Nanjing Road-Shanghai, by Khalid Albaih, under a CC-BY-2.0 licence
In August 2015, Chinese leaders announced policy changes aimed at making their currency more attuned to market forces. At first glance, the move seemed to fulfil a pledge made by President Xi Jinping in 2013 to give markets a “decisive” role in the economy. But the government coupled its plans with a […]
Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone, by Suvcon, under a CC-BY-2.0 licence
You probably know that many new rules were put in place soon after the 2008/2009 financial crisis in order to prevent excessive risk taking and ethically questionable transactions by the financial sector. Did the banks follow the rules? The obvious answer would be yes, at least for many people. Banks […]
Mumbai, by Walkerssk, under a CC0 licence
Since independence in 1947 until 1991, India’s policy towards foreign direct investment (FDI) was ad hoc, and lacked consistent direction and proper institutions (Sahoo 2006; Sahoo et al. 2013). As a result, FDI inflows into India were negligible. However, following the balance-of-payments crisis in 1991, the comprehensive structural economic reforms included steps to […]
Western Balkans, by Olahus, own work, under a CC BY-SA 3.0 licence, via Wikimedia Commons
It is now more than quarter of a century since the demise of socialist economies in Europe was put in motion by the fall of the Berlin Wall. In many parts of Central and Eastern Europe, the transition from socialist planning to market capitalism is all but […]
Cardboard box, by bykst, under a CC0 licence
Since 2011, the eBay Public Policy Lab and a team of economists at Sidley Austin LLP have together studied the exporting practices of firms using the online commerce platform. We have uncovered a fundamental transformation within global trade. Global trade has expanded beyond container shipments of one large company’s wares along predetermined […]
Algerian desert, by Magharebia, under a CC-BY-2.0 licence
It is in Europe’s interest to foster stability, security and prosperity in North Africa. But so far Europe’s attempts to promote economic and political reform in the region have failed. The aftermath of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ demonstrated the limitations of the EU’s leverage over economic and political developments in North Africa. But […]
Hinkley Point A power station, by Rick Crowley, under a CC BY-SA 2.0 licence
One of the first decisions taken by Theresa May as prime minister was to delay deciding on the £18 billion Hinkley Point nuclear power project. Because it was a centrepiece project as part of former chancellor George Osborne’s “Golden Age” of closer bilateral ties with China, the […]
Mall of America interior, James Patterson, under a CC BY 2.0 licence, via Wikimedia Commons
Is the great American suburban shopping mall a dinosaur?
If you visit the site of Northland Center in suburban Detroit, you come away thinking so, because Northland was a trend-setter throughout its life cycle. It was the world’s largest shopping center when it opened in 1954, just as […]
Colour Scheme, by Mark Robinson, under a CC-BY-NC- 2.0 licence
The UK will soon break ground on its first new nuclear power plant in more than 20 years now that PM Teresa May has signed off on Hinkley. While clearly a political decision, given the involvement of both French and Chinese companies, my colleagues and I at Bloomberg New Energy Finance […]
Nigeria – Five Naira (₦5), (cropped), by Shardayyy, under a CC-BY-2.0 licence
In January 2016, I tabled a prognosis for Nigeria anchored on the premise of an economy set to tread a tight rope between soaring inflation and deceleration of its growth momentum. Seven months later, inflation had inched to a high of 17.1 per cent and the economy had […]
Key players in international finance
Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are large state owned investment funds. With assets under management of about US $7 trillion globally, SWFs have become key players in international finance – even surpassing the combined size of global hedge funds and private equity firms.
In the vast majority of cases SWFs were funded by the proceeds of oil and […]
The ongoing electoral cycle in Sub-Saharan Africa is turning out to be somewhat unusual. In the Nigeria March 2015 poll, the People’s Democratic Party suffered its first loss since the end of military rule in 1999, whilst in South Africa’s August 2016 municipal election the ruling Africa National Congress (ANC) registered its worst performance since the end of apartheid […]
The global nature of supply chains has rapidly come to dominate international trade. This column presents new evidence on production fragmentation and intra-firm trade. For US corporations, cross-country shipments of goods between units of the corporation are rare, despite the fact that most US manufacturing parents own foreign affiliates in upstream or downstream industries.
In 1997, the chipmaker Intel invested […]
The causes and consequences of the vast differences in productivity within and across countries have been the subject of research for decades. Recently, economists have woken up to the important role of management practices in firms to explain these differences. Working with the State Bank of Pakistan and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, we have conducted what is to […]
Last month the The African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) and over 1000 experts gathered in Dar es Salaam during the Africa Water Week to discuss new pathways for development and increased investment in water infrastructure. The challenges are huge; the El Nino of last year showed the exposure of African economies to the vagaries of weather. Climate change […]
Isabella Stewart Gardner was, in her day, the very model of a modern Medici. Beginning in 1891, she used her ample inheritance to buy up paintings by Old Masters and new artists alike during her frequent visits to Paris and Venice. She brought them back to her home town of Boston and displayed them in a museum built to […]
In this blog article, we investigate the position of the UK within the global corporate elite network. Firms are not individual market actors, but are typically embedded in dense networks of power and control, for example based on ownership or interlocking directorates. The CORPNET research group at the University of Amsterdam studies these networks as part of a five-year research programme funded […]
In early June of 2016 Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, visited the US and addressed the US Congress. His speech was recognised for its ability to craft a global ambitious agenda and to speak like a global power. Nor was this speech an isolated incident. For many years Indian leaders and policy makers have shown growing activism at the global level, […]
China recently surpassed the United States as the country with the largest share of world trade in goods – see Figure 1. This boom in trade with China has led to much concern about the losers from rising import competition in manufacturing. In Donald Trump’s US presidential campaign, for example, he has continuously complained about the Chinese: ‘They’re stealing […]
There were a lot of dramatic headlines over the weekend suggesting that Brexit signals the beginning of the end of globalization. Surely, it is too soon to understand all the ramifications of the British referendum. But at the same time, today is surely a good day to make the case for multilateralism. While there are plenty of reasons to […]
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