photo: JasonParis China’s currency has, once again, been weakening against the dollar. It is down by more than 4 percent since October, including a fall of more than one percent just last week. Writing in the New York Times, Landon Thomas, Jr. warned that “China’s decision to push the value of its currency lower has opened a new […]
China’s currency has, once again, been weakening against the dollar. It is down by more than 4 percent since October, including a fall of more than one percent just last week. Writing in the New York Times, Landon Thomas, Jr. warned that “China’s decision to push the value of its currency lower has opened a […]
Bernard Avishai, who teaches business at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, published an article in The New Yorker this week titled “Why Greece Needs the Euro.” A key part of his argument hinges on a comparison between Greece and Italy. In fact, Avishai has it backwards. A closer look at the Israeli experience shows that […]
Donald Trump is surging in the GOP primary polls, partly on the basis of a carefully crafted reputation for telling it as it is. Even rival Ted Cruz thinks Trump is “teriffic” and “brash,” saying, “I think he tells the truth.” But when he comes to China’s exchange rate policy, he is about as far […]
At a meeting in Kazakhstan last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a currency union for the members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Armenia are the current members, and Kyrgyzstan is scheduled to join later this spring. Does a common currency for the EAEU make sense? Not in economic terms, […]
Russia’s economy is in trouble. Growth has come to a halt. A recession looms in 2015. Inflation, interest rates, and capital flight are up. The government’s budget is under strain. More than any of these, what makes the headlines is the plunge of the ruble, which, at one point in mid-December, had lost half of […]
Watch RGE’s Senior Director of Research David Nowakowski talking about the eurozone and the need for more easing, ahead of Thursday’s ECB policy meeting. Source: Bloomberg Television’s “Countdown.”
The curse of riches or resource curse has been a staple of development economics for decades. The curse refers to the striking fact that many resource rich states, such as Nigeria and Congo, are conflict-ridden basket cases while some of the world’s best performing economies are islands or city-states, such as Japan, Taiwan, and Hong […]
To Fix or To Float, that is the question. MMT argues that a sovereign government that issues its own “nonconvertible” currency cannot become insolvent in terms of its own currency. It cannot be forced into involuntary default on its obligations denominated in its own currency. It can “afford” to buy anything for sale that is […]
Measures of ‘international competitiveness’, for example those based on broad wage, unit labour cost and price parameters are approximations only[1]. Some are more relevant than others. The purpose of this short article is to review the progress of external account adjustment and internal devaluation in Eurozone countries Unit Labour Cost Comparison Unit labour cost-based measures […]