Throughout history, pandemics have led to an expansion of the power of the state. As the Black Death spread across Europe in 1348, the authorities in Venice closed the city’s port to vessels coming from plague-infested areas and forced all travelers into 30 days of isolation, which eventually became 40 days; hence the word quarantine. Read […]
Until the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of nationalist and populist forces seemed inexorable, threatening to deal a fatal blow to rules-based multilateralism. Could the current global crisis spur a new wave of international cooperation of the sort that emerged after World War II? Read Here – Project Syndicate
Like the Sept. 11 attacks and the Great Recession, the coronavirus pandemic is an economic and geopolitical shock that will remain vivid in our minds long after it passes. But it is something more: Coronavirus is the historical marker between the first phase of globalisation and the second. Read Here – BloombergOpinion
The main (perhaps even the sole) objective of economic policy today should be to prevent social breakdown. Advanced societies must not allow economics, particularly the fortunes of financial markets, to blind them to the fact that the most important role economic policy can play now is to keep social bonds strong under this extraordinary pressure. […]
As the full implications of the COVID-19 pandemic have slowly become clear, private liquidity has begun to drain out of global markets. As a result, the record-high level of dollar-denominated debt held by non-banking entities outside of the United States has become a problem that central banks simply cannot ignore. Read Here – Project Syndicate
In key ways the world is now as or more deeply in debt as it was when the last big crisis hit. But the largest and most risky pools of debt have shifted — from households and banks in the United States, which were restrained by regulators after the crisis, to corporations all over the […]
The new coronavirus is shaping up to be an enormous stress test for globalization. As critical supply chains break down, and nations hoard medical supplies and rush to limit travel, the crisis is forcing a major reevaluation of the interconnected global economy. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
How long the COVID-19 crisis will last, and what its immediate economic costs will be, is anyone’s guess. But even if the pandemic’s economic impact is contained, it may have already set the stage for a debt meltdown long in the making, starting in many of the Asian emerging and developing economies on the front […]
It was a somber Donald Trump who spoke at the White House today to declare a “national emergency” and that “we’re doing a great job.” Gone was his language about exaggerated fears and a “hoax” surrounding the coronavirus. His own daughter, Ivanka, stayed home rather than visit the White House because of her exposure to […]
The combination of a coronavirus-induced growth slowdown and worldwide financial panic means that a global recession this year is virtually certain. But recession might soon be the least of our worries…As long as US President Donald Trump remains in office, it is difficult to envisage any credible international effort to resolve the financial crisis caused […]
looking beyond borders 