Exclusive Opinion, Commentary and Op-ed from today's Top Economists and Public Intellectuals

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Austere Illusions

Robert Skidelsky May 21, 2013

A government cannot liquidate its deficit if the source of its revenues, the national income, is diminishing. It is deficit reduction, not debt, that is profligate, because it implies wastage of available human and physical capital, quite apart from the resulting misery.
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China’s Interest-Rate Challenge

Pingfan Hong May 21, 2013

China’s successful transformation from a middle-income country to a modern, high-income country will depend largely on the reforms that the government undertakes over the next decade. But, because the most pressing reform – interest-rate liberalization – carries both risks and rewards, officials should be prudent in their approa…
Focal Points

Visionary Voices

The challenges facing developing countries – from providing clean water to fighting infectious diseases – are jeopardizing their economic growth prospects, on which the global economy's health increasingly depends. Project Syndicate, working with the Gates Foundation, the Columbia Earth Institute, and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, provides analysis of the trends and debates shaping developing countries’ potential – and the global economy’s prospects.
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Reinvigorating Egypt’s Economy

Mohamed A. El-Erian May 20, 2013

While blaming the revolution is not a persuasive explanation for Egypt’s current economic woes, its appeal to many Egyptians is understandable. Over the last few months, their economic situation has gone from bad to worse.
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Africa’s French Roadblock

Sanou Mbaye May 21, 2013

While some African countries now rank among the world's fastest-growing economies, others – including the 14 countries that form the franc zone – remain mired in poverty. To break out of it, franc-zone leaders must pursue complete emancipation from France, abandon the CFA franc, and build relations with China.
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Overcoming East Asia’s Sovereignty Disputes

Charles Tannock May 22, 2013

Disputes over territorial sovereignty are among the thorniest of all diplomatic disagreements. While the sovereignty disputes in the South and East China Seas involve seemingly non-negotiable claims, the resources surrounding the islands can nevertheless be shared, nurturing habits of closer regional cooperation in the process.
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Managing Syria’s Meltdown

Christopher R. Hill May 21, 2013

As Russian and American diplomats prepare for a Syrian peace conference, the Middle East is experiencing convulsions not seen since the Arab Spring two years ago. Indeed, in historical terms, the Syrian crisis, not the Arab Spring, will most likely be regarded as the region's seminal event in this decade.
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Apocalypse Not Now

Tony Rothman May 22, 2013

Apocalyptic prophecies – from Y2K to Mayan baktuns – divert resources and attention from more consequential scientific developments and debates. As journalism shifts toward sensationalism over empiricism, doomsday panics are becoming increasingly frequent – and increasingly damaging.
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The Resistible Fall of Europe: An Interview with George Soros

George Soros May 15, 2013

The politics of the eurozone countries is European politics, and European politics is not serving these countries well. In an extended interview, George Soros explains why – and what should be done about it.

Jeffrey Frankel May 20

The Flawed Origins of Expansionary Austerity

CAMBRIDGE – Several of my Harvard University colleagues have recently been casualties in the crossfire between fiscal “auster…
Michael Spence May 18

Learning About Growth from Austerity

MILAN – In a recent set of studies, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff used a vast array of historical data to show that the …
Barry Eichengreen May 17

Open-Access Economics

CANBERRA – The brouhaha over Carmen Reinhart’s and Kenneth Rogoff’s article “Growth in a Time of Debt” may be the most conspi…
Richard Cooper and… May 14

China’s E-Tail Revolution

SHANGHAI – When you think about centers of technological innovation, Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Seoul are probably the firs…
Emmanuel Guerin May 13

Green Sovereign Wealth

PARIS – At the end of 2011, sovereign-wealth funds’ assets under management amounted to $3 trillion, following 237 direct inv…
Kemal Derviş May 10

Balancing the Technocrats

ISTANBUL – A simplistic (actually, naive) view of markets is that they exist almost in a “state of nature,” and that the best…
Dani Rodrik May 10

What Use Are Economists?

CAMBRIDGE – When the stakes are high, it is no surprise that battling political opponents use whatever support they can garne…
Jomo Kwame Sundaram May 10

The Mismeasure of Poverty

ROME – In early 2012, outgoing World Bank President Robert Zoellick announced that the Millennium Development Goal of halving…
Paul De Grauwe May 9

Debt Without Drowning

LONDON – Since the 1970’s, economists have warned that a monetary union could not be sustained without a fiscal union. But th…
Daniel Gros May 8

Europe’s Irrelevant Austerity Debate

BRUSSELS – The most visible symptom of the crisis in the eurozone has been the high and variable risk premiums that its perip…

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Jaswant Singh May 21

The Invisible-Border War

NEW DELHI – A half-century after the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the border between China and Indi…
Dominique Moisi May 20

America by Proxy?

PARIS – The demise of the Roman Empire resulted from a combination of strategic overreach and e…
Kanayo F. Nwanze May 18

Harnessing the Remittance Boom

ROME – For more than a decade, Asia’s economies have been on the move – and so have its people.…
Liah Greenfeld May 17

Nationalism, Madness, and Terrorism

BOSTON – If we want to understand what drove the Boston M…
Erik Solheim May 16

A New Deal for Fragile States

PARIS – Today, roughly one-quarter of the world’s population lives in conflict-affected and fra…
Ana Palacio May 16

The Importance of Doing Business

MADRID – This month, an independent review panel is expec…
Randall Morck May 15

Oily Dirt

EDMONTON – Calm discussion of the environment nowadays is about as plausible as reasoned dialog…
Bjørn Lomborg May 15

Hugging a Burning Tree

PRAGUE – We are all brought up to recycle paper to save trees. We get countless e-mail admoniti…
Christopher Lane May 14

The Distortion of Grief

CHICAGO – How long does it take to mourn the death of a loved one? The question is peculiar, ev…
Bernard Haykel May 14

Syria’s Sectarian Stalemate

PRINCETON – What began in Syria as a revolt against an oppressive regime has evolved into a sec…