(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.
Only Tsipras Can “Go to China”
(7/20/2015) Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, has the chance to play a role for his country analogous to the roles played by Korean President Kim Dae Jung in 1997 and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2002.
Answering the TPA Critics Head-On
(6/17/2015) In recent op-eds and blog-posts I have argued that prospective trade agreements like the TPP (the Trans Pacific Partnership) would be economically beneficial for reasons similar to past trade agreements and that they would have geopolitical benefits too. I have also opposed adding currency manipulation to the trade negotiations.
I am far from alone. Support for giving the White House Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) is shared by most economists, including 14 former chairs of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers. But we supporters have not sufficiently responded to the most common arguments of the critics of the TPA process: a perceived abandonment of democracy and transparency.
