News and Analysis: 17-28 Nov 2014 | EmergingFrontierMarkets.com

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Posted on Fri, 28 Nov 14:

Inside OPEC room, Saudi oil minister declares price war on US shale oil, Reuters, 28 Nov 14:
Saudi Arabia's oil minister told fellow OPEC members they must combat the US shale oil boom, arguing against cutting crude output in order to depress prices and undermine the profitability of North Amer producers. "He spoke about market share rivalry with the US. And those who wanted a cut understood that there was no option to achieve it because the Saudis want a market share battle," said a source

European banks revive golden era to bolster public trust, WSJ, by Blackstone & Hilsenrath, 29 Nov 14 [via Australian]:
The Swiss central bank could be forced to more than double its gold assets, and be banned from selling them, if the nation's voters back a populist initiative on 30 Nov. Although polls suggest the initiative will fail, it symbolizes the nostalgia for gold in some corners. Germany's central bank made a public-relations splash with its decision last year to return home some of the nation's gold

Analysts wonder if slowing Chinese GDP is part of a bigger trend, Irish Times, by C Coonan, 28 Oct 14:
Recent data from China's Statistics Bureau showed its economy had expanded at its slowest pace since the global financial crisis. Fmr US treasury secy Larry Summers and Harvard's Lant Pritchett wrote in a paper published before the GDP figures were announced that China's astonishing 36 years of super-rapid growth was coming to an end

Posted on Wed, 26 Nov 14:

John Cochrane: Who's afraid of a little deflation?, WSJ, 13 Nov 14 [via Hoover Inst]:
The worry today is a slow slide toward falling prices, maybe 1-2% annually, with perpetually near-zero short-term interest rates. Milton Friedman long ago recognized slight deflation as the 'optimal' monetary policy, since people and firms can hold lots of cash without worrying about it losing value. So why do people think deflation, by itself, is a big problem?, asks Inst senior fellow / U Chicago prof

Southeast Asia should switch to a greener growth model, OECD, 11 Nov 14:
Southeast Asia's over-reliance on natural resources like oil, gas, minerals and wood for econ growth is unsustainable over the long term and is causing environmental damage that will hurt future prosperity if left unchecked, a new report says. The report, "Towards Green Growth in Southeast Asia", finds that natural resources account for more than 20% of the region's wealth

Charles Wolf: The upside of lower oil prices, Weekly Standard, 17 Oct 14 [via Rand]:
Many of the world's most serious security threats are enabled -- directly or indirectly -- by revenues from the high oil prices (about $100 per barrel) prevalent in world markets in recent years. If these prices were reduced substantially (e.g., by 20-30%), the liquidity that fuels the threats would probably shrink, as would the threats themselves, writes Rand's distinguished chair in int'l econ

Posted on Mon, 24 Nov 14:

John Page: Africa's failure to industrialize - bad luck or bad policy?, Brookings Inst (blog), 20 Nov 14:
On 20 Nov, the UN celebrated the 25th Africa Industrialization Day. But perhaps 'celebrate' is not exactly the right word. Africa's experience with industrialization over the past quarter century has actually been disappointing. Why is there so little industry in Africa?, asks Inst senior fellow / fmr World Bank chief economist for Africa

Anil Kashyap: Three cheers for Japanese monetary policy, WSJ, 11 Nov 14 [PDF, via U Chicago]:
Faced with inflation that was no longer headed towards the central bank's 2% target, the governor surprised markets by announcing several new steps. One reason for optimism is that the governor follows a simple formula for communicating with both the public and the gov't, writes U Chicago prof / member of IMF advisory group on macro-prudential framework

'Global challenger' firms from emerging markets - bigger and more ambitious than ever, Boston Consult.Grp, 11 Sep 14:
A group of 100 companies from emerging economies are growing larger and growing up so rapidly that they now are leaders in many key global markets. A new report identifies these 'global challengers' that are vying for leadership of key industries and includes companies from 18 nations, 8 more than on the original '06 list

Posted on Fri, 21 Nov 14:

Kevin Watkins: The bonfire of the subsidies, Project Syndicate, 11 Nov 14:
Globally, some $600 bil. is spent to support carbon-intensive energy, compared to just $90 bil. for clean energy. That makes no sense. Fossil fuels generate the terrible local pollution that blights cities in China and India. And most of the benefits of the subsidies are captured by the middle class, not the poor, writes Overseas Dev't Inst (UK) exec dir

Immigration, wages, and jobs, World Bank (blog), by G Lopez-Acevedo, Feb '13:
A hot topic these days is about which types of immigration policies make sense for a gov't as a whole even if some specific groups lose out in the process. Harvard's George Borjas, a leading immigration and labor expert, argues that economists can't offer a universal solution (5 things economists know about immigration, WashPost [blog])

Cofee/Tea Room: Brand lessons from the Nobel Prize, Harvard Univ, 3 Nov 14:
Countless brilliant academics harbor hopes of someday winning a Nobel Prize, arguably the world's most prestigious award. But two renowned branding professors are interested in understanding what makes everyone covet the prize in the 1st place. For that, they did a study of the Nobel Prize from a brand and reputation perspective

Posted on Wed, 19 Nov 14:

International development is broken. Here are two ways to fix it, New Republic, by M Hobbes, 18 Nov 14:
I am excited about dev't projects that meet, at least partially, our outsize expectations of them. Here are two such ideas and why I think projects like these are the future of dev't. I like them because one of them says, either help us or go home. The other says, if you're going to be here, know the problems and whether what you're doing is solving it

David Armitage: Why politicians need historians, Guardian, 7 Oct 14:
Few policy makers today seem interested in lessons from the past. Their short-termism will fail to tackle the new 'megatrends'. Their motto should perhaps be the line from a fmr French PM: to govern is to foresee. Better advice would be Winston Churchill's: "The longer you can look back, the further you can look forward," writes Harvard history prof / co-author of The History Manifesto (2014)

Prospects for growth - Q&A with Nobel Laureate '87 Robert Solow, McKinsey Quarterly, by M Baily, Sep-Nov '14:
More than 50 years have passed since Solow published the path-breaking model of econ growth which proposed that growth occurred not solely from the accumulation of capital and increase in labor, as previously theorized, but also from what he called 'technological progress' -- a term which encompasses advances in tech, as well as in management and organizational techniques

Posted on Mon, 17 Nov 14:

Carothers and Brechenmacher: The four magic words of development, Oxfam (blog), 6 Nov 14 [via Carnegie Endow.]:
If you are about to visit an organization engaged in int'l dev't assistance and are unsure of the reception you will receive, a surefire way exists to win over your hosts: tell them you believe that 4 principles are crucial for dev't. Your hosts will almost certainly nod enthusiastically and declare that their org in fact prioritizes these very concepts, write Carnegie vice-pres; and Tufts U prof

Most prosperous nation is Norway, Central African Rep. is least - index, Legatum Inst/UK, 3 Nov 14:
The 2014 Prosperity Index indicates that the 3 most prosperous nations are Norway, Switzerland, and New Zealand. The index is unique in defining prosperity as a combination of wealth and well-being. It measures a set of 8 categories that reveal how nations perform both economically and in education, health, personal freedom, safety and security and entrepreneurship

C-suite/Boardroom: Seeing what leaders miss, Harvard Univ, 7 Aug 14:
Although they may seem dissimilar at 1st glance, crises like the Catholic Church clergy sex-abuse scandal, investor Bernie Madoff 's multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme, and the '08 global financial meltdown all have at least one thing in common: for years, some very smart people failed to notice or act on critical information that could have limited the damage

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