As US President Donald Trump's administration throws sharp elbows in trade negotiations and systematically rescinds regulations introduced by President Barack Obama, one casualty is likely to be effor ...More
EJ Insight2017-12-04
With the appointment of Jerome Powell as the next chair of the Federal Reserve Board, US President Donald Trump has made perhaps the most important single decision of his presidency. It is a sane and ...More
EJ Insight2017-11-03
Is the cryptocurrency Bitcoin the biggest bubble in the world today, or a great investment bet on the cutting edge of new-age financial technology? My best guess is that in the long run, the technolog ...More
EJ Insight2017-10-10
With the election of a reform-minded centrist president in France and the re-election of German Chancellor Angela Merkel seeming ever more likely, is there hope for the stalled single-currency project ...More
EJ Insight2017-06-15
As US President Donald Trump proceeds to destabilize the post-war global economic order, much of the world is collectively holding its breath. Commentators search for words to describe his assault on ...More
EJ Insight2017-02-10
After years of hibernation, will the US economy rouse itself for a big comeback over the next couple of years? With an incoming Republican administration hell-bent on reflating an economy already near ...More
EJ Insight2016-12-08
In his recent debate with his opponent Hillary Clinton, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pressed his claim that US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen is politically motivated. The Fed, T ...More
EJ Insight2016-10-04
The rise of anti-trade populism in the 2016 US election campaign portends a dangerous retreat from the United States’ role in world affairs. In the name of reducing US inequality, presidential candida ...More
EJ Insight2016-04-08
The phenomenal market volatility of the past year owes much to genuine risks and uncertainties about factors such as Chinese growth, European banks and the oil glut. For the first two months of this y ...More
EJ Insight2016-03-11
Since 2016 began, the prospect of a major devaluation of China’s renminbi has been hanging over global markets like the Sword of Damocles. No other source of policy uncertainty has been as destabilizi ...More
EJ Insight2016-02-03
Until recently, the usual thinking among macroeconomists has been that short-term weather fluctuations don’t matter much for economic activity. Construction hiring may be stronger than usual in March ...More
EJ Insight2016-01-12
Nothing describes the US Federal Reserve’s current communication policy better than the old saying that a camel is a horse designed by committee. Various members of the Fed’s policy-setting Federal Op ...More
EJ Insight2015-11-05
What impact will China’s slowdown have on the red-hot contemporary art market? That might not seem like an obvious question until one considers that for emerging-market investors, art has become a cri ...More
EJ Insight2015-09-07
To what extent should governments regulate or tax addictive behavior? This question has long framed public debate about alcohol, tobacco, gambling and other goods and services in many countries worldw ...More
EJ Insight2015-06-15
With China set to lead a new US$50 billion international financial institution, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), most of the debate has centered on the United States’ futile efforts to ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-08
Financial markets have greeted the election of Greece’s new far-left government in predictable fashion. However, although the Syriza party’s victory sent Greek equities and bonds plummeting, there is ...More
EJ Insight2015-02-03
With Western economic sanctions against Russia, Iran and Cuba in the news, it is a good time to take stock of the debate on just how well such measures work. The short answer is that economic sanction ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-05
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent policy decisions -- increase monetary stimulus dramatically, postpone a consumption-tax increase and call a snap election in mid-December -- have returned h ...More
EJ Insight2014-12-08
Why do the comments of major economies' central bankers command outsize attention nowadays? It is not as if they change interest rates all of the time. Nor have they developed new, more robust models ...More
EJ Insight2014-11-14
Is the era of high inflation gone forever? In a world of slow growth, high debt and tremendous distributional pressures, whether inflation is dead or merely dormant is an important question. Yes, mass ...More
EJ Insight2014-09-03
