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When Even Warren Buffett Is Clueless
You can bet on America, says Warren Buffett, before admitting that even he does not know what comes next. The phrase that defined this years’ Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting was ‘I don’t know’. One of the world’s wealthiest self-made men
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Sell in May and Go Away
First the good news: The S&P 500 just finished its best month since January 1987 with a gain of 12.7 percent in April. Now for the bad news: The bellwether index is still some 16 percent down from the all-time
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The Primacy of Politics Returns
A celebrated political economist who received fifteen years of fame for identifying the housing bubble and predicting banking crisis of 2008-9 now seems to have lost hope. In a recent article, Nouriel Roubini presents ten reasons why he thinks the
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European Commission Warns Banks
There is money in the bank – and that is where it mostly stays. The credit facilities that are meant to help households and businesses finically survive the pandemic are being approved at an alarmingly relaxed rate by banks struggling
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Otaviano Canuto: Channels of Transmission of Coronavirus to Developing Economies from Abroad
In a previous article, we highlighted how developing economies have faced simultaneous shocks from their external environment, as pandemic and recession curves have unfolded abroad (Canuto, 2020a). In addition to financial shocks, there have been declines in remittances, tourism receipts, and commodity
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The Reassertion of National Self-Interest
The Great Society is making a comeback with Big Brother possibly in attendance. After a decades-long retreat from public life, the state is firmly back in control of society – and the economy. Private interests, sacrosanct until weeks ago, no
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Turbulence in African Skies
Not all airlines are dropping like flies. Whilst Ethiopian Airlines suffered a loss of about $550 million in the first four months of the year and was forced to ground airplanes and furlough workers, the company moved quickly to expand
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Robed Culprits and the Struggles of Corporate America
Blame the US Supreme Court. The oftentimes maddingly short-sighted behaviour of Corporate America does not necessarily spring from the narcissism of CEOs but stems from unambiguous case law. Almost invariably, US courts have upheld, clarified, and tightened the fiduciary duty
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Waterloo or Austerlitz: EU Nears Moment of Truth
The European Union approaches a now-or-never moment when leaders of the 27-strong bloc meet in a video conference to discuss ways out of the pandemic quagmire that bogs down the continent’s economy and threatens to escalate the present recession into
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Tinkering with a Spanish Proposal
It is an idea that just refuses to die. Mere days after a Dutch-led cabal of northern Eurozone finance ministers swept the concept of debt mutualisation off the negotiating table, the prime minister of Spain ups the ante by proposing
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