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These debt-related shocks will occur regularly for many more years, and each shock will advance or retard the rebalancing process so that it affects the way future shocks occur. There are only a few broad paths along which the Chinese…

I know the title of this post has a somewhat alarmist feel to it. However, I think it is the title that best describes the biggest macro theme now unfolding in the global economy. I have been in Grand Canyon country in the southwest of the…

The global economy is an economic system in which any country’s domestic economy is inextricably linked to other economies through the balance of payments mechanisms. The ability to place events within their global context is consequently…

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…

Yesterday, was a strong dollar day but it was also a euro weakness day as the euro recorded 12-year and 8-year lows versus the USD and GBP respectively. I think what we are seeing here is an emergence of the eurozone as a current account…

By Michael Pettis The Financial Times ran a very interesting article last week called “China: Turning away from the dollar”. It got a lot of attention, at least among China analysts, and I was asked several times by friends and clients…

By Michael Pettis Two years ago it was hard to find analysts who expected average GDP growth over the rest of this decade to be less than 8%. The current consensus seems to have dropped to between 6% and 7% on average. I don’t think…

It’s currently very trendy in Italy to blame Angela Merkel, Mario Monti, and austerity measures for the current recession. This column argues that while the severity of the downturn is clearly a cyclical phenomenon, the inability of the…

What southern Europe needs is a revolution in the mindset and more “better quality” stuff, and no amount of blaming Germany for the situation can get over that. The extractive networks who hold back growth need reforming out of existence.…

Despite the title, this is not a mono-themed post but more of a highlight of recent news and data and their importance in interpreting the direction of the economy and potential effect on markets. I do want to concentrate on European and US…