Economics

The international media spent 2015 criticising South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s government and its policies, and the criticisms are visibly increasing in frequency. The topics range from history textbooks to excessive use of force by riot police, but they share...

US grew nearly 300k jobs in December.  The October and November jobs growth revised up by 50k.  The unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.0%, even though the participation rate ticked up.  If there was a disappointment it was that hourly...

For the first time this week, the PBOC set higher central reference rate for the yuan and Chinese shares rallied, with the apparent assistance of officials, after abandoning the circuit breakers.  This, coupled with somewhat firmer oil prices, is helping...

When ‘unthinkable’ events happen, they can change the course of history. The bilateral agreement reached by South Korea and Japan over ‘comfort women’ on 28 December 2015 was one such ‘unthinkable’ event. South Korea had few incentives to resolve an...

On Wednesday, the World Bank once again downgraded its global economic growth forecast for 2016. The downgrade resulted from the World Bank's prediction of weak performance from major emerging market economies, like China and Brazil. The reduced performance of these...

One might be forgiven for believing that nail-baiting start to the year is all China's fault.  It has repeatedly for eight sessions fixed the yuan lower, including earlier today, at a seemingly accelerating pace.  The new circuit breakers, introduced on...

Former Fed Chair Bernanke has penned a blog post that seeks to refute claims that the US monetary policy was the start of a currency war. Brazil’s finance minister first levied this claim in 2010 as the Federal Reserve, under...

The Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global treaty adopted in 2013, did not intend to serve as a major economic treaty. Its aim was to reduce mercury pollution around the world. However, according to a recent MIT study, that treaty,...

The US dollar and Japanese yen have begun the year on a firm note, as have bonds, while equities markets have moved lower.  This continues unabated today.  Another consistency is the weakness in the Chinese yuan.  The PBOC fixed the...

During the second week of December 2015, Japan and India held one of their more productive annual summit meetings in recent memory in New Delhi. Breaking the pattern of high atmospherics and shallow content that has characterised Japan-India interactions over...

Say what you will about the American diet — the truth is that Americans are actually among the most conscientious eaters in the world. Millions of Americans enjoy knowing exactly what they are eating, including where it came from; how...

Economic data proved so weak at the beginning of 2016 that global markets fell and China halted stock trading.  In China, the Caixin Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), released by Markit Economics, fell to 48.2 in December, down from 48.6 and...

Many countries may look with envy upon Sweden.  Growth last year was probably around 3%, with household consumption rising a little more than 2%.   Its current account surplus is 7.5% of GDP.  Exports were up by 4.3%.  Its budget deficit...

As trading begins in 2016, investors fret over the trends in oil and equities that dominated the last two years.  U.S. equities ended 2015 with a 2.15 percent loss, as measured by the S&P 500 excluding dividends. Both large cap...

The markets are in turmoil.  Global equity markets are sharply lower, dragging bond yields down.  The risk-off move has propelled the yen sharply higher.  Its 1.4% advance has seen the dollar slump to JPY118.70, its lowest level since mid-October.  The markets...