The World Bank’s Doing Business rankings rate countries on the complexity and time taken to follow the official steps to set up and run a company. It may sound like a banal process, but the ranking has sparked a bitter international argument. Read Here – Businessweek
Who do they think they are, these upstart economies, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa? That might sum up the feeling in the U.S., Europe and Japan as the BRICS nations consider a new development bank that might challenge the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The move brings to mind Alice Amsden, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who died last […]
If this week’s BRICS summit in Durban, South Africa, passed you by, we don’t blame you. The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa met, as they do once a year, to advance their common interests. They found, as they do once a year, that they don’t have many, so not much happened. […]
The five countries known as the BRICS have 43 percent of the world’s population, $4.4 trillion in currency reserves, and generally healthier economic growth than Europe and the U.S. Yet to their frustration, Americans and Europeans still dominate policymaking at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Should the five—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and […]
Today, three European countries are among the world’s seven largest economies. Ten years from now, only two will remain. By 2030, only Germany will still be on the list, and by 2050, none will remain. Indeed, by then, the United States will be the only representative of the West in the top seven. Read Here […]
The World Bank cut its global growth forecast for this year as austerity measures, high unemployment and low business confidence weigh on economies in developed nations. The Washington-based bank projects the world economy will expand 2.4 percent, down from a June forecast of 3 percent, after growing 2.3 percent in 2012. It halved its forecast for Japan, cut […]
In his new book, “The Great Convergence: Asia, the West and the Logic of One World,” Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, at last rises to the challenge. In a way, it is no surprise that a former UN ambassador from one of the smallest countries in Asia has the largest vision. […]
The International Monetary Fund has rethought its doctrine on capital controls. The IMF, which previously favored unfettered flows of money across borders, now accepts that controls are sometimes necessary. This is a real improvement, yet it’s incomplete because it lacks a mechanism for supervision and enforcement. The fund can’t rectify that omission by itself. Member governments can and should. […]
There is reason to believe that the global economy will have to navigate troubled waters till 2015, since the Eurozone is now in recession and the crisis will take time to abate. Europe has made several important moves since December 2011, by injecting some essential liquidity in the system. But it is necessary to understand […]
WHEN Superstorm Sandy roared ashore in late October and the lights of lower Manhattan went out, New Yorkers were given a stark vision of a possible future. Climate-change science is still a realm of great uncertainty but there is consensus that the planet is warming dangerously and that people are to blame. A recent report […]
looking beyond borders 