Author Archives: jfrankel

The World Economy in 2015

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I am posting in three parts the results of an interview on the year-end outlook.  (The questions come from Chosun Daily, leading Korean newspaper. The interview is to be published there in January.)

Part 1. The Global Economy in 2015

Q: Around this time next year, which countries do you predict will be the winners, and which will be the losers of the year?

A: The big gainers will be oil-importing economies, particularly China, India and other Asian countries.

Russia will be the big loser. It has now become clear to all how fragile and vulnerable the Russian economy was, especially with respect to world oil prices. It is easy to forget that commentators a few months ago were declaring Russia less vulnerable to Ukraine-related sanctions than Western Europe. Before that, they were judging the $50 billion 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi a triumph. read more

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Why Are So Many Commodity Prices Down in the US… Yet Up in Europe?

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Oil prices plummeted 43% during the course of 2014 – good news for oil-importing countries, but bad news for Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and other oil exporters. Some attribute the price drop to the US shale-energy boom. Others cite OPEC’s failure to agree on supply restrictions.

But that is not the whole story. The price of iron ore is down, too. So are gold, silver, and platinum prices. And the same is true of sugar, cotton, and soybean prices. In fact, most dollar commodity prices have fallen since the beginning of the year. Though a host of sector-specific factors affect the price of each commodity, the fact that the downswing is so broadly shared – as is often the case with big price swings – suggests that macroeconomic factors are at work. read more

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8 Policy Recommendations for Newly Elected Members of Congress

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On December 3, 2014, I participated in a panel of Harvard University’s Bipartisan  Program  for  Newly Elected Members of Congress.   After establishing that the median US household has not shared in recent strong economic gains, I went on to consider policy remedies.

I offered the Congressmen eight policy recommendations.  Some will sound popular, some very unpopular; some associated with “liberals”, some with “conservatives.”   I would claim that they all have in common heavy support from economists, regardless of party – even the very unpopular ones. read more

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