(9/7/2015) It is tempting to view economic events in China through a single template: the view that they are driven by government intervention because the authorities haven’t learned to let the market operate.
(8/10/2015) World oil prices have been highly volatile during the last decade. Over the past year they have fallen more than 50%.
Should we root for prices to go up, down, or stay the same?
(8/2/1015) The plunge of China’s stock market that has taken place since June 2015 has received a lot of attention. All the commentary says not only that the Chinese authorities have taken a variety of artificial measures to try to boost the market on the way down but also that they did the same during the huge run-up in stock prices between mid-2014 and mid-2015, when the Shanghai stock exchange composite index more than doubled. The finger-wagging implications are that the Chinese authorities, particularly the stock market regulator, have not learned how to let the market operate and that they had only themselves to blame for the bubble in the first place.