Markets

Recent economic data has shown that China is slowing down. The question is: Should we attempt to revive growth in the world’s second largest economy? Perhaps not. As it is, China bulls have been late in recognising the unhealthy implications...

READER SUBMISSION – As America’s largest trading partner, Canada’s economic fortunes are intimately tied to those of the United States. Yet thanks to a largely domestic-focused economic action plan, Canada has demonstrated remarkable economic resilience to the global financial turmoil....

Germany and the ECB are now relying on the hope that large-scale liquidity will buy time to allow the adjustments needed to restore growth and debt sustainability in the eurozone periphery. But, if a eurozone breakup can only be postponed,...

By 2014, Scottish voters may have the chance to end the country’s 307-year intermarriage with England and the United Kingdom at a referendum for independence. The growing belief right is now that Scotland has the economic capacity to go it...

Resources should be a blessing, not a curse; yet contrary to common sense, resource-rich countries in Africa have tend to experience less economic growth in the long run than those deprived of natural riches. The new discoveries of natural resources...

Regardless of who wins the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, the next American president will only have limited room for manoeuvre on economic policy. The real choice as such should concern the social policies that accompany a broadly similar set of...

  August has been a dangerous month in European history, but this year it could be the turning point for the eurozone – and perhaps for the world economy. That depends on whether – and how – the European Central...

America has typically relied on its domestic market for economic growth, with consumer spending accounting for some 70 percent of annual GDP growth. Given the strong likelihood that US consumers will remain weak for years to come, America’s growth agenda...

The latest international data show that unaffordable food, pervasive unemployment, and dwindling social support threaten global recovery and the world's population. Yet the world remains fixated on austerity and cost-cutting measures to boost recovery, which in turn has disproportionately affected...

Speculative bubbles, or market bubbles, have often been seen as the cause of financial crises. But, before we conclude that we should rein in the markets, we need to consider the alternative: that bubbles are actually social epidemics that could...

Throughout history, economists and policy makers have often clashed over the role of the government in the economy. Even today, this debate continues; but despite the realities of twenty-first-century technology and globalisation, it is still conducted largely as if governance...

Though many optimists now believe that a combination of lower oil prices, rising auto sales, recovering house prices, and a resurgence of U.S. manufacturing can refuel America’s economic recovery, the reality is the opposite: For five key reasons, the U.S.’s...

The Olympics is no longer all about sport, but rather a corporate jamboree for the elite super-rich. The same pattern repeats itself every time as host nations are forced to follow the International Olympic Committee’s rulebook. Ever since French baron...

Over the years, politicians in advanced economies have tended to favour fiscal expansion during economic booms and austerity during recessions. But while a pro-cyclical policy is understandable from a political perspective, it also explains why these economies are rarely prepared...

All countries cannot gain a greater share of global aggregate demand at the same time. But what may look like a zero-sum game is not: if countries increase productivity with the aim of boosting their tradable sectors' relative productivity and...