In The News

Can Asia Rescue the Global Economy?

Linda Lim September 29, 2008
During the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, US financial experts lectured Asians to accept good governance, transparency and free-market outcomes while avoiding drastic government intervention. Asian nations indeed tightened their belts, saving funds and seeking out safe havens for funds, including US Treasury bills. “This inflow of foreign lending conveniently enabled the Bush administration to...

Wall Street Dodges a Bullet, How About Next One?

David Dapice September 17, 2008
Low interest rates prompted many investors and homeowners to pour savings into real estate and homes. Investors, convinced that prices could not fall, purchased debt packages including mortgages based on ample credit with little down payments. Prices for homes and investments soared, with the total value of US housing going from about $12 trillion in 2000 to more than $20 trillion in 2006. Now,...

Banking on Neo-Confician Capitalism

Ho Kwon Ping September 5, 2008
Low interest rates and easy loan terms encouraged people and businesses around the globe to live beyond their means. Those loans were based on assets that have since plummeted in value, explains Ho Kwon Ping, chairman of the board of trustees for Singapore Management University. Investment banking and speculation create instant winners and losers, increasing income inequality. He explains that “...

US and Global Economies Slipping in Unison

Peter S. Goodman August 28, 2008
Reckless real-estate lending and a credit crisis in the US have led its consumers to purchase fewer foods in the global marketplace, which in turn slows foreign investment within US borders, reports Peter Goodman for the New York Times. “Overseas demand for American goods and services was supposed to continue compensating for waning demand in the States,” Goodman writes, reporting on the...

A Global Approach Is Needed to Beat Inflation

Adam Posen August 26, 2008
Inflation invites discontent, because wages purchase less as the prices of goods and services rise. Central bankers, including those in the US and China, should cooperate in combating inflation, urge Adam Posen and Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in an essay for the Financial Times. By resisting tighter monetary policies and expecting other nations to...

Bailing Out Economies

Nayan Chanda August 1, 2008
Capital is mobile, seeking profit, and it moves to countries where the returns are higher, with no regard for immobile workers, explains Nayan Chanda in his column for Businessworld. Flush with cash, foreign investors in search of safe havens invested in bonds issued by US government-sponsored mortgage lenders, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. With the bonds not as safe as advertised, the US...

China’s Rumble With Globalization – Part I

Xu Sitao July 22, 2008
Conventional wisdom suggests that a booming economy can protect China from all economic woes. But this two-part series argues otherwise. China’s resistance to rising prices – despite the global pressure raising costs for food and fuel – has distorted economic policies and only delays the reckoning, argues economist Xu Sitao in the first article. “For a large developing economy with a unique...