Examines data including GDP, household debt, and industrial production to show the weakness of the current recovery compared to previous postwar rebounds.

South Africa in the post-apartheid period has registered steady growth, but mounting problems over inequality threaten the continent's economic engine, explains this Backgrounder.

Generally, for advanced countries with deep and liquid capital markets like the United States, the best policy is to allow these markets to determine exchange rates.

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Jose Alvarez, Herbert and Rose Rubin professor of international law at New York University School of Law, discusses the growth and distributional effects and the human rights implications of global economic governance through bilateral investment treaties, with a focus on the global south.

According to Michael Levi , "selling Teslas (TSLA) to wealthy people today may be the best way to get electric cars to everyone tomorrow, and for the United States to eventually reduce its dependence on oil, with all the national security and economic benefits that entails."

Andrew Kohut and Michael Dimock discuss the findings of their new Renewing America Working Paper.

The political successor to the Dalai Lama discusses Tibet.

The political successor to the Dalai Lama discusses Tibet.

Charles Landow and Courtney Lobel trace the evolving similarities between Pittsburg and Bangalore's economic development.

Despite an extended period of economic difficulty, Pew pollsters Andrew Kohut and Michael Dimock show that Americans' core values and beliefs about economic opportunity remain largely optimistic and unchanged.

Outside of a humanitarian crisis—such as a famine or a natural disaster—it is hard to make the case that any country deserves another's economic support. To paraphrase Britain's Lord Palmerston, countries do not have permanent friends, only permanent interests.

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The prospective challenge of containing inflation, buttressing a collapsed housing market, and normalizing the Federal Reserve's bloated balance sheet has created an "exit strategy" dilemma for Chairman Ben Bernanke. CFR Director of International Economics Benn Steil urges the Federal Reserve to swap mortgage-backed securities with the U.S. Treasury in exchange for Treasury securities, which the Fed can then sell as part of a normal process of monetary tightening.

CFR Director of International Economics Benn Steil urges the Federal Reserve to swap mortgage-backed securities with the U.S. Treasury in exchange for Treasury securities, which the Fed can then sell as part of a normal process of monetary tightening as a solution for the prospective challenge of containing inflation, buttressing a collapsed housing market, and normalizing its bloated balance sheet.

Benn Steil and Dinah Walker explain why the Fed's massive holdings of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) are distorting its thinking about the conduct of monetary policy going forward. They propose a novel plan to rectify this, in which the Fed swaps its MBS with the Treasury in return for Treasury securities, which the Fed can sell as part of a normal "exit" from monetary stimulus.

To date, Chinese officials have asserted that their interest in Gwadar is strictly a commercial effort to provide another energy corridor for Middle East oil, and Pakistani government officials stridently affirm this position. New Delhi, on the other hand, has expressed "concern" about the true motivations in developing Gwadar, suspecting that it is a Sino-Pak effort at encirclement.

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Joshua Kurlantzick discusses the China model of economic development, which he describes as, "economic liberalization without political liberalization."

Recent developments in Portugal provide yet another example of the growing political strength of anti-austerity forces in Europe.

The world may expect great things from India, but as extensive reporting reveals, Indians themselves turn out to be deeply skeptical about their country's potential. That attitude, plus New Delhi's dysfunctional foreign-policy bureaucracy, prevent long-term planning of the sort China has mastered -- and are holding India back.

Sub-Saharan Africa's GDP has grown five percent a year since 2000 and is expected to grow even faster in the future. Although pessimists are quick to point out that this growth has followed increases in commodities prices, the success of recent political reforms and the increased openness of African societies give the region a good chance of sustaining its boom for years to come.

Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz discusses how the lack of financial regulation creates market instability which results in inequality, and addresses ways to strengthen both the U.S. and international economy, to prevent further collapse.