INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS

The Unbound Economy

Kenneth Rogoff

What will drive recovery from the financial crisis of 2008? Will China eventually suffer a Japanese-style hard landing after decades of rapid growth? How long can Asia’s central banks be expected to prop up the dollar? Are we heading towards a world of multiple reserve currencies? Can India replicate China’ s miracle? Will the euro zone expand and further transform Europe?

RECENT COMMENTARIES

FEATURED COMMENTARIES

Coronary Capitalism

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2012-02-01

Just as the financial industry caused a near-meltdown of the global economy in 2008, the food industry has facilitated the explosion of obesity around the world. In both cases, the links to broader problems with contemporary Western capitalism have become impossible to ignore.... read

Comments: 7 Recommended: 0 Read: 15710

Rethinking the Growth Imperative

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2012-01-02

Modern macroeconomics often seems to treat rapid and stable economic growth as the be-all and end-all of policy. But, while that is the message from graduate classrooms to central-bank boardrooms to newspapers’ front pages, is it true?... read

Comments: 26 Recommended: 3 Read: 51303

Is Modern Capitalism Sustainable?

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2011-12-02

Will modern capitalism be a victim of its own success in producing massive wealth? As pollution, financial instability, health-care problems, and inequality continue to grow, and as political systems remain paralyzed, capitalism’s future might not seem so secure in a few decades as it seems now.... read

Comments: 38 Recommended: 3 Read: 112704

A Gravity Test for the Euro

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2011-11-03

There are plenty of vaguely-plausible reasons why the euro has remained so firm against the dollar throughout the euro crisis, at least so far. But, with so many forces arrayed against the current exchange rate, and little reason for it to be maintained, don’t count on this stability sticking around.... read

Comments: 8 Recommended: 0 Read: 37495

The Wrong Tax for Europe

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2011-10-03

There is ample reason to be angry at financiers, and real change is needed in how they operate. But the European Commission's proposal to tax financial transactions, despite its noble intellectual lineage, is no solution to Europe’s problems – or to the world's.... read

Comments: 13 Recommended: 1 Read: 29470

Will the IMF Stand Up to Europe?

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2011-09-01

Until now, the IMF has sycophantically supported each new European initiative to rescue the over-indebted eurozone periphery, committing more than $100 billion to Greece, Portugal, and Ireland so far. Unfortunately, the Fund is risking not only its members’ money, but, ultimately, its own credibility.... read

Comments: 3 Recommended: 1 Read: 28125

The Second Great Contraction

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2011-08-02

Why is everyone still referring to the recent financial crisis as the “Great Recession”? The term, after all, is predicated on a dangerous misdiagnosis of the problems that confront the US and other countries, leading to bad forecasts and bad policy.... read

Comments: 30 Recommended: 7 Read: 157545

Technology and Inequality

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2011-07-06

Until now, the relentless march of technology and globalization has played out hugely in favor of high-skilled labor, helping fuel record-high levels of income and wealth inequality around the world. But that march is now turning against skilled workers, promising to narrow the equality gap.... read

Comments: 23 Recommended: 0 Read: 57139

The Euro’s PIG-Headed Masters

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2011-06-03

Europe is in constitutional crisis: no one seems to have the power to impose a sensible resolution of its peripheral countries’ debt crisis. Indeed, it is hard to see how the single currency can survive much longer without a decisive move towards a far stronger fiscal union.... read

Comments: 4 Recommended: 2 Read: 58527

Bernanke Meets the Press	Kenneth Rogoff
At the US Federal Reserve’s recent and first-ever public press conference, Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a spirited defense of the Fed’s much-criticized policy of mass purchases of US government bonds, also known as “quantitative easing.” But was his justification persuasive?... read

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The Second Great Contraction

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2011-08-02

Comments: 30 Recommended: 7 Read: 157545

The Limits of Dubai

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2009-12-01

Global investors are in a giant huff over Dubai’s decision to allow its flagship private company Dubai World to seek a six-month standstill (implying at least partial default) on payments on some $26 billion in debt. But what really upset investors was the realization that, in an over-leveraged world, some day untenable debt guarantees will have to be withdrawn.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 35703

$10,000 Gold?

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2010-10-01

Now that gold has crossed the magic $1,000 barrier, some investors evidently believe that, like the stock market when the Dow Jones index hit 1,000, the price can increase ten-fold. What was true for the alchemists of yore remains true today: gold and reason are often difficult to reconcile.... read

Comments: 12 Recommended: 0 Read: 79617

Why America Isn’t Working

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2010-09-01

As the US economy limps toward the second anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, anemic growth has left unemployment mired near 10%, with little prospect of significant improvement anytime soon. The bottom line is that, as with financial crises in the past, it will take many years for the US economy to climb out of its hole. ... read

Comments: 10 Recommended: 1 Read: 63594

The BP Oil Spill’s Lessons for Regulation

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2010-06-01

As the damaged BP oil well continues to spew millions of gallons of crude from the depths of the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, the immediate challenge is how to mitigate an ever-magnifying environmental catastrophe. But the disaster poses a much deeper challenge to how modern societies deal with regulating complex technologies.... read

Comments: 18 Recommended: 2 Read: 58954

Hollywood’s Favorite Villains

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2005-10-05

Once upon a time, Cold War enemies, white supremacists, and evil geniuses reigned supreme as Hollywood’s favorite bad guys. No more. Today, it is multinational corporations that are increasingly being cast as the über-villains of our globalized world. For all their subliminal paid promotions and subtle product placements, corporations are getting drubbed in the main story lines of our popular culture. ... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 58738

The Euro’s PIG-Headed Masters

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2011-06-03

Comments: 4 Recommended: 2 Read: 58527

Artificial Intelligence and Globalization

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2006-03-02

Today’s conventional wisdom is that the rise of India and China will be the single biggest factor driving global jobs and wages over the twenty-first century. High-wage workers in rich countries can expect to see their competitive advantage steadily eroded by competition from capable and fiercely hard-working competitors in Asia, Latin America, and maybe even some day Africa. ... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 57922

Japan’s Slow-Motion Crisis

Kenneth Rogoff Series: The Unbound Economy

2010-03-02

Investors who have bet against Japan in the past have been badly burned, grossly underestimating the Japanese people’s remarkable flexibility and resilience. But, while Japan’s ability to trudge on in the face of huge adversity is admirable, the risks of crisis ahead are surely greater than bond markets seem to recognize.... read

Comments: 6 Recommended: 0 Read: 57651

Technology and Inequality	Kenneth Rogoff
Until now, the relentless march of technology and globalization has played out hugely in favor of high-skilled labor, helping fuel record-high levels of income and wealth inequality around the world. But that march is now turning against skilled workers, promising to narrow the equality gap.... read
Wall-to-Wall Wal-Mart?	Kenneth Rogoff
Do you want to know which video clip will soon be scaring the daylights out of policymakers throughout the world? In a scenario that looks uncannily like the spread of a global pandemic, the economist Thomas Holmes has prepared a dynamic map simulation showing the spread of Wal-Mart stores throughout the United States. Starting at the epicenter in Bentonville, Arkansas, where Sam Walton opened his first store in 1962, giant boxy Wal-Mart stores have now multiplied to the point where the average American lives less than seven kilometers from an outlet.... read

AUTHOR INFO

Kenneth Rogoff

Kenneth Rogoff is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and was formerly chief economist at the IMF.

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