Global Economy
When should the IMF apologise?
If you make a mistake, common courtesy says you should apologise. The IMF made a mistake in its forecasts for the UK economy — a high profile mistake. It admitted it got it wrong…
Climate and energy policy merging, but where is Australia?
Australia's low level of ambition ahead of next year's climate change talks in Paris reveals more than the negative effect of domestic politics on our international reputation…
Global financial crisis: Did the system really work?
Much of the mountain of commentary and analysis of the 2008 Great Recession has been either critical (Paul Krugman might be typical), or a self-interested defence (Tim Geithner…
Women, decision-making and the extractive industries
Members of the Publish What You Pay network at a meeting in Jakarta. Photo courtesy of author.
For the last three years I have been lucky enough to coordinate the Publish What…
Climate change: The G20 can add value
Yesterday I gave an interview to the Sydney Morning Herald for a story published today: 'Stopping climate change talks "could hurt" G20' (p. 8 in the paper version). Here I want…
Foreign direct investment: Ten simple questions
1. Why is FDI so sensitive?
Here is an impolite truth about international commerce: governments, even 'liberal capitalist' ones, are obsessed with sovereignty. Foreign direct…
On forecasting (or, why economics is not like dentistry)
Economists are pretty hopeless at predicting sharp downturns, leaving them open to the sort of derision handed out by Tim Harford and reported by Sam Roggeveen. Actually, Harford…
G7 in Brussels: Mood matches sombre setting
The G7 leaders' meeting in Brussels concluded yesterday, the first such summit for fifteen years.
It was to have been a G8 summit hosted by President Putin at an idyllic golf…
60-second adventures in economics
[youtube:LCRNI04tnN8#t]Sam Roggeveen
Foreign-investment anxiety revealed in Lowy Poll
I've just written on the widespread antipathy in Indonesia to foreign investment, and how it is colouring the presidential election campaign. I attributed this hostility to the…