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

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The Sino-American Decade

Michael Spence May 24, 2013

The next ten years will be characterized by major structural shifts in individual economies and a huge reconfiguration of the global economy as a whole. Above all, much depends on the two largest economies, China and the US, and their leadership in creating global public goods and maintaining a stable and open economic environme…
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Europe’s Lost Keynesians

Kenneth Rogoff May 23, 2013

There is no magic Keynesian bullet for the eurozone’s woes, despite what many commentators and much of the public seem to believe. The eurozone’s difficulties stem from European financial and monetary integration having gotten too far ahead of actual political, fiscal, and banking union – not exactly a problem that Keynes tried …
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Britain, Ireland, and Europe

David Miliband May 23, 2013

British Prime Minister David Cameron is increasingly beholden to Conservative backbenchers who want to pull the UK out of the EU. On May 22, former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband delivered the Irish Business and Employers Confederation Annual Lecture, in which he defended continued EU membership.
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America’s Blinders

Kishore Mahbubani May 24, 2013

While most of the world is preparing for the end of the era of US global dominance, Americans are not even entertaining the possibility. Worse, public intellectuals, who are supposed to think the unthinkable, challenge accepted views, and prepare people for crucial developments, are shirking their responsibility.
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The HICCup Manifesto

Esther Dyson May 24, 2013

It is hard to find anyone in health care who does not believe that spending $100 now on healthy behavior could yield more than $200 in lowered costs and improved outcomes. So why do individuals and communities not act on the basis of this knowledge?
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Europe’s Clash of Generations

Gene Frieda May 23, 2013

EU leaders are under pressure from a new generation of voters, for whom the original purpose of European integration – preventing war – holds little significance today. If EU leaders do not respond effectively, emerging political parties will seek to restore the protective national barriers that their predecessors demolished.
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The Human City

Parag Khanna May 23, 2013

The world is undergoing rapid urbanization, with the share of the population living in cities set to reach 60% by 2030. International institutions, governments, NGOs, and others must work together to make cities efficient, livable, and sustainable, using technology and public policy to support citizens’ welfare and aspirations.
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Boards on Their Backs

Simon Johnson May 23, 2013

The recent governance controversy at JPMorgan Chase has masked a much larger issue. Five years after the largest financial crisis in almost 80 years, one can count the number of properly qualified board members – across all megabanks – on the fingers of one hand.

Ashoka Mody May 23

Misreading the Global Economy

PRINCETON – In April 2010, the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook offered an optimistic assessment of the g…
Andrew Sheng and… May 22

The Night-Watchman State’s Last Shift

HONG KONG – Too often, debate about the relationship between the state and the market casts them as opposing forces locked in…
Michael Boskin May 22

The Debt-Growth Controversy

STANFORD – The recent controversy over errors in a 2010 paper by the economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff is a sad c…
Pingfan Hong May 21

China’s Interest-Rate Challenge

NEW YORK – China’s successful transformation from a middle-income country to a modern, high-income country will depend largel…
Sanou Mbaye May 21

Africa’s French Roadblock

DAKAR – In recent years, China and Africa have formed one of the modern era’s most successful economic and trade partnerships…
Robert Skidelsky May 21

Austere Illusions

LONDON – The doctrine of imposing present pain for future benefit has a long history – stretching all the way back to Adam Sm…
Mohamed A. El-Erian May 20

Reinvigorating Egypt’s Economy

NEWPORT BEACH – Some two years into Egypt’s grass-roots revolution, the country’s economy is in a worrisome downward spiral. …
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…

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Tony Rothman May 22

Apocalypse Not Now

PRINCETON – Recently, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – the world’s most powerful…
Charles Tannock May 22

Overcoming East Asia’s Sovereignty Disputes

BRUSSELS – China’s recent elevation of its claim to the D…
Mehdi Khalaji May 22

After Ahmadinejad

WASHINGTON, DC – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s preferred successor, Esfandiar Rahim M…
Christopher R. Hill May 21

Managing Syria’s Meltdown

DENVER – As Russian and American diplomats prepare for a Syrian peace conference, the Middle Ea…
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…