NEW DELHI – For a country as poor as India, growth should be what Americans call a “no-brainer.” It is largely a matter of providing public …

NEW DELHI – Public discourse is rarely nuanced. The public’s attention span is short, and subtleties tend to confuse. Better to take a clear…

NEW DELHI – Marc Andreessen made his first fortune writing the code that became Netscape Navigator, the Internet browser. He is now a ventur…

NEW DELHI – Two fundamental beliefs have driven economic policy around the world in recent years. The first is that the world suffers from a…

NEW DELHI – Few areas of economic activity in the United States are more politicized than housing finance. Yet the intellectual left has gon…

NEW DELHI – Many economists are advocating for regulation that would make banking “boring” and uncompetitive once again. After a crisis, it …

TOKYO – What should central banks do when politicians seem incapable of acting? Thus far, they have been willing to step into the breach, fi…

CHICAGO – A real debate is emerging in America’s presidential election campaign. It is superficially about health care and taxes. More funda…

CHICAGO – In an interesting recent book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of the Market, the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel points…

CHICAGO – To understand how to achieve a sustained recovery from the Great Recession, we need to understand its causes. And identifying caus…

CHICAGO – Emerging markets around the world – Brazil, China, India, and Russia, to name the largest – are slowing. One reason is that they c…

CHICAGO – Poor Ben Bernanke! As Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve Board, he has gone further than any other central banker in re…

CHICAGO – There are many arguments against government paternalism: apart from limiting individual choice (for example, the choice to remain …

CHICAGO – Why did the household savings rate in the United States plummet before the Great Recession? Two of my colleagues at the University…

CHICAGO – On a recent visit to Europe, I found economists, journalists, and business people thoroughly frustrated with their politicians. Wh…

CHICAGO – With the world’s industrial democracies in crisis, two competing narratives of its sources – and appropriate remedies – are emergi…

CHICAGO – If any solution to the European crisis proposed over the next few days is to restore confidence to the sovereign-bond markets, it …

CHICAGO – It is amazing how the “one percent” epithet, a reference to the top 1% of earners, has caught on in the United States and elsewher…

CHICAGO – How will the eurozone crisis play out in the next few weeks? With luck, Italy may soon get a credible government of national unity…

CHICAGO – Recently, a number of commentators have proposed a sharp, contained bout of inflation as a way to reduce debt and reenergize growt…

CHICAGO – These days, the United States media are full of ordinary Americans venting their rage at the incompetence and immaturity of their …

CHICAGO – Now that the dust has settled over the selection of the International Monetary Fund’s managing director, the IMF can return to its…

CHICAGO – Economic growth in the United States seems to be slowing again. This might reflect temporary factors, like the Japanese tsunami, w…

CHICAGO – US President Barack Obama, like many Western leaders nowadays, made improving education one of his main promises to voters during …

CHICAGO – Democratic governments are not incentivized to take decisions that have short-term costs but produce long-term gains, the typical …