history

For the fourth quarter of 2013, 103 companies in the S&P 500 have announced negative earnings revisions. Only nine have disclosed positive profit assessments. The ratio of negative-to-positive, 11.4:1, exceeds the previous high…

This column argues that the legacy of public debt resulting from the crisis in the Eurozone is a serious threat. Both the size of the problem and the options to address it make life much more difficult for policymakers than was the case in…

China is not the first country to have experienced a long period of miraculous growth. But the most difficult part of growth miracles has not been the growth miracle itself but rather the subsequent adjustment.

Below is the text of a speech delivered on Friday by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on the recent financial crisis and its similarities to financial panics like the Panic of 1907 (which led to the founding of the Federal Reserve in…

Just after I posted today, I ran across two posts from March that I wrote on government and private debt that are related to theme of today's commentary on potential housing bubbles in Germany and Sweden. I am writing here to more tightly…

The Eurozone’s tangle of conflicting goals – a series of ‘trilemmas’ – is not without precedent. This column argues that it is reminiscent of the interwar situation. The interwar slump was so intractable not just due to financial issues,…

The serious debate has not been about whether or not China’s collapse is imminent. The disagreement was whether or not investment misallocation and the repression of household income growth were fundamental to the Chinese growth model. The…

Glass-Steagall is dead. Rather like Soviet-era Communist leaders, it has been officially dead since 1999, and actually dead for much longer. Though there was no state funeral, the body was not embalmed or put on display and few people…

The Eurozone's banks are continuing to deleverage, with total loan balances to euro area residents now at the lowest level in 5 years. What makes the situation even more troubling is that many Eurozone banks banks are repeating the Japanese…

Reinhart-Rogoff’s paper has more serious flaws than an excel error. And austerity hysteria will not go away after Herndon-Ash-Pollin’s review. This is my message to you.