In The News

Panama Papers: Leaks Spur Global Investigations

April 4, 2016
Investing funds in offshore accounts is not necessarily illegal, but avoiding taxes is a violation of local and national laws. “Eleven million documents were leaked from the secretive Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca,” reports BBC News. “They show how the company has helped some clients launder money, dodge sanctions and avoid tax.” The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists...

China’s Future Challenge for the World Economy

Martin Wolf March 30, 2016
Economic policies in the world’s most populous nations, soon to be the world’s largest economy, affect the rest of the world. China’s rising corporate indebtedness could slow investment and lead to rapid depreciation, suggests Martin Wolf for Financial Times. China has a range of responses: following the West’s lead with increased borrowing to stimulate the economy, weakening the currency or...

The State of the United States

Richard N. Haass March 28, 2016
The mood of US electorate during the presidential primary season is described as anxious and angry over outsourcing and trade deals, a decline in good jobs, stagnant wages, inequality and polarized politics that prevents good governance. News media tend to focus on negative reports, and the members of public rely on programs and publications that reinforce opinions already held. “An America that...

A Flat World Gets Bumpy With Globalization in Retreat

David Dapice March 24, 2016
Uncertainty and instability threaten the global economy, and monetary stimulus by the central banks, including negative rates, is not delivering growth or confidence. So far, the United States is alone in breaking away from the pack to engage in monetary tightening and gradually lifting interest rates. China employs strict controls to prevent businesses and savers from sending cash outside the...

Caught In the Doldrums

Nayan Chanda March 23, 2016
World trade is slowing but “emerging weakness in India’s information technology (IT) and business processing sector is even more surprising in light of the global trend of exponential growth in digital commerce and information flow,” suggests Nayan Chanda, founding editor of YaleGlobal, in his column for Businessworld. He points out that, with IT and business process management representing 9.5...

Central Banks Are Already Doing the Unthinkable - You Just Don't Know It

Mehreen Khan March 21, 2016
International Monetary Fund staff have called the past eight years an “era of extraordinary monetary policy,” with central banks applying more than 600 interest-rate cuts since 2008. “But the new wave of policy accommodation has ushered in fresh panic that monetary policy is suddenly subject to dwindling returns,” explains Mehreen Khan for the Telegraph. The focus on debt and limited spending...

Bond Markets Reopen for Emerging Market Borrowers

Elaine Moore March 14, 2016
Emerging economies, including Brazil and Turkey, are returning to the international bond markets to refinance debt as low-cost global credit becomes available. “At the start of the year, emerging markets were gripped by a negative feedback loop as concerns about slowing growth left investors unwilling to lend and lack of lending reinforced concerns about growth,” reports Elaine Moore for...