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In RealTime posts, PIIE senior staff and colleagues discuss the fast-moving economic news, financial developments, and public policy choices confronting the United States and the world.
The ouster of the Mayor of Moscow this morning (September 28) by President Dmitry Medvedev is the most important political event in Russia since then-President Vladimir Putin had Mikhail Khodorkovsky arrested in 2003 and had his oil company Yukos confiscated. It opens up the possibility of an aggressive new campaign against corruption and a new [...]
The rise of emerging economies has long been recognized as a defining feature of our times when it comes to trade, manufacturing, and an increasing range of services businesses. Until recently, however, there was widespread sentiment that international finance was somehow escaping the trend. A dominant share of financial assets, financial companies, financial centers, and [...]
Despite the difficulties of Prime Minister Brian Cowen of Ireland in laying out a plan to address the imploding banking sector, the Irish Treasury managed this week to sell a heavily oversubscribed €1 billion of 2018 and €500 million of 2014 bonds. They were costly, with dear yields of 6 and 4.8 percent respectively. But [...]
One of the few ways in which France remains exceptional in Europe is the continued economic lunacy of its main center-left Socialist party and utterly unrepresentative labor unions.1 The positions taken in the recent debate over increasing the French retirement age provide the latest example, and they raise serious questions about the feasibility of Dominique [...]
In recent days the eurozone has reentered the headlines (in USA Today, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal among others) amid fears of another round in the continent’s sovereign debt crisis and rising peripheral bond spreads. Yet contrary to the tone of some commentary, this is excellent news. It should be welcomed by [...]