MUNICH – Last summer, the financier George Soros urged Germany to agree to the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism, calling on…

STANFORD – Around the world, raging debates about whether, when, how, and how much to reduce large budget deficits and high levels of sovere…

MUNICH – The eurozone is now in its sixth year of crisis – and of efforts by the European Central Bank and the international community to en…

STANFORD – A successful society needs effective, affordable government to perform its necessary functions well, and that includes sufficient…

MUNICH – The European Central Bank has managed to calm the markets with its promise of unlimited purchases of eurozone government bonds, bec…

STANFORD – Political leadership transitions typically signal either a change in direction or continuity. But the mere prospect of such a tra…

MUNICH – The motto of the United States of America is: “E pluribus unum” (Out of many, one). The European Union’s motto is “In varietate con…

STANFORD – As America’s elections approach, with President Barack Obama slightly in front of his Republican challenger, former Massachusetts…

MUNICH – Europe and the world are eagerly awaiting the decision of Germany’s Constitutional Court on September 12 regarding the European Sta…

STANFORD – While central governments’ fiscal problems plague many economies, a parallel crisis is enveloping many subnational governments ar…

MUNICH – In blatant violation of the Maastricht Treaty, the European Commission has come forward with one bailout plan after another for Eur…

PALO ALTO – Elections often turn on the state of the economy, especially in hard times. When growth and jobs are down, voters throw out incu…

MUNICH – For a while, it looked as if the European Central Bank’s €1 trillion credit program to pump liquidity into Europe’s banking system …

BEIJING – With the likelihood of a contagious sovereign-debt implosion and European bank failures greatly reduced by the Greek debt deal and…

MUNICH – Under substantial external pressure, the eurozone’s crisis-hit countries are, at long last, bringing themselves to make painful cut…

STANFORD – Successful political candidates try to implement the proposals on which they ran. In the United States, President Barack Obama an…

MUNICH – Interest rates for public debt within the eurozone have spread once again, just as they did before the introduction of the euro. Ba…

STANFORD – The resignations of Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have highlighted how Gree…

MUNICH – In August, the European balance-of-payments crisis moved beyond the Eurozone’s periphery and began buffeting Italy. Interest spread…

PALO ALTO – Europe is suffering from simultaneous sovereign-debt, banking, and currency crises. Severe economic distress and political press…

MUNICH – German Chancellor Angela Merkel has withstood the pressure from southern Europe: there will be no Eurobonds. For the markets, this …

PALO ALTO – Wealthy Europe and America, crown jewels of mixed capitalist democracies, are drowning in deficits and debt, owing to bloated we…

MUNICH – “It’s not the euro that’s in danger, but the public finances of individual European countries.” One hears this everywhere nowadays,…

STANFORD – Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, by winning an outright majority of seats in his country’s parliament for the first time s…

MUNICH – Why did Greece, Ireland, and Portugal have to seek shelter under the European Union’s rescue umbrella, and why is Spain a potential…