Global Economy
Indo-Pacific: where is the money coming from?
Such is the excitement about China’s role in Asia that the mere whiff of anything to do with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is enough to cause a media flurry in Canberra. …
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…
Economic diplomacy brief: infrastructure and trade
Three amigos
If infrastructure building is the new Great Game in the Indo-Pacific, the question is whether this week’s developments represent a warm-up for the main match or the…
The future of work
The future of work was on the agenda for the G20 economic ministers’ meeting in Argentina last weekend, but was overshadowed by the high-profile issues of tariff wars,…
Trade: the US should be isolated, not accommodated
Prior to leaving for the latest G20 Finance Ministers Meeting, held at the weekend in Buenos Aires, Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison said “the trade war cannot be ignored”. He…
Economic diplomacy brief: India ties, Labor on BRI
Passage to India
Two statistics in the new report to the Australian Government on the future economic relationship with India underline how this is going to be a battle…
Short-term capital flows to emerging economies
Emerging markets are under pressure from events in the global economy, including the normalisation of American monetary policy, the strengthening of the US dollar, and…
Tit-for-tat-for-tit-for-tat
The US is moving quickly to follow through on Trump’s threats to further escalate his trade war with China (now is as good a time as any to say that the trade war has officially…
Trade is not just about tariffs
Amid the clamour of the current shouting-match about tariffs, two sometimes-forgotten facts in international trade should be noted. First, tariffs are not the only distortion…
Answering Bitcoin hype
When I wrote about Bitcoin in December (The Bitcoin bubble), I likened it to intrinsically worthless pre-1949 Chinese bonds and Weimar Reichsbanknote marks.
Bitcoin was then…