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March 4, 2009
Slate
Michael Levi warns that if we try to find a single solution for our economic and energy challenges in the form of "green jobs", we might fail to deliver on both fronts.
See more in Economics, Climate Change
March 2, 2009
Washington Post
Sebastian Mallaby writes that the Frank proposal for a new "systemic risk regulator" is dubious. The sad truth is that crowded trades are near-impossible for the government to identify.
See more in U.S. Strategy and Politics
February 23, 2009
McKinsey & Company
Sebastian Mallaby examines the dangers of transparency in the financial marketplace.
See more in United States, Corporate Governance, Geoeconomics
February 18, 2009
Politico
Amity Shlaes responds to Matthew Dallek's critique of her book, The Forgotten Man, and invites him to join a debate regarding the New Deal.
See more in United States, Economics, Financial Crises
February 14, 2009
Newsweek
In this Newsweek article, David Victor warns that delivering greenery in the American political system will be difficult. On climate issues, America is less a nation than 50 different states moving at different speeds.
See more in Climate Change, Environmental Pollution
February 12, 2009
Nikkei Financial Daily
In this Nikkei op-ed, Roger Kubarych analyzes the early challenges facing the Obama administration with regards to the economic crisis. He writes that the ugly stock market response to the Geithner plan will make it all the harder to recapitalize the U.S. financial system without taxpayers footing the bill.
See more in Economics, U.S. Strategy and Politics
February 6, 2009
Forbes Online
The "buy American" provisions in the stimulus bill presented President Obama with the first test of his trade philosophy. In this Forbes article, Edward Alden and Jeremy Haft write that Obama has passed this test. The apparent compromise over these provisions is reassuring.
See more in United States, China, Economics, International Organizations
February 6, 2009
Financial Times
In this Financial Times op-ed, Benn Steil takes a critical look at economists invoking the authority of Keynes in support of adding another trillion dollars to the federal debt.
See more in Economics, Financial Crises
February 4, 2009
Financial Times
The Obama administration faces its two most protectionist challenges from the ‘Buy America' provisions in the stimulus package and the China bashing on ‘currency manipulation'. In this Financial Times op-ed, Jagdish Bhagwati argues that President Obama must fight protectionism right away or live to see the virus spread beyond control.
February 2, 2009
Washington Post
In this Washington Post op-ed, Amity Shlaes argues that we should not repeat the New Deal stimulus experiments. The Depression tells us that public works are probably less effective than improving the environment for entrepreneurs and new companies.
See more in United States, Economics
January 29, 2009
Vox
Brad Setser argues that while national policy considerations dominate debates on macroeconomic policies, these debates need to take into account the global consequences of their policy choices.
See more in Economics, International Organizations
January 25, 2009
Washington Post
In this Washington Post op-ed, Sebastian Mallaby writes that China's currency manipulation is arguably the most important cause of the financial crisis. However, to get global growth going, it is more important to persuade China to extend its fiscal stimulus than to revalue its currency.
See more in China, Economics, U.S. Strategy and Politics
January 9, 2009
Financial Times
In this Financial Times op-ed, Jagdish Bhagwati warns that Mr. Obama, who has properly denounced unilateralism, should not undermine the respect for the rule of law that the WTO embodies at the multilateral level.
See more in Trade, U.S. Election 2008
January 3, 2009
Newsweek
David Victor and Varun Rai warn that the global environment may be one of the biggest losers in the current financial crisis as clean coal projects are abandoned around the world.
See more in Economics, Energy/Environment
December 31, 2008
Washington Post
Amity Shlaes looks at lessons for President-elect Obama in FDR's experimentation during the Great Depression.
See more in Economics, U.S. Strategy and Politics, U.S. Election 2008
December 18, 2008
Washington Post
Sebastian Mallaby argues against responding to the Madoff scandal with more regulation of hedge funds.
See more in Economics, Geoeconomics
December 17, 2008
Bloomberg.com
Recent research suggests that the high-wage method of fending off economic depression can make a depression more likely. In this Bloomberg op-ed, Amity Shlaes argues that allowing wages to fall would reduce the risk of another depression.
See more in Economics, U.S. Strategy and Politics
December 10, 2008
Washington Post
In this Washington Post op-ed, Amity Shlaes writes that huge public works projects, such as the one put forward by President-elect Obama, often fail to revive national economies, as evidenced by the example of Japan in the 1990s.
See more in Japan, Economic Development, U.S. Election 2008
December 5, 2008
The Australian
Don't write off capitalism; it has thrived on crises for the past 300 years, contends Walter Russell Mead.
See more in Economics, U.S. Election 2008
December 4, 2008
Washington Post
Sebastian Mallaby writes that the end-of-capitalism talk is bunk. It distracts us from the debate we should be having on how to manage the necessary shift in the balance of our mixed economy.
See more in Economics, U.S. Election 2008
Subscribe to "This Month in Geoeconomics" newsletter.
In Money, Markets, and Sovereignty, the authors present a fascinating intellectual history of monetary nationalism from the ancient world to the present and explore why, in its modern incarnation, it represents the single greatest threat to globalization.
In The Closing of the American Border, Edward Alden goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the Bush administration’s struggle to balance security and openness in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
In Regional Monetary Integration, Peter B. Kenen poses an important question: Should various country groups follow the lead of the European Monetary Union and form similar full-fledged monetary unions?
In contrast to conventional wisdom, the growth in government spending and heightened regulation during the Great Depression may have done much to slow economic recovery.
In this report, Benn Steil shows that the financial crisis is the inevitable bust of a classic credit boom, and explains how monetary, taxation, and home ownership promotion policy combined with other feaures of the financial system to fuel an unsustainable buildup in debt. He recommends significant reforms to reverse the debt financing bias and make the system more resilient to falls in asset prices.
In order for policymakers to tackle today’s global economic crisis, this report argues, they must go beyond bailouts and stimulus packages and focus on one of the crisis's root causes: imbalances between savings and investment in major countries.
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