In The News

An Alternative to Boycotts or Divestment for Israel

Ian Shapiro and Nicholas Strong May 26, 2016
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault invited international leaders to Paris on May 30 to make plans for reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Peace and economic security go hand in hand. Israel is thriving despite boycotts by some European countries while the economic outlook is dismal for Gaza and the West Bank. “There is little evidence that boycotting Israel will have a...

What Macroeconomists Are Missing

Andrew Sheng May 25, 2016
Mainstream economic models failed to predict the 2007 global economic crisis. In an essay for CaixinOnline, Andrew Sheng suggests that the models overlook the impact of uncertainty and that fragmented analysis neglects global connections: “[S]pecialists and departmental agencies know more and more about less and less and are unable to connect the dots to view the economic and social system as a...

E-Commerce and Crowdfunding: Why Are They the Same in China?

Julien Legrand May 20, 2016
Small startups in China struggle to find funding, and many entrepreneurs rely on numerous crowdfunding platforms, explains Julien Legrand for ParisTech Review. “China counts 650 million netizens, accessing the Internet mostly via smartphones (86% of Internet usage), on which many have electronic money,” he writes. “Household savings are huge – about US$4.6 trillion – and Chinese are increasingly...

Fighting the Next Global Financial Crisis

Robert J. Shiller May 18, 2016
Investors hunt for news from many sources and assess the reliability. Investor attention can focus on surprising trends, and regulators must adapt to shifting narratives and moods, explains Robert Shiller, Yale economics professor and the 2013 Nobel laureate in economics. Shiller details the history of money-market funds and the threat of mass withdrawals during the 2008 global financial crisis....

IMF: Global Corruption Costs Trillions in Bribes, Lost Growth

David Lawder May 16, 2016
Corruption destabilizes governments and the global economy as a whole. “Public sector corruption siphons $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion annually from the global economy in bribes and costs far more in stunted economic growth, lost tax revenues and sustained poverty,” writes David Lawder for Reuters about an International Monetary Fund research report. The indirect costs – erosion of trust and...

New Attack Reported by Swift Global Bank Network

Michael Corkery May 13, 2016
Technology has allowed banks to expand into behemoths and the assets of some number in the trillions. Thieves are using banking technology to conduct online bank robberies. “Thieves have again found their way into what was thought to be the most secure financial messaging system in the world and stolen money from a bank,” reports Michael Corkery for the New York Times. Swift, or Society for...

Fort McMurray Blaze Shows What “the Economy” Is Really About

Todd Hirsch May 6, 2016
Fort McMurray, built around Canada’s oil sands industry, is engulfed by wildfires, prompting evacuation of the almost 90,000 residents. Thousands of homes were destroyed with damages already estimated at near $1 billion. The tragedy, suggests economist Todd Hirsch, offers a reminder on social priorities. “The first part of the word ‘economics’ is derived from the ancient Greek word oikos, which...