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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.
Sanctions are a complex technology with correspondingly complex macro- and microeconomic as well as political effects. Iran is currently facing quite draconian oil-related sanctions, most notably the EU decision in January 2012, to wind down purchases of Iranian crude oil by July 1, 2012. But the country has also been hit by a wave of [...]
The surprise could hardly have been greater over the news that President Barack Obama had nominated Jim Young Kim, president of Dartmouth College, to the post as president of the World Bank. Before going to Dartmouth, Kim was a prominent professor of medicine and expert on global health issues. He has done extensive work on [...]
A chimera has entered the minds of some Irish commentators concerning Ireland’s options if it votes to reject the new Euro Area Fiscal Treaty, which calls for sweeping commitments to maintain budget balance, in a referendum that has been scheduled by the Irish government. Unlike a rejection of a regular EU Treaty, an Irish no [...]
Note: This post is based on an author’s intervention at the International Conference of RCIE, KIET, and APEA on China and the World Economy, Seattle, March 16, 2012. The progress of China towards financial integration and the internationalization of renminbi is a matter of great importance. While the world economy remains financially unstable, accessing the [...]
In the first week of March, the euro area experienced the biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history and the first ever triggering of sovereign credit default swaps (CDSs) for an industrialized country. Yet nothing happened after these events struck Greece. It was a market non-event that was fully anticipated. For the often maligned euro area [...]
The World Bank is the second best international organization after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in terms of reputation and quality, but it is an institution of diminishing significance. Its current president, Robert B. Zoellick, is stepping down at the end of his five-year term, and the Obama administration has announced that it will nominate [...]
With average US gasoline prices approaching $4 per gallon, markets are trying to gauge the impact of high oil costs on a fragile US economic recovery. Some analysts have argued that surging unconventional oil production in North America will make this price spike less harmful than those in the past. But for the political class, [...]
Near-term China investment decisions and US trade and economic policymaking are influenced by competing views of China’s longer-term outlook. Yet economic models of China’s long-term growth are shaky, debatable and hence few in number. Official statements from China’s leadership about long-term expectations, and more importantly about the composition of long-term economic growth, are even more [...]
Even as headlines remain dominated by the euro area crisis, the financial world is transforming itself along multiple other dimensions. One intriguing but so far little-noticed development is the gradual shift in the role of global financial standard setters, which are becoming more assertive in looking at how their standards are adopted and implemented around [...]
On March 2, 25 European Union members signed their long-discussed fiscal compact, the treaty committing them to balance their budgets in the future, paving the way for national ratification of the compact before January 2013. Most analysts expect the compact to be ratified in most countries. But a few signs of doubt have emerged over [...]