How much priority should the United States place on preserving NAFTA? Have certain states benefited more than others from NAFTA? Economists have spent the past 20 years working to answer these questions. They are hard to answer because of all… Continue Reading
The UK continues to swoon as it digests the domestic implications of the Leave vote, but for the rest of the world Brexit is more important as a sign of the times. It erased any remaining doubt that popular support… Continue Reading
Why does the Bank of Japan want to lower the exchange rate? Most obviously it seeks improvement in export competitiveness — the beggar-thy-neighbor effect. Continue Reading
Did the Shanghai G-20 meeting lead to a secret agreement to push the major currencies back toward their 2014 levels? The current U.S.-China monetary/exchange rate policy approaches is not so much a new Plaza Accord but more a meeting of the minds. Continue Reading
Through this decision, the IMF signaled that it intends to accelerate and ease the Chinese yuan — or renminbi (RMB) — into the floating exchange rate system. Moving China in that direction will benefit the international economic system. Continue Reading
Thirty years ago today, the financial leaders of the five leading economies of the time gathered in the Plaza Hotel, concerned about an excessively strong dollar. The coordinated effort to deflate the dollar that resulted from that meeting seems appealing again. The substantial run-up in the dollar over the past year has created tensions about competitive devaluations, and growing trade imbalances lurk around the corner. What would it take to achieve another Plaza Accord? Continue Reading
At this point, projections indicate that a slowdown of China’s economic growth is nearly inevitable. This in turn will slow the growth of its share of global GDP as well as global trade — traditional measures of economic might and international presence. We must now consider what this means for China’s international economic presence and its influence on the global stage. Continue Reading