Africa’s enormous economic potential is not news. But, until now, policymakers around the world have not successfully defined the political and economic steps that must be taken to enable Africa to re ...More
EJ Insight2017-06-08
President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate agreement is not just dangerous for the world; it is also sociopathic. Without remorse, Trump is willfully inflicting ha ...More
EJ Insight2017-06-08
Between 2014 and 2016, Middle Eastern oil-exporting countries’ revenues fell by an average of more than one-third – or 15 percent of GDP – and their current-account surpluses have swung violently to d ...More
EJ Insight2017-06-08
For the past two years, the global economy has been growing, but it has swung between periods of rapid expansion and deceleration. During this period, two episodes, in particular, caused US and global ...More
EJ Insight2017-06-06
Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential election on May 7 triggered a surge of optimism about the future of the European Union, and the eurozone in particular. This is partly because Macr ...More
EJ Insight2017-06-05
Donald Trump has thrown a hand grenade into the global economic architecture that was so painstakingly constructed in the years after the end of World War II. The attempted destruction of this rules-b ...More
EJ Insight2017-06-05
Emmanuel Macron’s election to the French presidency provides the European Union with an opportunity to move past the internal conflicts that have hastened its disintegration. Rather than standing excl ...More
EJ Insight2017-05-31
The world has no shortage of pressing issues. There are 1.6 billion people living in acute poverty; an estimated 780 million adults are illiterate. Serious problems are not confined to the developing ...More
EJ Insight2017-05-31
Donors like the World Bank and the World Health Organization often urge developing countries to invest in national health systems. But while rushing to construct clinics and other medical facilities i ...More
EJ Insight2017-05-29
The landslide re-election of Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, reflects the by now familiar pattern of continuity and change that has characterized Iran’s major elections over the past two decades. Fo ...More
EJ Insight2017-05-25
Two Chinese initiatives – “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) and “International Production Cooperation” – encapsulate President Xi Jinping’s views on overseas investment. Both slogans are supported by develo ...More
EJ Insight2017-05-17
I have been out of the world of international finance and economic forecasting for more than four years, but much of what I learned during my 30 years working full-time in the field still influences h ...More
EJ Insight2017-05-17
For US President Donald Trump, the measure of a country’s economic strength is its current-account balance – its exports of goods and services minus its imports. This idea is of course the worst kind ...More
EJ Insight2017-05-12
In Ghana, a group of enterprising women and young people is building bicycles out of an unlikely material: bamboo. Ten farmers grow the bamboo, and 25 builders craft it into environmentally friendly b ...More
EJ Insight2017-05-04
In the two decades from 1979 to 1999, the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States drifted downward, from 19 million to 17 million. But over the next decade, between 1999 and 2009, the number ...More
EJ Insight2017-05-04
In American politics, the next election is all that matters. Despite the Republicans’ big win in November 2016, US President Donald Trump’s ability to pass legislation still depends on what congressio ...More
EJ Insight2017-05-02
The likely victory of Emmanuel Macron in the French presidential election has elicited a global sigh of relief. At least Europe is not going down the protectionist path that President Donald Trump is ...More
EJ Insight2017-05-02
Donald Trump’s rise to power in the United States involved more than a little China-bashing. Yet, with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Trump’s Florida estate earlier this month, it seems that ...More
EJ Insight2017-04-27
Brexit has set a hungry cat among the financial pigeons of the City of London. No one yet knows what kind of access to the European Union’s single financial market UK-based firms will have, and Prime ...More
EJ Insight2017-04-26
The rise of anti-globalization political movements and the threat of trade protectionism have led some people to wonder whether a stronger multilateral core for the world economy would reduce the risk ...More
EJ Insight2017-04-25
