In a car, blind spots are the areas of the road that the rearview and side-view mirrors do not show. A driver must constantly be aware of them – and of the potentially deadly perils they can conceal. ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-28
The European Central Bank has finally launched a policy of quantitative easing (QE). The key question at this stage is whether Germany will give the ECB the freedom of maneuver needed to carry out thi ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-23
Fears about the impact of technology on the labor market are nothing new. In the early 19th century, a group of English textile workers known as the Luddites worried that new technologies like power l ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-23
Never in the 64-year history of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has it had to address so much human misery. At the beginning of 2014, more than 51 million people were displaced from their ho ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-23
Opinion polls in the run-up to Greece’s early general election on January 25 indicate that the left-wing Syriza party is likely to win the largest share of votes. As a result, Syriza stands to earn a ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-21
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls was not speaking metaphorically when he said that France is at war with radical Islam. There is, indeed, a full-fledged war underway, and the heinous terrorist attac ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-16
Economic pundits, almost without exception, are predicting a stronger US dollar in 2015 – an expectation that is leading investors to place some very large bets. But that market strategy could turn ou ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-14
Some analysts believe that 2014 ushered in a new era of Cold War-style geopolitics. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea were met with heavy economic sanctio ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-13
When the European Union held its first summit on growth and jobs in 1997, EU-wide unemployment stood at 11 percent. Last autumn, when it held another, not much seemed to have changed. Unemployment in ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-12
Russia’s current crisis, particularly the collapse of the ruble, reveals the fragility not only of the Russian economy, but also of the existing international order and the foundations of contemporary ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-07
For several years, and often several times a month, the Nobel laureate economist and New York Times columnist and blogger Paul Krugman has delivered one main message to his loyal readers: deficit-cutt ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-06
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
Technology innovators and CEOs seem positively giddy nowadays about what the future will bring. New manufacturing technologies have generated feverish excitement about what some see as a Third Industr ...More
EJ Insight2015-01-02
Let us imagine for a moment that we could change the world according to our wishes. Dramatic economic inequality gives way to social and political inclusion. Universal human rights become a reality. W ...More
EJ Insight2014-12-31
In November, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced a settlement in which six banks would be fined a total of US$4.3 billion for manipulating the foreign-exchange market. And ...More
EJ Insight2014-12-30
The purpose of the global financial system is to allocate the world’s savings to their most productive uses. When the system works properly, these savings are channeled into investments that raise liv ...More
EJ Insight2014-12-29
The sharp drop in the price of crude oil since late June has been grabbing headlines worldwide – and producing a lot of contradictory explanations. Some attribute the fall largely to declining global ...More
EJ Insight2014-12-17
Sometimes, the best measure of a movement’s momentum is the reaction of its critics. When, in early October, the Australian National University (ANU) announced it would sell its shares in seven fossil ...More
EJ Insight2014-12-16
When India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, was on the campaign trail, he promised to improve the way the country is governed. Since taking office in May, he has strived to deliver. Recently, he decla ...More
EJ Insight2014-12-15
In the coming year, “divergence” will be a major global economic theme, applying to economic trends, policies and performance. As the year progresses, these divergences will become increasingly diffic ...More
EJ Insight2014-12-09
