“The old is dying and the new cannot be born,” the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci wrote in the early twentieth century. We seem to be living in a similar interregnum today, likewise marked b ...More
EJ Insight2023-06-02
Following the May G7 summit in Hiroshima, US President Joe Biden claimed that he expects a “thaw” in relations with China. Yet despite some recent official bilateral meetings – with US Secretary of th ...More
EJ Insight2023-06-01
A megadrought – the worst in 1,200 years – has been ravaging the American West for two decades, fueling wildfires and exacerbating the region’s chronic water shortages. As global temperatures continue ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-30
The tentative deal that was just struck to raise the United States’ debt ceiling won’t make the problem go away. Partisan standoffs over the federal debt limit have become a predictable feature of Ame ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-30
Everything changed in early 2020, when it became clear that COVID-19 was not going to be contained. Suddenly, life in the United States and many other countries came to a near standstill: schools and ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-29
Last November’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, concluded on a historic high note, with the last-minute agreement to establish a “loss and damage” fund. The ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-29
When Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was found to be safe and effective in 1955, following a successful trial involving nearly two million American children, it marked a turning point in the fight against ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-25
It is too early to tell whether all the talk about reforming development finance at this year’s International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meetings will translate into meaningful policy action ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-23
During my lengthy career in finance, I picked up several market heuristics that have generally proven more useful than not. Every January, for example, I remember the “five-day rule,” which holds that ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-18
The debate about how to achieve climate goals – most notably, the transition to net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases – has fueled speculation that the world will deglobalize. Some argue that, since ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-17
In our collective imagination, the Himalayas – the roof of the world – are an archetype: glistening white, distant, even otherworldly. Climbing them is proof of humanity’s daring, courage, and drive – ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-16
Optimism can be difficult to muster at a time of heightened uncertainty and global turmoil. The 2022 ASDA’A BCW Arab Youth Survey, conducted only a few months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukr ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-15
The first rule of forecasting, the financial journalist Jane Bryant Quinn once observed, is this: give them a forecast or give them a date; just never give them both. So, here’s a not very bold foreca ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-15
The US Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates by 475 basis points over the course of 12 months, in a bid to curb inflation, was bound to be perilous. As should have been expected, it preci ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-12
Over the past three years, a series of overlapping crises has exposed the structural weaknesses in Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies. Coming on the back of rising labor costs and declining ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-11
MSCI, one of the most influential gatekeepers of environmental, social, and governance ratings, is about to downgrade the ESG ratings of 31,000 investment funds in one fell swoop. The dramatic move co ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-11
When political leaders, and their admirers, claim that George Soros, the Hungarian-American-Jewish philanthropist, is pulling the strings of world affairs, we know that anti-Semitism is not far off. B ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-09
Capitalism relies on competition. In practice, however, this core principle is often violated, because ambitious capitalists will naturally seek to eliminate competition and secure a commanding market ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-08
A stream of European countries have exited the controversial Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) over the past year. France, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Denmark have all ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-05
I recently attended the China Development Forum (CDF) in Beijing, an annual gathering of senior foreign business leaders, academics, former policymakers, and top Chinese officials. This year’s confere ...More
EJ Insight2023-05-05
