In The News

Treasuries Extend Global-Debt Rally on China, US Growth Worry

Ari Altstedter and Allison McNeely January 5, 2016
Investors seek secure havens for their savings and governments continue to issue debt. Manufacturing continues to decline in both the United States and China, adding to a surplus in oil stocks, and analysts suggest the news from China followed by a halt in trading prompted a steep decline in global stock prices. “The Treasury rally goes against the consensus that yields will rise in 2016 with...

Tax Can End Africa’s Aid Dependency

Benjamin Fox December 24, 2015
Companies seek to maximize profits by reducing tax payments, relocating if necessary. Tax avoidance and illegal financial flows cost Africa $50 billion per year, suggests one report. “Legislation in Europe and North America is now in force requiring extractive sector firms to publish country-by-country reports of all payments they make to governments, a system that is gradually being expanded to...

How the Fed's Rate Hikes May Impact Asia

December 20, 2015
The US Federal Reserve responded to the 2007 financial crisis by reducing interest rates to stimulate spending and investment. Analysts since warned that a rate lift “could pose a challenge to a number of emerging market economies – particularly across Asia, a top exporter to the US – by pushing up bond yields, augmenting capital outflows and depreciating currencies,” reports Deutsche Welle. The...

Can Paris Reconcile Political and Economic Interests to Combat Climate Change?

David Dapice December 10, 2015
The scientific evidence is overwhelming that climate change threatens the global economy for future generations. Strategies to combat climate change are well known: increased reliance on renewable energies, decreased subsidies for fossil fuels, imposing a carbon tax, incentives for fuel efficiency and conservation, international transfers so poor countries avoid burning coal. Countries attending...

Biggest 2016 Risk May Be the One Just Behind Us: Oil

Mike Dolan December 9, 2015
Oil prices have remained stubbornly low – and could go even lower, suggests Mike Dolan for Reuters. The Brent crude oil price was above $100 per barrel and is now down to $40. “More than a trillion dollars of market capitalization has been wiped off oil stocks worldwide,” he writes. “Almost $2 trillion of debt sold by energy and mining companies since 2010, many of them high-yield or 'junk...

Renminbi Joins the IMF’s Reserve-Currency Basket

December 1, 2015
Only a few goods and services are priced in what are known as Special Drawing Rights, or the mix of currencies used by the International Monetary Fund as a unit. Transit through the Suez Canal are one such service. The Chinese renminbi joins other currencies like the US dollar, the euro and Japanese yen for the IMF basket. Because so few items are priced such way, the Economist points out many...

The World's Multi-Trillion Dollar Bond Market Is Circling the Drain

Ben Wright November 23, 2015
The world is awash in debt, more than $225 trillion in all by some reports. Warning bells are going off about a lack of liquidity in bond markets amid anticipation for the US Federal Reserve to begin gradually lifting interest rates. Prices of bonds already in the market will fall as interest rates rise because investors will pursue the new bonds with higher yields. Stimulus spending by...