January
Will the bond market intimidate Trumponomics?
Are recent alarm bells a sufficient warning, or will the new president still pursue large-scale stimulus in tax cuts, tariffs, and an immigration crackdown?
January 2024
Inflation dragon is back in its cave
Inflation is notoriously hard to predict. But three factors in particular suggest that it will be subdued.
September 2023
G20 won the battle with the BRICS
The joint declaration from the G20 summit in New Delhi managed to reassert the relevance of a global forum that has been called into question.
July 2023
Why the global economy is humbling economists
With forecasts of a recession in the US and UK this year proven wrong, there is cause for cautious optimism that policymakers can achieve a soft landing despite inflation.
June 2023
The poverty of AI pessimism should worry us all
Spurning AI will rob the world of its best chances to reverse productivity declines, manage an ageing population, and head off new health threats.
January 2023
Folk wisdom suggests sharemarkets may lead a global rebound this year
An old adage says the US sharemarket will hold on to an early January rise for the rest of the year. Many indicators say that might be right in 2023.
November 2022
What the World Cup says about the state of the world economy
Is FIFA’s choice of host for the tournament a leading or a lagging indicator of the world economy and the degree of globalisation?
October 2022
China will never be the No.1 economy with its current policies
This was supposed to be the decade when China’s economy closed in on the US. Now there is a chance of it slipping significantly instead.
September 2022
How forex markets made an idiot of Truss
The pound will rebound once inflation is under control. It is very hard to say the same thing about Trussonomics.
Liz Truss must keep an open mind if she wants to stay in Number 10
The UK’s new prime minister is famously a political shape-shifter. The best thing she could do now is dump the rigid Thatcherite program she used to win Conservative Party approval.
August 2022
Herd gets recessions talk wrong
There are four good reasons to question whether the prevailing pessimism about stagnation, inflation, and stagflation is justified.
June 2022
A wage-price spiral is a ticket to revisiting the 1970s
Without price stability or productivity improvements, generous wage, fiscal, or monetary policies will represent nothing but false promises.
April 2022
The end of the global savings glut theory of low-interest rates
The only way for central banks ensure that inflation is temporary is to tighten their monetary policies, rather than clinging to old theories to justify their persisting with ultra-cheap money policies.
March 2022
Will sanctioning Russia upend the global monetary system?
Few moves have raised the stakes in the global money system more than the West’s action to freeze Russia’s foreign currency reserves.
February 2022
This time, China’s headwinds are all of Beijing’s making
The Chinese people have accepted authoritarian rule in exchange for the promise of Western lifestyles. What happens now that weakening growth momentum is government induced?
January 2022
Deep uncertainty looms over global economy in 2022
Never have there been so many big issues to watch that could have dire implications for today’s elevated markets.
August 2021
How the US dollar has survived everything from Nixon to the Taliban
Fifty years after the end of Bretton Woods, the floating greenback has remained the world’s dominant currency for far longer than most experts expected.
April 2021
Will inflation turn COVID-19 boom to bust?
The rebound from the temporary lockdowns was always going to be strong. But if inflation comes roaring back the good news will prove fleeting.
March 2021
Why bitcoin investors should not let their windfalls go to their heads
The rising popularity of cryptocurrencies seems to reflect not their own strengths but rather the excesses of the current moment.
February 2021
BRICS promise still awaits 20 years on
The idea was initially more about good global governance than greater growth. Sadly, there’s a lot of catching up to do as the group enters its third decade.