Harmful financial innovation
Like most authors, I tend to cringe when I read something I wrote more than a few years ago. But while engaging in some authorial auto-archeology recently when preparing the index for a new paper...
View ArticleDoes poverty give a country the right to pollute the atmosphere?
In the current worldwide debate about greenhouse gas emissions, the political leaders of the new big polluters (NBPs, especially China and India) attempt to shift the burden of reducing the global flow...
View ArticleI know I know nothing; but at least I know that
Science with very few (if any) data Doing statistical analysis on a sample of size 1 is either a very frustrating or a very liberating exercise. The academic discipline known as history falls into...
View ArticleExpect little and you may yet be disappointed
Until yesterday’s defeat of Roger Federer in the final of the US Open at Flushing Meadows, the most disappointing development this year was the performance of president Barack Obama and his...
View ArticleIs there a case for a further co-ordinated global fiscal stimulus? Part 1
On September 16 and 17, the Earth Institute at Columbia University (well, at least it’s not called the Universe Institute) and the Asian Development Bank organised a conference at Columbia University...
View ArticleIs there a case for a further co-ordinated global fiscal stimulus? Part 3
(IV). When does a fiscal stimulus boost aggregate demand? A fiscal stimulus is a key weapon in the policy arsenal used to address an undesirable weakening of aggregate demand. For the policy to make...
View ArticleIs there a case for a further co-ordinated global fiscal stimulus? Part 4 &...
(VI) Will a fiscal stimulus work as effectively when the economy has been hit by a credit crunch? The credit crunch is now hitting the non-financial enterprise sector hard. How does a fiscal boost...
View ArticleA stronger US economy requires a weaker dollar
Sometimes economics can be helpful even if it does not allow you to make point predictions with any degree of confidence. This is the case, for instance, when it can rule out certain combinations of...
View ArticleBeware asset market & credit booms bubbles & busts in emerging markets
I spent the past weekend in Istanbul at the seminar jamboree that precedes the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings. Ministers of finance, central bankers, government officials and international civil...
View ArticleThe intrinsic unimportance of Dubai World and the important wider message it...
Dubai is not systemically significant. If its troubles open our eyes to the likely imminence of the start of the final leg of the journey from household default through bank default to sovereign...
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