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
Observers might be forgiven for thinking that so-called clean technology’s moment in the sun has passed. Over the past two years, many clean tech equity indices have performed poorly. In Europe, solar ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-06
For years, China has sought to encircle South Asia with a "string of pearls": a network of ports connecting its eastern coast to the Middle East that would boost its strategic clout and maritime acces ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-05
One of the factors driving the massive rise in global inequality and the concentration of wealth at the very top of the income distribution is the interplay between innovation and global markets. In t ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-05
Infrastructure projects can be among the most productive investments a society can make, with clear links to a country’s economic growth. For private investors, however, the situation is more complica ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-05
Monetary policy has become increasingly unconventional in the past six years, with central banks implementing zero interest rate policies, quantitative easing, credit easing, forward guidance and unli ...More
EJ Insight2015-03-02
Population aging is often cited as a major economic challenge for the developed world. But a new report from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) shows that shifting demographics pose an even greater t ...More
EJ Insight2015-02-27
With China’s economic slowdown more apparent than ever, its prospects of avoiding a hard landing are weakening. Whether policymakers succeed will depend on whether they can navigate the challenges ste ...More
EJ Insight2015-02-27
When the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba listed on the New York Stock Exchange late last year, it became the world's 17th largest publicly traded company overnight, with a market capitalization ...More
EJ Insight2015-02-24
Over the past five years, the eurozone has, without explicit popular consent, maintained a strict policy focus on fiscal austerity and structural reforms despite serious social repercussions, not only ...More
EJ Insight2015-02-17
Last year, the global economy was supposed to start returning to normal. Interest rates would begin rising in the United States and the United Kingdom, quantitative easing would deliver increased infl ...More
EJ Insight2015-02-13
More than six years after the global financial crisis, central banks in emerging and developed economies alike are continuing to pursue unprecedentedly activist --- and unpredictable -- monetary polic ...More
EJ Insight2015-02-12
A rare, deadly and highly contagious disease is spreading across the United States, having infected more than 100 people since the beginning of the year, with thousands more at risk. This is not the d ...More
EJ Insight2015-02-10
Climate change is already wreaking havoc throughout the developing world. Vietnam, for example, has reported that natural disasters, some of them exacerbated by climate change, have caused annual loss ...More
EJ Insight2015-02-09
At the World Economic Forum’s recent annual meeting in Davos, I participated in a panel of defense leaders to discuss the future of the military. The issue we addressed is a critical one: What kind of ...More
EJ Insight2015-02-06
When the euro crisis began a five years ago, Keynesian economists predicted that the austerity that was being imposed on Greece and the other crisis-stricken countries would fail. It would stifle grow ...More
EJ Insight2015-02-04
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