How China is changing the global balance of economic power
China has displaced the United States from its traditional dominance as a major trading partner for most countries of the world
Wednesday 08 Apr 2020 | 07:15 | SYDNEY
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Paul Volcker’s pragmatism: fighting inflation and financialization
Paul Volcker, chairman of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987, passed away this month. In remembrances, he has been most often celebrated for taming the runaway inflation of the 1970s. Yet, even as Volcker confronted the limits of post–Second World War Keynesianism,
Economic diplomacy: China dependency and a notable departure
Switch hitting
If Australia’s senior international ministers were surprised by the sharpness of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s approach to economic dependence on China at the recent AUSMIN talks, they should have studied the US trade data the previous day.
A great divergence
By Greg Earl
Rethinking fiscal policy: Progressive US politics meets radical economics
Recognition of the need for greater government intervention in the economy is increasingly shaping the US political debate, with this shift paralleled among prominent economists
Averting a global calamity? Trump and Xi at the G20
The outlines of a trade deal between the United States and China are there. But without a return to the negotiating table, the dispute could rapidly escalate, magnifying the damage to world growth
By John Edwards
The useful myth of central bank independence
One of the sustaining myths of modern economics is that central banks are independent, able to pursue monetary policy free from the pressures of politics. This makes monetary policy more effective: it gives confidence that the economy will be kept on a steady path unaffected by the exigencies of the
Economic conflict between America and China: A truce declared, the talks begin
The real issue in the US–China trade negotiation is the dramatic change in China’s economy evident over the past decade
By John Edwards
US versus China: the economic model
With the US–China economic rivalry intensifying and “decoupling” becoming the mantra in Washington, what mindset, or economic model, is behind President Donald Trump’s response to China?
Trump is a Republican, but not as we know them. Republicans favour free international trade,
Can the Fed resist Trump’s pressure?
Central bank independence is now a well-established element of best-practice monetary policy just about everywhere. Except, perhaps, in America. Elsewhere, most politicians accept that it is in their interests to refrain from pressuring the central bank. It would be out of character, however, for US
The tide is turning against US financial regulation
This article was orginally published on 7 February and has been reposted following legislative change this week in the US.
For most of the decade since the global financial crisis, financial regulation has been strengthened. Now the tide is turning in America. Reform has come up
Trump’s trade war pins Australia between a rock and a hard place
Originally published in The Australian
By Roland Rajah
Company tax cuts: America versus Australia
The expert panel on the ABC’s Q&A program earlier this month was hopelessly confused in comparing Donald Trump’s cut in US company tax with the proposed company tax cuts in Australia. Although it’s often useful to compare domestic economic policy initiatives with those
Donald Trump, trade, and Malcolm Turnbull in the middle
Originally published in the Australian Financial Review (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
By Roland Rajah
A new proposal to normalise US monetary policy
If financial markets were expecting clear guidance on future US monetary policy moves from the annual central bank get-together at Jackson Hole in Wyoming last month, they would have been disappointed. Fed Chair Janet Yellen confined her speech to setting out how much progress has been made in
America: Full employment is not enough
On the surface the US economy has had a successful recovery from the 2008 Great Recession, with eight years of unbroken growth and unemployment well below 5% for more than a year. So why is the national mood so joyless? Why do many commentators attribute the unexpected Trump victory to economic
Is the US economy at full employment?
After the painfully slow recovery from the 2008 great Recession, US unemployment is now 4.4%, well below the level commonly regarded as 'full employment'. This would suggest that the economy has reached capacity, with some arguing that the current lacklustre rate of growth is in fact
Are US Fed rate projections ‘behind the curve’?
Last Wednesday the US Federal Reserve raised the Fed funds rate for the third time since the 2008 financial crisis. Financial market commentators have worked hard over this eight-year period to create downside drama in the narrative of the return of interest rates from the abnormally low levels of
Is Trump reigniting the currency wars?
In 2010 Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega warned that a 'currency war' was underway. Europe, the United States and the United Kingdom were attempting to boost their limp post-2008 recoveries through quantitative easing (QE) policies, which not only lowered interest rates but also depreciated
Trump’s trade protectionism
President Trump is off to a flying start on his promised trade protectionism, with executive orders on withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and renegotiation of NAFTA, together with his threatened import duty on any US company off-shoring domestic jobs and his promise to make Mexico pay for
US global economic leadership: Responding to a rising China
In this Analysis, Lowy Institute Research Fellow Tristram Sainsbury examines the evolving global economic leadership roles of the United States and China