News and Analysis: 30 Aug-24 Sep 10 | EmergingFrontierMarkets.com

Based in: Manila, Philippines

Posted on Fri, 24 Sep 10:

Global impact - Revamped university rankings cause elation and consternation: The publication of the new World University Rankings caused a global debate - with chest thumping and soul searching in roughly equal measure. There was delight in the US, gloom in Europe and scratching of heads in Australia, Times Higher Education (UK), 23 Sep 10 (Top 200 universities | Analysis)

The renminbi and the US current account deficit: Q&A with William Cline, Institute senior fellow--Q: If the value of the currency appreciates for China, the price of its exports increases and the price of its imports decreases. Why is it so hard to convince the Chinese?, Peterson Institute, 16 Sep 10 [pdf] ; and

Ronald McKinnon: Wage increases--The win-win answer on China trade: The US Congress is again threatening to impose punitive tariffs on imports from China unless the yuan is appreciated. But a discrete sharp appreciation won't defuse the situation because it would be unlikely to reduce China's trade surplus on which the Americans are so focused, says Stanford economist, Wall Street Journal (courtesy Stanford U), 29 July 10 [pdf]

Notice from the Publisher: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Try and fool us thrice, and a big, big shame on you. Those of you who visit this site regularly will have noticed that in the past two months, our posting has been disrupted twice for an unusually long period of a week each, EmergingFrontierMarkets. com, 24 Sep 10

Posted on Thu, 23 Sep 10:
(In Lieu of Yesterday)

Obama lays out vision, details still blurry: Following US Pres. Obama's introduction of his long-awaited Global Development policy at the UN on Wed, exactly a year after he told member states that he would return with a plan to make the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) a reality, questions remain over how it will be executed. Civil society and lawmakers have long called for an overhaul of the nation's foreign assistance structure, which - with its nearly 30 agencies - has been criticized for being uncoordinated, inefficient and outdated. Obama's Global Devt policy, the US's first of its kind, has thus been largely welcomed, Inter Press Service, 23 Sep 10 (For fragile states, NY MDG summit outcome off-target)

Emerging-market cities represent single largest commercial growth opportunity globally - report: The 717 emerging-market cities that now have populations of more than 500,000, and the 371 more cities that will reach this size by 2030, will constitute the biggest commercial opportunity in the world in the coming decades, a new report said. Executives tend to focus on the 'megacities' of emerging markets, when they need to shift their attention to the 'many cities' - the large number of smaller cities that constitute the bulk of future urban-market demand across the emerging markets, Boston Consulting Group, 14 Sep 10

Notice from the Publisher: We will post tomorrow, together with our regular posts, a note of explanation about our absence the past three weeks. At the moment, we have catch-up posting work to do. And as announced earlier on, for the next few weeks, we will post on a Mon-Wed-Fri sked. It's nice to be back, EmergingFrontier Markets.com, 23 Sep 10

Posted on Wed, 1 Sep 10:

Wheat sends food prices up: Surging wheat prices drove world food prices up 5% in Aug, the biggest mnth-on-mnth increase since Nov '09. The price surge mainly reflected the sudden sharp rise in intl wheat prices following the drought in Russia and the nation's subsequent restrictions on wheat sales. But other drivers included higher sugar and oilseed prices, UN Food Agri Org, 1 Sep 10

Verandah: Stick to the science, UN climate body urged--The UN climate panel should make predictions only when it has solid evidence and should avoid policy advocacy, acc to a report by a review group supported by the academies of science from the US, Netherlands, UK and about 100 other nations. The IPCC was widely criticized after admitting its '07 global warming report wrongly said Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035, and that it had overstated how much of the Netherlands is below sea level. Such firm forecasts should be made "only when there is sufficient evidence", said the report, National Post (courtesy Vancouver Sun/ Can.), 31 Aug 10 (Media release by org, of the world’s science academies)

Kishore Mahbubani: Western slant on China skews shape of things to come--One fundamental flaw in the West's assumptions about China is that eventually, like all the other successful developed economies, China will join the great Western project and become "just like us", notes Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy dean, Natl Univ Singapore, Amer Review/ US Studies Ctr, Sydney U (courtesy NUS), 19 May 10 [pdf] ; and

Dani Rodrik: The myth of authoritarian growth--Which is better for econ growth - a strong guiding hand that is free from the pressure of political competition, or a plurality of competing interests that fosters openness to new ideas and new political players? East Asian examples (SKorea, Taiwan, China) seem to suggest the former. But how then can one explain the fact that almost all wealthy nations - except those that owe their riches to natural resources alone - are democratic?, asks Harvard economist, Proj Syndicate (courtesy Harvard), 10 Aug 10

Notice from the Publisher: Three announcements: 1) As a precaution, we have posted our business card on the Web to enable our visitors to locate us (and this site), in case - eg, due to interference by hackers - we somehow "lose contact". Kindly make a note of it (or bookmark it).

2) Which brings us to why we have not posted the past 2 wks (13-27 Aug). Please note that it was not our fault. It was - yet again - due to a disruption in our workflow, similar to (but not the same as) what we already reported to our visitors last Jan, and just as deserving of blame and censure,

3) Starting this wk and for the next few wks, we will be posting only on 3 days - rather than our usual 5 - per wk, on Mon-Wed-Fri. We need to spend time on developing a few new features for our site which we hope to deploy in the near future. Nothing big really, but since we're not techies, it takes time, EmergingFrontierMarkets.com, 30 Aug 10

Posted on Mon, 30 Aug 10:

John Taylor: New ideas about monetary policy from Jackson Hole--I write from Jackson Hole Wyoming as the early morning sun shines sharply on the Grand Tetons where I just spent a very enjoyable few days at the annual monetary confab. The main thing I took away from Bernanke's opener (the tradition going back to Volcker and Greenspan is for the Fed chair to lead off) was his call for a 'cost-benefit' approach to determine whether another dose of unorthodox large scale asset purchases is needed. This is a big improvement over a 'whatever it takes' approach, says fmr Treas undersecy/ Stanford U prof, Economics One (Web log), 29 Aug 10 (Bernanke's talk | Jackson Hole site)

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