Political Economy

My last daily post was about the emerging consensus view that a global recession is just around the corner. And the sense I get is that people believe this recession - unlike the one during the Great Financial Crisis - is being stoked by a…

By Will Abel, Silvana Tenreyro, and Gregory Thwaites This post first appeared on Vox. The growing prominence of giant companies in advanced economies has raised concerns about the increase in monopoly power (e.g. Eeckhout and de Loecker…

The euro is “celebrating” its 20th anniversary this month, but they aren’t popping corks across the continent. The underlying assumption of a common currency—namely, that it would lead to a convergence of the member countries’ production,…

Analysts are increasingly skeptical that China’s very high reported GDP growth rate provides a meaningful picture of the economy’s health. There are, however, at least three very different ways that reported GDP can fail to reflect the…

It's coming down to the wire for British Prime Minister Theresa May now. Starting at about 1900 GMT, parliament is to vote on the Leave Agreement she secured from Brussels. Theresa May has been making last ditch attempts to win over MPs in…

The Brexit news is coming hot and heavy now. The latest out of the UK is that House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has allowed an attempt to force Prime Minister Theresa May’s hand on the Brexit deal. The Commons Speaker will allow MPs to…

After I wrote today's post on Brexit, the following news came out - and I think it's significant: Theresa May faces a concerted campaign of parliamentary warfare from a powerful cross-party alliance of MPs determined to use every lever at…

I've been thinking about how to write this piece on the outlook for the political economy in the UK for a number of days. I had it teed up to finish yesterday. But I have left it until today. Apologies I still have the bias that economics…

Happy New Year! I've been thinking about what will be different in 2019 than 2018 and I wanted to run my thoughts by you on a number of different topics. And because I've discussed some of my thinking about the outlook for the markets and…

Markets are imploding, every organization that US President Donald Trump has led is under investigation, his poll ratings are sagging, and Trump's legislative agenda is set to go nowhere under a divided Congress. Frankly, it looks very…