Political Economy

At the Fabian conference yesterday, Ed Balls announced the Labour Party's intention, if elected in 2015, of restoring the 50p tax rate that was abolished by the present Coalition government. It is the central plank of his deficit reduction…

We appear to be on the cusp of a more serious crisis in Argentina, as things are moving from bad to worse. Spot ARS has dropped as much as 20% earlier today, while the implied “blue chip” FX rate has fallen nearly 10% over the past two…

Wage increases are vital for Abenomics - without them the current policies are simply unsustainable (see discussion). If consumers are squeezed (see post), spending will decline and the nation will face deflationary pressures once again.…

One suspects the reason for the sensitivity within the ranks of the Democratic party water-carriers to the “corporatist” label is that Obamacare is a textbook case. Democrats try to undermine this charge by serving up an example of…

In the links today, I had a number of good posts that focused on the issue of fiscal policy versus monetary policy. There are a number of ways to look at the issue, economically and politically. However, I think the overriding takeaway…

Although still vague on the specifics, China’s Third Plenum November partially clarified the nature of the reforms that Beijing is proposing for China over the coming year. Of course very little was said in any of the related releases about…

Shinzo Abe is a smart man and savvy politician. He has the rare honor of being Japan's prime minister twice. He is celebrating his first year of his second (non-consecutive) term in office. In fact, it is on that very anniversary that he…

My view remains that Europe is in an incipient but unstable recovery vulnerable to exogenous shocks. However, I do not believe this recovery means that crisis is over. Rather, this is a lull before continued stagnation forces Europe to make…

Solving Germany's investment problem requires both low interest rates and increased government investment. The ECB is at least attempting to address the first of these. But when is the German government going to accept its responsibility…

In the case of Greece, with fuel, food, and medicine making up a large share of the import bill, further economic disruption and destabilization would likely result from a choice to exit the eurozone. Exiting the euro does not appear to be…