In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, optimists hoped that the BRIC (Brazil Russia India China) would drive the global economic engine. But China’s economic growth has slowed to its lowest rate in three years. Brazil’s economic growth has fallen from around 7.5% to under 3%. Russia’s economy is heavily dependent on oil and energy … Read more
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, optimists hoped that the BRIC (Brazil Russia India China) would drive the global economic engine. But China’s economic growth has slowed to its lowest rate in three years. Brazil’s economic growth has fallen from around 7.5% to under 3%. Russia’s economy is heavily dependent on oil and energy … Read more
Last week the Tax Foundation released its annual International Tax Competitiveness Index for 2014. The United States ranked 32 out of 34 OECD countries surveyed. Only Portugal and France got lower competitiveness scores, and not by much. As if that were not bad enough, the competitiveness score is only half the story. When you put … Read more
Is something in the air? Do I detect a change in consensus on the way things are going in Japan? Certainly a slew of articles have been published in the financial press over the last month questioning where the Abenomics experiment is headed for. The general conclusion seems to be that wherever it is it … Read more
The Parliament of Ukraine and the European Parliament are both expected to ratify the EU-Ukraine association agreement in a simultaneous session today. However, last week it was announced that the entry into force of the deep and comprehensive free trade area (DCFTA) between the EU and Ukraine, initially planned for November of this year, will … Read more
The continuing inability of the Eurozone economies to break out of their current impasse means that any optimistic projections of declining debt to GDP ratios are unlikely to be achieved. As long as European governments continue to raise funds in the financial markets on favorable terms, the current situation remains sustainable. But the IMF is … Read more
Income distribution has become less equal in many countries in recent decades, and prominent economists and politicians have advocated policies that would reverse the change in inequality. Some advocates of greater equality have acknowledged a trade-off between greater equality and higher total income. However, Paul Krugman (2014) and Alan Blinder (2014) have recently denied that … Read more
I have always thought that the soft landing/hard landing debate wholly misses the point when it comes to China’s economic prospects. It confuses the kinds of market-based adjustments we are likely to see in the US or Europe with the much more controlled process we see in China. Instead of a hard landing or a … Read more
There’s a spirited debate raging among economists about the long-run potential for growth in the US economy. Among those who expect that the future will suffer a lesser rate of growth is Robert Gordon, an economics professor at Northwestern and a member of the Business Cycle Dating Committee at the National Bureau of Research. In … Read more
After half a decade from the financial crisis, the United States is recovering, but Europe is suffering from a lost decade. Why? In the 2nd quarter, the U.S. economy grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4 percent, surpassing expectations. In the same time period, economic growth in the Euro zone slowed to a … Read more