Comment
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Thursday, December 22, 2011 by
Howard Davies
London vs. the eurozone
Ever since the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community in 1973, after the French withdrew Charles de Gaulle’s veto of its membership, Britain’s relationship with the European integration process has been strained. The British are...
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Thursday, December 22, 2011 by
Nouriel Roubini
A fragile economic outlook for 2012
The outlook for the global economy in 2012 is clear, but it isn’t pretty: recession in Europe, anaemic growth at best in the United States, and a sharp slowdown in China and in most emerging-market economies. Asian economies are exposed to China.
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Thursday, December 22, 2011 by
Simon Johnson
Austerity and the banker
Santa Claus came early this year for four former executives of Washington Mutual (WaMu), a large US bank that failed in fall 2008. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) had brought a lawsuit against the four, actions that included taking...
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Thursday, December 15, 2011 by
Lino Spiteri
Deficits: – 0.5 % not enough
The popular highlight of last week’s EU summit was the veto by David Cameron, the British Prime Minister. That delighted British eurosceptics and infuriated the Liberal Democrats, who partner the Tories in an unlikely coalition. The Liberals have...
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Thursday, December 15, 2011 by
Mariosa Vella Cardona
Revamp of European airports
In the face of intense global competition, the European Commission recently decided to take the bull by the horns and embarked upon the arduous task of enhancing the competitiveness of Europe’s airports. It has proposed a number of measures which...
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Thursday, December 15, 2011 by
Barry Eichengreen
Disaster can wait
Nowadays there is no shortage of pundits, economic or otherwise, warning of impending disaster. If right, they are hailed as seers; if wrong, chances are that no one will remember. So here’s a forecast: there will be no shortage of predictions that...
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Thursday, December 15, 2011 by
Joseph S. Nye
President Obama’s Pacific pivot
Asia’s return to the centre of world affairs is the great power shift of the 21st century. In 1750, Asia had roughly three-fifths of the world’s population and accounted for three-fifths of global output. By 1900, after the Industrial Revolution in...
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Thursday, December 15, 2011 by
John Cassar White
Style, substance and spin in post- modern politics
This is the time of technocrats leading countries out of difficult times. It is a temporary phase until politicians once again take over the helm and try to woo voters with their ability to propose economic solutions that promote prosperity. But...
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Thursday, December 15, 2011 by
Gareth Evans
Asia’s month of milestones
For grand strategy buffs, this has been quite a month, with several events looking like the kind of turning points that will consume future historians. Capturing the most media attention has been Europe’s eroding credibility, with its paralysed...
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Thursday, December 15, 2011 by
Dani Rodrik
Occupy the classroom?
Early last month, a group of students staged a walkout in Harvard’s popular introductory economics course, Economics 10, taught by my colleague Greg Mankiw. Their complaint: the course propagates conservative ideology in the guise of economic...
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Thursday, December 15, 2011 by
Brahma Chellaney
China’s dam frenzy
China’s frenzied dam-building hit a wall recently in Burma (Myanmar), where the government’s bold decision to halt a controversial Chinese-led dam project helped to ease the path to the first visit by a US Secretary of State to that country in more...
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Thursday, December 15, 2011 by
Bennett Ramberg
Defence and democracy in America
The failure of the US Congressional Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction to reach agreement on budget cuts now sets the stage for $1.2 trillion in automatic reductions to begin in January 2013. Should these cuts go into effect, the US Defence...
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Thursday, December 15, 2011 by
Matthew Mizzi
Insuring against catastrophe
The October floods in Thailand are proving to be one of the worst natural disasters in modern economic history and have already clocked up around $15 billion in insured losses so far, causing a slump in factory production of more than 36 per cent.
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Thursday, December 15, 2011 by
Anne Fenech
Rights of the Mortgagees under Maltese law
The meteoric rise of the Malta flag from one million tons in 1986 to over 40 million tons today is due to a number of reasons. Included in the long list is the foresight of our legislators, the continuous updating of our law, sensible fiscal...
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Thursday, December 8, 2011 by
Raghuram Rajan
Europe’s confidence game
If any solution to the European crisis proposed over the next few days is to restore confidence to the sovereign-bond markets, it will have to be both economically viable and politically palatable to rescuers and rescued alike. This means paying...
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Thursday, December 8, 2011 by
Lino Spiteri
Rejecting proposed EU tax
It is not only most member countries of the European Union and the eurozone that are strapped for cash. The European Commission is not flush with money, either. It finds it difficult to cut spending, as many euro governments are doing. So it came up...
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Thursday, December 8, 2011 by
Josette Grech
Web filtering
In recent years, the extent to which internet service providers (ISPs), search engines and content aggregators should be liable for any acts of copyright infringement committed by their users has been topical in courts around the world. Inevitably,...
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Thursday, December 8, 2011 by
Claudette Portelli
Metaphors and analogic language use in business
Communication research shows that we hold two languages, digital and analogic, but our communication can be highly effective only if we speak both languages, stimulating both hemispheres of the brain. Digital language is a mode which often is...
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Thursday, December 8, 2011 by
John Cassar White
Politicians, technocrats and democracy
Two eurozone member states are now being led temporarily by technocrats: Italy has appointed Mario Monti, a former banker, a former European Commissioner and economist to clear up the mess left by the Berlusconi administration; Greece also has a...
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Thursday, December 8, 2011 by
Stephen S. Roach
Another Asian wake-up call
For the second time in three years, global economic recovery is at risk. In 2008, it was all about the subprime crisis made in America. Today, it is the sovereign-debt crisis made in Europe. The alarm bells should be ringing loud and clear across...
