Political Economy

Greece is expected to submit a more complete list of reforms in order to free up funds so the country can service its obligations. Four times the Greek government has provided lists and four times the European group of finance minister…

By Michael Pettis When Isaac, an editor at Foreign Policy, sent me an email two weeks ago asking if I could write a piece on the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), I quickly wrote back promising 1,200 words within a few…

The important point is that returning to growth after the crisis may not be sufficient to facilitate political stability. The damage to the middle class is serious and Rajoy does not appear to appreciate that. The economic cost of…

There is a legal concept called "odious debts." It can be traced back more than a century. The US helped create a precedent for it by denying Cuba's responsibility for the debt incurred under Spanish colonial rule. The concept took on…

Although the euro is now headed up after it overshot to the downside, I believe the European recovery has legs and will continue indefinitely as long as a calamity in Greece doesn’t pull Europe down.

In what can only be seen an unexpected Chinese success, several US allies have agreed to participate in China and India's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The frustration with the US on this issue is palpable. There is another issue…

By Frances Coppola I do like sectoral net lending charts. This one is from the OBR's latest Economic Forecast: The thing to remember about sectoral balances is they must sum to zero. It is not possible to have a negative external…

I support what Yanis Varoufakis is trying to do in Greece. I see him as someone who is trying to change the debate in Europe from a narrow one about fiscal rectitude that brings out all sorts of nationalistic prejudices to a wider debate…

Recently I told a few friends how frustrating the events unfolding in Greece are. It’s clear to most that the delays to a full restructuring in Greece reduces the net present value available to creditors. Yet, for political reasons, delay…

When the Greek bailout extension deal got done, I mentioned that in the press conference that followed, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble made it clear he was looking to ‘sell’ the deal to the German parliament. And while he has…