 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
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.
Those who follow energy are fond of discussing where, when, and under what circumstances countries holding strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) might release them. This debate has ignored, however, the prospect of the US beginning to liquidate oil from its strategic stocks in the near future. Decreasing domestic consumption and increasing domestic production will allow us [...]
On September 17, 2012, the United States notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) Secretariat of its request for consultations with China regarding what Washington said were “China’s measures providing subsidies [...] and other incentives contingent upon export performance to automobile and automobile-parts enterprises in China.”1 The same day China filed its own complaint with the [...]
Several people have asked me in recent days about my assertion that a Spanish government and indeed the euro area as a whole would benefit from seeking a lending lifeline from European authorities, including the European Stability Mechanism/European Financial Stability Facility (ESM/EFSF) and the European Central Bank’s new Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) facility. Arguments opposed [...]
After a couple of good weeks for the euro area, the inevitable question has arisen over whether the gains can be sustained, or if another cycle “one-step forward, two-steps back” is in the offing. On the positive side have been actions to shore up finances by the European Central Bank, a favorable German Constitutional Court [...]
Note: The author thanks Jared Nolan for research assistance. In a recent policy brief, my colleague Joseph Gagnon (2012) argued that widespread currency manipulation by many countries in recent years has led to a reduction in the US current account balance by about 4 percent of GDP (about $600 billion annually). Subsequently C. Fred Bergsten [...]
Within the space of two days, the Indian government, spearheaded it appears by the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, has taken a series of policy steps to get India out of the funk it had been sliding into. First, it enacted measures to reduce fuel subsidies on diesel and limit the subsidy on cooking gas. Second, [...]
In his recent speech at the Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole conference, Professor Michael Woodford of Columbia University attempted to pour cold water on the idea that the Fed’s purchases of long-term bonds (also known as quantitative easing) could lower bond yields.1 His contention was that the portfolio balance effect of such purchases would be [...]
In the first week of September, the European Central Bank (ECB) introduced yet another new acronym into the mix of solutions in the euro area crisis—Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT), the name for the bank’s plan to buy up debt of troubled European countries. Now three other players in the euro area crisis must step up [...]
The euro area continues to struggle with its crisis. In the eastern part of the European Union, however, an illustrative contrast has arisen that tells us a lot about how to act and not to act in a financial crisis. The contrast between successful Estonia and Latvia on the one hand, and struggling Hungary and [...]
While in Korea and Japan several weeks ago, sparks flared not only over the Senkakus/Diaoyu/Diaoyutai Islands and Dokdo/Takeshima but the highly emotional issue of comfort women. As a result, we are about to have one of those quasi-natural experiments that social scientists love. Will history and politics trump economics? Or will growing interdependence pull the [...]