The main financial risk facing the United States today looks very similar to what caused so much trouble in 2007-2008: big banks with too much debt and too little equity capital on their balance sheet ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-29
It is annual general meeting season – the time of year when some of the world’s biggest companies gather to report to shareholders and have some semblance of a conversation with them. For the next cou ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-28
Europe’s ongoing malaise has reignited the old debate over which form of government produces better economic performance. Are authoritarian regimes, with their ability to ram through unpopular choices ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-27
Greece's government, led by the left-wing Syriza party, is demanding a new deal from its European creditors, claiming that the bailout program provided by the "troika" (the International Monetary Fund ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-24
Greece’s divisive negotiations with the European Union have placed debt back at the center of debates about economic growth and stability. But Greece is not the only country struggling to repay its ex ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-20
It is impossible to deny that trade and exchange rates are closely linked. But does that mean that international trade agreements should include provisions governing national policies that affect curr ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-20
The conventional view in mainstream economics today is that governments have little capacity to spark innovation. The state should play as limited a role in the economy as possible, the thinking goes, ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-17
At first glance, the eurozone economy seems like it might finally be on the mend. Stock markets are rallying. Consumer confidence has picked up. Lower oil prices, a cheaper euro and quantitative easin ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-13
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
During the early years of the global financial crisis, exchange rates were the least interesting part of the macroeconomic debate. A French proposal in 2011 for a sweeping reform of the international ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-08
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which the European Union and the United States currently are negotiating, would, studies say, boost welfare and reduce unemployment in both e ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-02
The latest economic data from the eurozone suggest that recovery may be at hand. What is driving the upturn? What obstacles does it face? And what can be done to sustain it? The immediate causes of re ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-02
The European Union stands at a crossroads. The shape it takes five years from now will be decided in the coming three to five months. Year after year, the EU has successfully muddled through its diffi ...More
EJ Insight2015-04-01
Prime Minister Li Keqiang’s work plan for 2015, revealed at this month’s National People’s Congress, highlighted the country’s shift to a “new normal” of 7 percent economic growth. The shift to slower ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-30
Is it appropriate to use trade agreements to discourage countries from using large-scale intervention in the foreign-exchange market to hold down their currencies’ value? That is the question of the d ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-25
Europe is on the cusp of an unprecedented technological transformation. I call it the Internet of Everything: the penetration of the World Wide Web into the everyday aspects of our lives. Wearable tec ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-23
The prices of long-term government bonds have been running very high in recent years (that is, their yields have been very low). In the United States, the 30-year Treasury bond yield reached a record ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-23
Headlines about banks’ risks to the financial system continue to dominate financial news. Bank of America performed poorly on the Federal Reserve’s financial stress tests and regulators criticized Gol ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-19
Over the next few years, it will become obvious that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has monetized several trillion dollars of government debt. The orthodox fear is that printing money to fund current and pas ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-17
The Federal Reserve is under attack. Bills subjecting the United States’ central bank to “auditing” by the Government Accountability Office are likely to be passed by both houses of Congress. Legislat ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-11
