The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prison population – about 2.2 million people, five times as many as in 1980. One out of every 100 American adult ...More
EJ Insight2015-09-01
Reports of the death of American power have often been greatly exaggerated. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union was thought to have surpassed the United States; today, the Soviet Union no longer exists. In ...More
EJ Insight2015-08-31
Negotiators from the two Koreas appear to have resolved this month’s crisis, in which South Korea’s use of loudspeakers to broadcast messages across the demilitarized zone spurred threats of war from ...More
EJ Insight2015-08-28
The United Nations’ latest population projections suggest that Japan’s population could fall from 127 million today to 83 million by 2100, with 35 percent of the population then over 65 years old. Eur ...More
EJ Insight2015-08-24
Earlier this month, global financial markets nearly imploded. From East Asia to Western Europe, currencies swooned and equity prices tumbled -- all because of China’s decision to allow a modest devalu ...More
EJ Insight2015-08-20
Secular stagnation is looming worldwide, and China is no exception. Globally, the unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus following the 2008 financial crisis has caused debt, equity, and property p ...More
EJ Insight2015-08-18
There is no doubt that Earth is undergoing the sixth mass extinction in its history – the first since the cataclysm that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. According to one recent stud ...More
EJ Insight2015-08-17
Oil prices have been heading south again, with a barrel of US crude recently falling below US$42 – the lowest level since March 2009, the nadir of the global financial crisis. And, while last year’s s ...More
EJ Insight2015-08-17
One of the greatest challenges facing women in much of the world is the gap between their legal rights and their ability as individuals to claim them. National constitutions are increasingly likely to ...More
EJ Insight2015-08-11
Some economists overlook the modern idea that a country’s prosperity depends on innovation and entrepreneurship. They take the mechanistic view that prosperity is a matter of employment and that emplo ...More
EJ Insight2015-08-07
Over the last 35 years, real wages in the United States failed to keep pace with productivity gains. For the typical non-farm worker, productivity grew twice as fast as real wages. Instead, an increas ...More
EJ Insight2015-08-03
It didn’t take long, but according to the Korea Central News Agency, the North Koreans are underwhelmed by the Iran nuclear deal -- and thus unlikely to follow suit. The North Korean announcement took ...More
EJ Insight2015-07-31
Even in normal times, individual and institutional investors alike have a hard time figuring out where to invest and in what. Should one invest more in advanced or emerging economies? And which ones? ...More
EJ Insight2015-07-28
Every July, economists, business leaders, non-governmental organizations and politicians from around the world gather in Aix-en-Provence, France, for the three-day Rencontres Économiques forum, organi ...More
EJ Insight2015-07-24
European monetary union was never a good idea. I remember my surprise when, as a young assistant professor, I realized that I was opposed to the Maastricht Treaty. I believed then – and still do – tha ...More
EJ Insight2015-07-23
A common sentiment among investors in China is that the best way to make money is to trade frequently, lest you end up holding the short straw. But, in my experience, buying and holding great business ...More
EJ Insight2015-07-23
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
Let us give praise where it is richly deserved. Despite all the criticism they faced, US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, stuck doggedly to the task of negotiating a deal ...More
EJ Insight2015-07-17
It is probable that after 60 days of intense debate in Washington, D.C., and conceivably Tehran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed on July 14 by Iran and the UN Security Council’s ...More
EJ Insight2015-07-15
The Greek catastrophe commands the world’s attention for two reasons. First, we are deeply distressed to watch an economy collapse before our eyes, with bread lines and bank queues not seen since the ...More
EJ Insight2015-07-13
