News and Analysis: 17-31 Mar 2017 | EmergingFrontierMarkets.com

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Posted on Fri, 31 Mar 2017:

Martin Feldstein: The risks to America's booming economy, Project Syndicate, 29 Mar 17 [via Harvard]:
After a long and slow recovery from the recession that began a decade ago, the US economy is now booming. The labor market is at full employment and households are optimistic. But, although the economy currently is healthy, it is also fragile, writes Pres Reagan's Council Econ Advisers chair

Christopher Blattman: Bill Gates wants to give the poor chickens. What they need is cash, Vox, 14 Mar 17:
Dear Bill, You and Melinda released recently your famous annual letter on global devt. I'm always a fan, but I kept thinking: "Where's the poultry?" You did talk a lot in '16 about how chickens can solve world poverty, saying: "It's the classic thing of teaching someone how to fish," writes U Chicago economist

Indermit Gill: How to end poverty? Give the poor cash and access to mobile money – not, Brookings Inst (blog), 06 Feb 17:
One of my assignments at the World Bank was to come up with a blueprint for ending extreme poverty by 2030. We found that it would need a lot more than giving the poor cash or access to mobile money, or training people to visit the poor with meds, writes Duke Univ Ctr Intl Devt dir

Posted on Wed, 29 Mar 2017:

Baldwin, Collier and Venables: UK's post-Brexit trade and development policy, VoxEU, 29 Mar 17:
UK now has an opportunity to rethink its trade policy with respect to developing nations in a way that would demonstrate Britain's global leadership in the trade and developmentt arenas, write Graduate Inst (Geneva) and Univ Oxford economists

Competing with the Chinese factory of 2017, MIT Technology Review, 16 Mar 17:
Now that China is the hub of so many technologies, from cell phones to drones and solar panels, how do US factories compare? Harvard biz prof Willy Shih has visited China many times, and in Jan he returned from touring its manufacturing center. He spoke to us about what he saw

India's Bangalore and China's Shenzhen - hotspots for entrepreneurs, Harvard (blog), by T Khanna: 05 July 16:
I've just immersed myself during the past month in the dense entrepreneurial hotspots of Shenzhen and Bangalore, so I thought I’d offer some comparisons on the extent of govt support, the role of science, and the sorting of human capital in China and India, writes Harvard biz prof

Posted on Mon, 27 Mar 2017:

Long-term interest rates overrated as signposts for future growth, inflation - BIS adviser, Bank Intl Settlements, 03 Mar 17:
Very low yields on long-term govt bonds may not necessarily signal prolonged future stagnation and deflation, says BIS research head Hyun Song Shin. The findings hold lessons for econ commentators and central bankers who closely monitor long-term bond yields

India - strong growth has raised incomes and reduced poverty, but challenges remain, OECD, 28 Feb 17:
The Indian economy is expanding at a fast pace, boosting living standards and reducing poverty nationwide. Further reforms are now necessary to maintain strong growth and ensure that all Indians benefit from it, acc. to the latest OECD econ survey of India

Captain Blackbeard explains Economics, Suddeutsche Zeitung, 06 Sep 16 (trans. from German) [PDF, via CoreEcon]:
As a pirate on board the "Rover" in the early 18th century, you could count yourself lucky. Like most pirate ships at the time, the ship had a constitution that guaranteed crew members having their say, and it prevented an overly unequal distribution of the treasures obtained

Posted on Fri, 24 Mar 2017:

Prediction in uncertain times - Lessons from Trump and Brexit, Boston Consult. Group, by Reeves & Ueda, 23 Mar 17:
Brexit and Trump serve to remind us that data and analytics can just as easily lead us astray. It’s certainly been a chastening time for data-driven forecasters. We see four main lessons for biz leaders, write BCG senior partner; and consultant

World's most marginalized still left behind by global development priorities – report, UNDP, 21 Mar 17:
One in three people worldwide continue to live in low levels of human development, acc. to the Human Devt Index. More than 250 mil. people face discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity. And in 100 nations, women are legally excluded from some jobs because of their gender

Lee Jong-Wha: The China-South Korea trade war must end, Project Syndicate, 24 Mar 17 [via Ceylon Today]:
S.Korea has decided to deploy a US missile-defense system vs N.Korea, and China is furious. Chinese leaders worry that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system will undermine its national security, writes fmr Asian Devt Bank chief economist

Posted on Wed, 22 Mar 2017:

Does the US interest rate rise mean trouble for emerging markets? Depends on your timeframe, Ctr Global Devt (blog), 16 Mar 17:
In the short run. there is going to be very little impact on emerging markets mainly because this has been fully anticipated. But in the medium to long term, a problem may loom for emerging markets. What should these economies do?, asks Ctr senior fellow

China - time to focus on financial risks and structural reform, OECD, 21 Mar 17:
As China's economy matures to a slower but more sustainable growth path, a new report recommends continued efforts to rebalance the economy from investment to consumption, and to address key risks including high corporate debt, excess industrial capacity and inflated housing prices

Power nap cubicle: Why sleep matters - Quantifying the economic costs of insufficient sleep, Rand, 30 Nov 16:
For years it has been known that insufficient sleep impacts individuals' health and wellbeing. Despite this, getting enough sleep is not a priority for many people. At the same time, companies are unlikely to make the sleep welfare of their employees a top biz priority

Posted on Mon, 20 Mar 2017:

Kevin Carmichael: G20 surrender changes everything, Ctr Intl Governance Innovation (blog), 19 Mar 17:
The German hosts reportedly made strenuous efforts to get Treas Secy Mnuchin to back the G20's long-standing pledge to resist protectionism. Given Trump's promise to rewrite trade agreements, perhaps that was too much to expect, writes fmr Globe and Mail biz journalist

Wolfgang Schauble: Embracing fair globalization, Die Zeit, 02 Mar 17 [courtesy Finance Ministry]:
The answer to the global challenges of our time is not for countries to go it alone, and scaling back international cooperation and intergovernmental agreements is certainly not a solution either, writes German finance minister

Fmr UK PM Cameron to chair new LSE-Oxford commission on fragile states, London School Economics, 02 Mar 17:
Fragility is a distinctive phenomenon that calls for distinctive policy approaches. It has been under-researched, and what is known from research has not been used effectively. The goal of the commission is to guide policy on econ growth in fragile and conflict situations

Posted on Fri, 17 Mar 2017:

G20 finance heads to repeat forex assurances, no deal yet on rejecting protectionism, Reuters, 17 Mar 17 [via Y Fin]:
The world's financial leaders will renounce competitive devaluations and warn against exchange rate volatility, but they have not yet found a common stance on trade and protectionism, a draft statement of their meeting in Germany showed on Fri

America's two-track economy, MIT News, 13 Mar 17:
"We have a fractured society, and the middle class is vanishing," says Peter Temin, a leading econ historian. He draws the term "dual economy" in his book's title from the work of 1979 Nobel Prize Laureate Arthur Lewis, who in the '50s applied the model of a dual economy to developing nations

Nicholas Crafts: Whither economic growth?, Finance & Development, Mar ’17:
Global optimism about the so-called new economy may have been replaced by the fear of long-term stagnation, but declining productivity growth was apparent long before the crisis struck, writes U Warwick economic historian

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