In The News

A Global Retreat as Economies Dry Up

Anthony Faiola March 18, 2009
The countries and ports that benefited most from a rapid rise in global trade now feel the most pain from an economic slowdown. In an article for the Washington Post, Anthony Faiola emphasizes the speed of the economic reversal: Freighters and containers of unwanted goods wait in ports, and workers, including educated financiers and poor immigrants, return to home countries to rethink future...

Protectionism Threatens Global Economic Recovery

Richard Baldwin and Simon Evenett March 13, 2009
A global economic recession increases the temptation for national governments, as happened in the past, to pursue protectionism, despite its proven record of harming the economy. What makes similar attempts now by governments more insidious is that they are more subtle and thus murkier to detect. As Richard Baldwin and Simon Evenett, editors of a new study note, measures are being taken “that...

A Textile Capital of China Is Hobbled by a Downturn Gone Global

David Barboza March 10, 2009
The world’s largest economy that once thrived on consumption took a sudden turn to thriftiness. But a global slowdown in spending has hurt factory towns in China that once packed US closets at low prices. Thousands of workers have lost jobs and two out of every three textile and apparel factories in China could go out of business, reports David Barboza for the New York Times. “Experts say that...

How Washington Can Prevent “Zombie Banks”

James Baker March 10, 2009
The word “zombie” describes a corpse-like being, under a spell that allows it to move about, but not undertake any deliberate or meaningful action on its own. Such is the term used by former James Baker, former US treasury secretary, to describe banks that accept huge government bailouts, but don’t go about the business of lending. When Japan suffered economic collapse in 1990, the US sternly...

Rebalancing Sino-US Ties

Nayan Chanda March 9, 2009
Until recently, the global economy relied on production and savings in China and spending from the US. But the imbalanced structure was unsustainable, explains Nayan Chanda, YaleGlobal editor, in his column for Businessworld. US spending has come to a grinding halt, paralyzed by job losses and anxiety, and the government approved a massive stimulus package to encourage economic movement. But any...

Should China and the U.S. Swap Stimulus Packages?

Bill Powell March 6, 2009
The US and China’s economies have been intertwined for a long time but the solutions they each have adopted to fight global recession are polar opposites. The author argues that in order to effectively grow the economy, they need to do opposite things. They both need rebalancing and should swap their own stimulus packages. The US needs to spend less and save more, while China should spend more...

For East Asia, Crisis Prompts a Rethinking of Dependence on Exports

Keith Bradsher March 5, 2009
For many years, East Asian exporters in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan have enjoyed a massive growth in surplus. But all that has changed. As trade withers away, exporters in East Asia are suffering because consumers, retailers and other importers in the West are cutting back on their purchases, orders and have even gone to the extreme of stopping orders altogether. The question is, how to...