Reports

Why do Latin American countries remain mired in sluggish economic growth? Economists have addressed the question with reams of analysis, but the answer is simple: low productivity. That in turn, has been caused by government involvement in the economy that has stifled competition and innovation. The real puzzle is what ...

For years, gross domestic product (GDP) has been the dominant metric for evaluating a country’s economic progress. Recently, however, it has come under criticism for not including factors such as equality or environmental sustainability. Replacing it is a tricky task that relies on a lot of subjective judgments. But if ...

Switzerland devised an ingenious way to throw a lifeline to its enterprises during the pandemic-induced crisis. Its “liquidity facility” targets the core segment of the economy, relies on business owners’ sense of responsibility and does not burden the country’s public finances with intolerable debt.

The economic consequences of the coronavirus mostly derive from lockdowns. Shutting down production, especially, is responsible for the downturn. The shock has kept people from spending, of course – but only temporarily. Saving now is only spending put off for another day. Policies intended to discourage that saving could backfire. ...

Among the developed nations in Europe and North America, productivity growth had been on a steady decline over recent years. The Covid-19 crisis brought a sharp change in that trend, with some countries seeing an increase in productivity by more than 20 percent. It was a surprising result, especially with ...

Despite considerable technological innovation in recent years, many Western democracies have been plagued by sluggish growth and productivity. There is no widespread consensus among economists on what causes the trend, with some advocating for more government spending and redistribution while others favor less government intervention and fiscal imbalance and a ...

The OECD’s recent education scores underline once again how poorly schools are educating today’s youth – even despite significant spending increases. The results will probably spur further calls for more education funding so that students can stay in school even longer. Doing so, however, may not necessarily give students better ...

German trade statistics are sagging. Most commentators attribute this phenomenon to the global business cycle. More likely, today’s figures are the outcome of earlier decisions made by German companies to move resources outside of Europe, and they are now developing their products elsewhere. If true, German foreign trade flows will ...

Corruption can be a catalyst for political change, as in Latin America, or the basis of a rent-seeking regime, as in Russia. But in rare instances, it can also affect the ebb and flow of global geopolitics. This is clearly evident on the rim of the former Soviet Union, where ...

Only a few countries made the leap from developing to advanced industrial nations in the 20th century. Among the fortunate five, four are from East Asia: Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Their politics and economic policies have varied widely over the decades, but at least one common denominator stands ...

The latest batch of Chinese trade figures shows an unexpected decline in exports and imports. On the surface, the data can be dismissed as a statistical blip caused by importers reacting to Sino-American trade tensions. Drill down a little deeper, however, and one begins to see bigger problems for China’s ...

It has been a decade since global interest rates reached the zero lower bound, where monetary policymakers lose their ability to stimulate the economy using conventional policy tools. Among the largest global central banks, only the United States Federal Reserve has set its benchmark above 2 percent. Will this anomaly ...

2018 was not a bad year for the world economy, and 2019 should be only a little worse. Consistent with our forecasts, last year brought no disasters: no recession in the West, no major slump in China, no public finance crisis in Europe or global trade wars. Instead, there was ...

In 2018, Germany’s growth dipped. Europe’s economic powerhouse is likely to continue sputtering in 2019 and beyond. Too many European companies have become exceedingly dependent on the health of the German economy and relatively few seem capable of restructuring their production and marketing techniques to succeed on a global scale. ...

Germany is praised as a model of vocational training, with youth unemployment of just over 6 percent. France, where 22 percent of young people don’t have jobs, has long known that its own vocational education system needs fixing. A comparison of how these two great European economies prepare pupils to ...

President Donald Trump declared on October 1 that the new trade deal with Canada and Mexico signifies the return of the United States as a “manufacturing powerhouse.” U.S. manufacturing has indeed changed dramatically since 1992, when the three countries signed their original trade pact. But the complex and varied factors ...

Those European leaders who like to complain about the ongoing trade surpluses of the German economy should not celebrate the recent slowdown in Germany’s exports and GDP growth. Higher labor costs and tensions in international trade may cause trouble for German exporters, but they are already investing in new production ...

Productivity is the key to economic success and the main determinant of future growth. In Europe and North America, however, this economic driver has been weakening for decades, despite scientific and technological progress. Unless Western countries want to take a back seat to rising Asian economies, they must look hard ...

Economists enjoy delivering bad news. The current favorite being shared by academics and financial experts is that the world is headed for a recession, in 2020 or 2021 at the latest. But we regard this as unlikely, unless there is a major political accident – such as a trade war ...

Japan faces a daunting demographic challenge. Both the general populace and the working-age population are graying and rapidly decreasing in size. In recent years, the number of deaths has outpaced the number of births by around 300,000 per year. If the country’s birth rate remains constant, this figure will continue ...

If you thought that the crisis facing China’s equity and currency markets – so evident last summer – was over, renewed turmoil in the first weeks of 2016 shows that there is still a long way to go, writes GIS Guest Expert Nick Fielding. Government support has helped slow the ...

Europe’s leaders have failed to solve the structural problems revealed by the crisis of 2008. Nor have they grappled with issues that have emerged in recent years. Examples include high public debt, the stock market bubble and distorted risk perceptions caused by the eurozone’s artificially low interest rates. For now, ...

We have heard the glib predictions of doom. China is growing increasingly less competitive. Its wages are rising and innovation faltering, landing it squarely in the ‘middle income trap’ that afflicts emerging economies with rising costs as they try to move up the value chain. Though it has poured money ...

‘Incredible India’ is a slogan promoting tourism in India. For many of the country’s citizens, it depicts reality quite accurately. India’s economic life is rich in incredible phenomena – and even some that are cause for incredulity. Is there any other place where elections are decided by the price of ...