Bloomberg, September 13, 2019)The former banker turned author explains why the spread of unconventional monetary policies threatens to set [...]
Ann Saphir, Trade uncertainty to trim $850 billion global output: Fed paper (Reuters, September 5, 2019)Some robust academic research (it comes from the Fed) has attempted [...]
Neil Irwin, A Recession Isn’t Inevitable: The Case for Economic Optimism (The New York Times, September 4, 2019) For those who worry about a quasi-immediate [...]
Ruchir Sharma, Our Irrational Anxiety About ‘Slow’ Growth(The New York Times, August 17, 2019)The economist / columnist argues that the problem with the global economy [...]
Zachary Karabell, The Population Bust – Demographic Decline and the End of Capitalism as We Know It(Foreign Affairs, September/October 2019)The mismatch between expectations of a [...]
George Magnus, Yuan’s Slide Is Gold Standard Moment for China (Bloomberg Opinion, August 6, 2019)This is an important read (5-6 min.) to understand the significance of China’s [...]
Adam Tooze, Why Central Banks Need to Step Up on Global Warming(Foreign Policy, July 20)The leading economic historian explains why climate change could cause another [...]
Jerry Useem, The Stock-Buyback Swindle(The Atlantic, August 2019)US corporations are spending trillions of dollars to repurchase their own stock: over the past nine years, corporations [...]
Susan Lund, James Manyika, Michael Spence, The Global Economy’s Next Winners – What It Takes to Thrive in the Automation Age(Foreign Affairs, July-August 2019)The key [...]
Jeffrey Stacey, Is a Tide Turning Against Populism?(The New York Times, July 10, 2019)Something is happening that challenges the “populist surge” theory – the idea [...]
Hites Ahir, Nicholas Bloom and Davide Furceri, Caution: Trade uncertainty is rising and can harm the global economy(Vox, July 4, 2019)This is an essential read [...]
Michael Schuman, Trump’s Trade War With China Is Already Changing the World (The Atlantic, June 25, 2019)The fact that the US and China are now decoupling [...]
Nicholas Eberstadt, With Great Demographics Comes Great Power(Foreign Affairs, July 2019)This is a very helpful article to understand why and how demographics (the most enduring [...]
Jeffrey Frankel, The US Recovery Turns Ten (Project Syndicate, June 14, 2019) Maybe a bit of a dry read, but essential to understand what’s going [...]
John Authers, Shelters Are Becoming Rare in This Market Storm(Bloomberg, June 4, 2019)The senior editor for markets observes that when it’s just Treasuries and gold [...]
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Hites Ahir, Nicholas Bloom, Davide Furceri, The global economy hit by higher uncertainty(Vox, May 11, 2019)Rising uncertainty is the commonality behind all the different reasons [...]
Timothy Garton-Ash, Why we must not let Europe break apart The great historian argues that the European project is in big trouble, but is still worth fighting for. Old and new rifts are everywhere: between the north and south, west and east, two halves of each society, and more (including within countries). In the meantime, right-wing nationalists are peddling the return to an ill-defined “Europe of nations”. For centuries, Europe has torn itself apart, only to then put itself back together again, but this time is different because outside powers are engaged in a scramble for Europe (and not vice versa). Today’s deepest European challenge is this: do we really need to lose it all in order to find it again? (long read – 20 min, but a must).
Brad Plumer, Humans Are Speeding Extinction and Altering the Natural World at an ‘Unprecedented’ Pace The conclusions of the UN report on the decline in biodiversity across the globe are stark. Compiled by hundreds of international experts and based on thousands of scientific studies, it concludes that, with the human population exceeding 7 billion, activities like farming, logging, poaching, fishing and mining are altering the natural world at a rate “unprecedented in human history” which is exacerbated by global warming - a major driver of wildlife decline. The report makes obvious the links between biodiversity and issues like food security and clean water (reads in 7-8 min).
Robert Eccles and Svetlana Klimenko, The Investor Revolution(Harvard Business Review, May-June 2019)The two researchers make the claim that investors are getting serious about investing in [...]
Nouriel Roubini, Bipolar Markets in the “New Mediocre”(Project Syndicate, April 22, 2019)After the global risk-off at the end of last year, the recent central bankers’ [...]
John Duca, Online Retailing, Self-Employment Disrupt Inflation A new paper written by a Fed researcher makes two critical points that we’ve addressed in past Monthly Barometers and that may explain the subdued nature of the US’ otherwise impressive economic outperformance: (1) the US very low jobless rate would be higher if gig economy workers were counted as unemployed or underemployed; (2) gig work (which pays less than traditional full-time employment) is in part responsible for the sluggish wage increase. True for other economies as well, but to a lesser extent (reads in about 5 min).
Eric Schatzker, Ray Dalio Sounds a New Alarm on Capitalism’s Flaws, Warns of Revolution In 2017, the hedge fund manager was the first to raise the alert about the US “two economies” syndrome. In a new report (available in the article), he warns that some deep flaws in American capitalism have created destructive and self-reinforcing gaps in education, social mobility, assets and income that could result in another revolution. In his opinion, treating the wealth and income gap should be seen as a national emergency. He offers some solutions (reads in 4-5 min, the report itself in less than an hour).
Ruchir Sharma, The Miracle Years Are Over. Get Used to It.(The New York Times, April 1, 2019)The columnist argues that economists have had to downgrade [...]
Adair Turner, What if Zero Interest Rates Are the New Normal?(Project Syndicate, March 29, 2019)This is an important article to understand what has happened since [...]
Nouriel Roubini, Understanding the Fed’s Dovish Turn Due to key changes in macroeconomic conditions and the political environment, the Fed has abruptly put further interest-rate hikes on hold for the rest of the year. Roubini offers six different reasons why the new normal in the foreseeable future will be a US policy rate close to or just below 3% (reads in 6-7 min).
Jeffrey Sachs, The Dangerous Absurdity of America’s Trade Wars Last week, the US trade deficit widened to $621 billion, despite Trump’s promise that tough trade policies vis-à-vis Canada and Mexico, Europe, and China would slash it. This article reminds us that a deficit on the current account is purely a macroeconomic measure: the shortfall of saving relative to investment. Therefore, the US trade deficit is not an indicator of unfair trade practices by Canada and Mexico, the European Union, or China. Rather, it’s been exacerbated by the 2017 US tax cuts (reads in 6-7 min).
Neil Irwin, What if All the World’s Economic Woes Are Part of the Same Problem?(The New York Times, March 5, 2019)This article is music to [...]
Raghuram Rajan, A Better Populism The proof that populism can come in many shapes and sizes! This is a rich article that touches upon many different issues. In a nutshell, the former governor of the Bank of India and Chicago professor argues that the only policy that left- and right-wing populists can agree on to address economic decline is trade protectionism, which will make the world poorer. Instead, he says, a new type of “populism” that puts more trust in local communities would have a greater chance of success (reads in 5-6 min).