trade

In the U.S. and in euro countries, policies aimed at stimulating exports are considered an effective response to lagging growth and recession. Viewing a net export balance as an economic virtue and a growth engine is a relic of Mercantilism…

I’ll be watching a number of things in 2013 in order to get a better sense of what the future will bring. On January 22 Princeton University Press will be publishing my book, The Great Rebalancing: Trade, Conflict, and the Perilous Road…

The rise and rise of Japanese debt is far from benign, and the dynamic, we are convinced, will at some point become unsustainable. Unfortunately by the time we reach that point it will be too late. Indeed, given that we agree with Krugman…

Trade data for the US, Germany, Japan and China were released earlier today. While the US, Germany and China had robust export growth that caused their surpluses to swell, Japan's numbers showed weakness despite the recent drop in the value…

The US trade figures for Q4 2012 came out this morning and they surprised analysts by showing a trade deficit that shrank 21% to $38.5 billion in December. According to Bloomberg News this was a lower deficit than any of 73 economists…

Once again some analysts in Europe question the potency of the so-called currency wars launched by Japan and the US. The euro-yen currency cross has had an unprecedented rally, changing the export landscape where Japan and Europe…

Unappreciated by many is the fact that the Italian economy has seen the largest contraction (7%) since the crisis began within the euro zone after Greece. Per capita income is back, according to former ECB's Bini Smaghi, to where it was in…

German GDP contracted by an unexpectedly large 0.5% in Q4 2012, according to preliminary estimates of the German government. The contraction is largely due to receding trade volume and does not necessarily mean Germany is in recession…

The November US trade deficit widened sharply and this will likely prompt economists to cut estimates of Q4 GDP. The first estimate is to be released at the end of the month. The pace of growth had appeared to be about half the pace of…

Quick post here. Apple's sales estimates were downgraded, as I posted yesterday. The reason for the downgrade was channel and supplier checks which revealed lower sales volume than initially believed. Apparently, Apple has told suppliers to…