US Economy

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,

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

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,

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

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

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

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 

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