I was recently asked by an Australian economics journal to write a review of a book I had already read, The Leaderless Economy, by Peter Temin and David Vines (published in 2013). Because the book is a great place from which to start a discussion on the links within the global economy, I decided to base […]
Read More…Category: Income inequality
Can monetary policy turn Argentina into Japan?
Monetary policy is as much about politics as it is economics. It affects the ways in which wealth is created, allocated, and retained and it determines the balance of power between providers of capital and users of capital. In January one of my readers kindly passed on to me a link to an interesting report […]
Read More…Interview on Chinese CPI and PPI data for December
The National Bureau of Statistics released today CPI and PPI data for December 2014. People’s Daily summarizes the CPI data, which came in pretty close to market expectations: China’s consumer prices grew 2 percent in 2014 from one year earlier, well below the government’s 3.5 percent target set for the year, official data showed on […]
Read More…How might a China slowdown affect the world?
Two years ago it was hard to find analysts who expected average GDP growth over the rest of this decade to be less than 8%. The current consensus seems to have dropped to between 6% and 7% on average. I don’t think Beijing disagrees. After assuring us Tuesday that China’s economy – which is growing […]
Read More…“…not with a bang but a whimper”
Doug, Pancoast, an American entrepreneur living in Shanghai, asked to interview me for his blog, and I agreed to do so. I think it was meant to be a brief interview, but I began to respond on a Saturday evening, while waiting for the performance at my club to begin (my office is at my […]
Read More…Why a savings glut does not increase savings
Debate about the global savings glut hypothesis is mired in confusion, a fundamental one of which is the seemingly obvious but false claim that a global savings glut must lead to higher global savings. Here, for example, is a recent piece by one of my favorite economists, Barry Eichengreen: There is only one problem: the […]
Read More…Economic consequences of income inequality
A lot of things have happened in China since my last entry – in the FX markets, in the banking system, in the announcements of default, and in the continuing lowering of growth expectations – but for all the turmoil, as I see it nothing has happened that was unexpected and that has not been […]
Read More…