During most of 2017, the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (VIX) has been at the lowest levels of the last decade. Recently, the VIX dipped below nine, even lower than in March 2007, jus ...More
EJ Insight2017-09-26
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is hemmed in on all sides. Domestically, he is trapped between the promises he has made (such as the “Mnuchin rule” that taxes wouldn’t be cut for the rich), the a ...More
EJ Insight2017-03-23
Any assessment of Barack Obama's eight-year US presidency should start at the beginning: his first inauguration, on January 20, 2009. The US economy was in free-fall: financial markets had seized up, ...More
EJ Insight2017-01-16
Around the world, several countries are currently undergoing “demonetization,” or currency reforms in which the government removes banknotes of a certain denomination from circulation and replaces the ...More
EJ Insight2016-12-23
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly claimed in recent months that the US economy does much better when a Democrat is in the White House. Coming from the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, that pr ...More
EJ Insight2016-06-23
As G7 leaders convene in Ise-Shima, Japan, the global economy’s fragility is a top concern. But instead of focusing on currency wars, the leaders of the major developed economies should be discussing ...More
EJ Insight2016-05-25
With the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index down more than 40 percent since last June, investors worldwide are watching the decline with growing concern -- but not because they are invested in th ...More
EJ Insight2016-01-20
How should one evaluate the agreement reached in Paris this month at the United Nations climate change conference? No sooner was the deal announced on Dec. 12 than the debate erupted. Some avid enviro ...More
EJ Insight2015-12-18
China's current economic woes have largely been viewed through a single lens: the government’s failure to let the market operate. But that perspective has led foreign observers to misinterpret some of ...More
EJ Insight2015-09-07
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has the chance to become to his country what South Korea's Kim Dae-jung and Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva were to theirs -- a man of the left who moves toward ...More
EJ Insight2015-07-20
US President Barack Obama is still pressing to obtain Trade Promotion Authority and use it to conclude negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment P ...More
EJ Insight2015-06-11
Reading Thomas Piketty’s influential new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, one might conclude that the world has not been this unequal since the days of robber barons and kings. That is odd, ...More
EJ Insight2014-05-15
