By Ante Batovic As oil prices continue to go south and emerging markets remain in turmoil, Russia is struggling to keep its sanction-affected economy floating. For years, the Russian economy enjoyed stable growth rates supported by high commodity prices – oil and gas, in particular. Everything changed in 2014, when a combination of Western sanctions … Continue reading
By Paolo Mauro, Jan Zilinsky The public narrative on austerity is shaped by simple scatter plots purporting to portray the large negative impact of fiscal ‘austerity’ on economic growth. This column argues that, while recognising concerns about causality, economists should systematically explore correlations and multiple regressions, and test their robustness. The results reveal a mixed picture, … Continue reading
By George Magnus Spurring frenetic speculation in the days before, the U.S. Federal Reserve left its policy rate unchanged at Thursday’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee in Washington. Markets still expect a rise in policy rates before the end of the year, which would herald a restrained tightening cycle through to the end … Continue reading
By Amantha Perera South Asian economies stand to lose around 1.3 percent of their collective annual GDP by 2050 even if global temperature increases are kept to 2 degrees Celsius, experts and public officials warn. In the second half of the century, the losses are likely to increase to around 2.5 percent of GDP, warns … Continue reading
By F. William Engdahl By the day it’s becoming clearer that what I have recently been saying in my writings is coming to be. The OPEC oil-producing states of the Middle East, including Iran, through the skillful mediation of Russia, are carefully laying the foundations for a truly new world order. The first step in testing … Continue reading
By Rabah Arezki and Akito Matsumoto “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” With these words Charles Dickens opens his novel “A Tale of Two Cities”. Winners and losers in a “tale of two commodities” may one day look back with similar reflections, as prices of metals and oil have … Continue reading
By Martin Feldkircher The United States Federal Reserve is the world’s most powerful bank, and its most powerful component is the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the twelve men and women who meet eight times a year to determine – essentially by setting interest rates – the monetary policy of the world’s largest economy. The last … Continue reading
By Alex Christensen The Fed’s Thursday policy decision is clouded by data that justifies both hawkish and dovish stances, leaving uncertainty over whether rates will rise this month. Either way, the response from markets may be more muted than you would think. This week’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting will no doubt be the … Continue reading
By Jeff Desjardins, Visual Capitalist Over the last 20 years, the world economy has relied on the Chinese economic growth engine more than it would like to admit. The 1.4 billion people living in the world’s most populous country account for 13% of global GDP, which is significant no matter how it is interpreted. However, in the … Continue reading
Saudi Arabia may have a budget deficit of 19.5% of GDP this year unless it rapidly changes course and accommodates the new, cheap oil world, according to the IMF. Alas, the Kingdom has almost zero short term incentive to do so. A generous social contract rapidly fraying Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom is topped by the wealthy Saud … Continue reading