Economics

Japan seems to be heading deeper and deeper into a very risky experiment based on a misunderstanding about what the problem facing the country actually is.

This is going to be a relatively short note focused on what is going on in Japan because of the news that Japan has ramped up its program of quantitative easing to new heights. Coming on the heels of the US Federal Reserve’s announcement…

While there is no definitive answer at this point to the question whether or not what we are seeing is a creeping process of secular stagnation which will gradually spread from one economy to another as the respective working age…

The German economic miracle is coming unstuck. And while a German recession this year would merely be a technical recession, it would highlight the underlying flaw in German economic policy, both domestically and for the eurozone as a…

Last November, I posted a two-part piece on the limits of monetary policy based on a speech by Charles Plosser. The message of Plosser’s speech - and many subsequent speeches - has been that central banks are being called on to do too…

By Michael Pettis Doug, Pancoast, an American entrepreneur living in Shanghai, asked to interview me for his blog, and I agreed to do so. I think it was meant to be a brief interview, but I began to respond on a Saturday evening, while…

Happy post-World Cup to you all. I missed my Friday catch-all post because I was out sick. So I am going to play catch-up today with a few thoughts on various topics. The BIS Let’s start with the BIS. In general, I defend the BIS view…

Markit's June Manufacturing PMIs for the Eurozone came out this morning. And overall, the numbers showed less strength across the board, with France showing particular weakness. You can see that Spain and Ireland were doing well though.…

The title of this piece is a bit provocative but what follows is not intended to be a hit piece on the field of economics, rather I am going to use two recent articles on economics’ failure as a jumping off point for thinking about this…

By Michael Pettis Debate about the global savings glut hypothesis is mired in confusion, a fundamental one of which is the seemingly obvious but false claim that a global savings glut must lead to higher global savings. Here, for example,…