The reality is China’s official urban unemployment rate has long been a near-worthless measure. Even during the global financial crisis in 2009, when tens of millions of workers in China’s export factories lost their jobs, the official rate barely stirred, and it has been moving between just under 4 percent and 4.3 percent for most […]
Southeast Asia, so long a byway of the world economy, has become a well-worn path for foreign investors seeking refuge from the continuing after-effects of the global financial crisis. They have come because the region has been surging ahead over the last few years, even as the West slumped, China readjusted and India stuttered. Read […]
Six years ago, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao cautioned that China’s economy is “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable.” China has since doubled down on the economic model that prompted his concern. Mr. Wen spoke out in an attempt to change the course of an economy dangerously dependent on one lever to generate growth: heavy investment in the […]
Timothy Geithner took over as Treasury Secretary in the middle of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. In four years, he helped design the largest government stimulus package in history, and contended with a weak recovery, millions of Americans losing their homes, obstinately high unemployment and complicated budget negotiations. To his fans, he […]
U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is calling it a day. So is Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, the $418 billion effort to rescue banks, automakers and other companies during the financial crisis. In announcing its intention to complete the sale of the remaining shares it owned in General Motors Co. (GM), American International Group Inc. (AIG) and 218 smaller banks, Treasury is essentially […]
Malaysia’s economic performance does not make headlines like it used to, but that does not mean that the economy is not still chugging along nicely. In fact, with the exception of difficult periods following major shocks such as the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, Malaysian GDP growth has performed well over the last decade, averaging about […]
looking beyond borders 