Recent commentaries

Language:

Please note that articles not available in your chosen language are displayed in English. Articles available in your chosen language feature a flag in the top left corner of the accompanying image.

Show more

Mohamed A. El-Erian: The Risk Factor

Will United States Treasury bills retain their gold-plated status? What would a more freely floating Chinese renminbi mean for the world economy? Is the eurozone a good bet to survive and grow? Can emerging-market countries somehow insulate themselves, at long last, from the destructive effects of volatile global capital flows?

In the early 1990’s, Bill Clinton’s adviser and campaign manager, James Carville, quipped that if he could be reincarnated, he would come back to life not as a king or a pope, but as the bond market, “which can intimidate everyone.” Indeed, financial markets now seem to have governments more at their mercy than ever before, as Europe’s sovereign-deb

But financial markets are neither evil and dictatorial nor beneficent and democratic. They need to be understood, not vilified. And few people have been more successful at comprehending financial markets – both theoretically and practically – than Mohamed A. El-Erian, CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO, one of the world’s largest investment companies, with approximately $1.2 trillion of assets under management.

El-Erian, whose career has taken him from the International Monetary Fund to managing Harvard University’s endowment, is one of the few financiers whose words consistently move markets. Unlike most financiers, he is willing and able not only to explain the arcane workings of bond and other asset markets, but also to synthesize the fundamental factors – economic policies, growth prospects, or sector-specific trends – that move them. His description of the post-financial-crisis global economy as a “new normal” of slow growth and high unemployment for the foreseeable future encapsulated and ratified what many feared but few would say.

Every month in The Risk Factor, written exclusively for Project Syndicate, Mohamed El-Erian combines the highest professional and managerial experience with his proven analytical talent to provide an essential guide to key economic developments that no ordinary pundit or academic observer can match.

Show more

Mohamed A. El-Erian

Mohamed A. El-Erian is CEO and co-Chief Investment Officer of the global investment company PIMCO, with approximately $2 trillion in assets under management. He previously worked at the International Monetary Fund and the Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard University's endowment. He was named one of Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. His book When Markets Collide was the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Book of the Year and was named a best book of 2008 by the Economist.

Further Offers

Videos

Project Syndicate produces video interviews with regular and featured authors, conducted by the editors of Project Syndicate. In these lively interviews, Project Syndicate contributors expand upon their ideas and analyses, and on the events and trends that their commentaries address. These pithy, compelling discussions are the perfect way to enhance the impact of commentaries that you receive from Project Syndicate.

Podcasts

Complimentary English-language podcasts are provided with the majority of our commentaries. Podcasts are a stimulating complement to Project Syndicate content, and an easy means of integrating a popular media platform into your offerings.

Newsart

Project Syndicate works with NewsArt, a collective of artists who create graphics that wittily allude to the topics addressed in the commentaries that they accompany. These inventive representations of the controversies and events of the day provide eye-catching counterparts to the news that you report.

 

With each column that we distribute, we offer a selection of NewsArt graphics that are available for immediate purchase with a simple click of your mouse. You may then use those images alongside Project Syndicate commentaries, or as a means of enhancing your own content.