Markets

Over the past three decades, global interest in emerging markets has soared, and when the financial crisis of 2008 hit, emerging markets were largely thought to be the next engine of global growth. Insofar as they have complied with this...

If UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne wants to position himself to be the next Prime Minister, the budget to be unveiled tomorrow may not be particularly helpful.  There is little room to relax fiscal policy, given the self-imposed constraints. ...

The Sri Lankan economy appears to exist in a system that can evolve only through crisis. Optimistic policymakers, predicting that the country’s economic trajectory would self-correct, received a collective wake-up call in February with a sovereign rating downgrade by Fitch,...

The Bank of Japan had a difficult start into 2016. The latest data shows that inflation in the last quarter of 2015 was lower than expected. Furthermore, doubts are increasing about the recovery of the economy. At the end of...

The rise of China has created new uncertainties. A crucial question is whether China actively seeks an alternative to the existing US-led liberal regional order. In addition, if it does, what sort of order would it be? In 2000, Aron...

The introduction of negative interest rates in Japan and the subsequent chance for yields has seen domestic investors move further out on the curve.  They have also stepped up their purchases of foreign bonds. In three weeks (through March 4)...

EM enjoyed an extended rally last week, and it should carry over to the early part of the week. The Wednesday FOMC meeting poses a risk to EM, especially if markets continue to price in a more hawkish Fed. The...

Zimbabwe, like many African countries, faces an ongoing struggle to secure fair compensation for its mineral wealth. The question of how to maximise government revenues from the mining sector is a complex matter. However, turning the sector over to state-owned...

After being out of fashion for a long period, agriculture has been coming back into the spotlight again as part of development policy. Amid rising concerns about food insecurity and high expectations from agribusiness, policymakers have started to emphasise the...

Unfortunately, even though the U.S. is bountiful and the world’s biggest individual exporter of food, millions of Americans actually are not. Each year the Department of Agriculture runs a nationwide survey to determine how many people go hungry. The latest...

On 29 January, the latest draft of what may become Thailand’s 20th constitution was released. The draft was not the first since security forces seized power in May 2014 — an earlier draft, by a different body, was rejected in...

While the scenes depicted in the film The Wolf of Wall Street might be extreme, they do reflect a truth: that the world of finance is overwhelmingly male. It is this male-dominant culture, fuelled by testosterone that has been blamed...

The usage of aid solely to support economic development and not for strategic reasons has been the bedrock principle of Japan’s aid policy since the country first began providing foreign aid to developing countries in 1954. Japan’s Official Development Assistance...

China’s new growth target of 6.5-7% will ensure more flexibility amid deceleration at home and stagnation in the West. It is a balancing act between reforms and deleveraging.               China’s new growth target of 6.5-7% will ensure more flexibility amid deceleration...

Investors are skeptical of Chinese economic data.  However, news yesterday that Chinese exports fell by a quarter in February shocked investors.  Many worry about the implications not just for China, but also for world growth.  It comes as the IMF...