Tag "china"

Back to homepage

Otaviano Canuto, IMF: What Happened to World Trade?

World trade suffered another disappointing year in 2015, experiencing a contraction in merchandise trade volumes during the first half and only a low recovery during the second half (Figure 1). While last year’s trade performance can be associated to the

Read More

Ann Low, US Department of State: Good Corporate Governance is Good Business

OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises. Over the past decade, cross-border trade and investment by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has surged. According to the OECD, whereas in 2005, there were only three SOEs in the Fortune Global 50 list

Read More

Energy for the Masses: Raiders of the Lost Promise – The Holy Grail of Nuclear Fusion

All You Ever Wanted to Know about Stellarators and Tokamaks The vast amounts of energy released by splitting the atom has enabled scientists to produce both nuclear power and nuclear weapons, demonstrating that mankind’s amazing technical and creative ingenuity is

Read More

Grant Thornton Hong Kong: M&A – Cultural Alignment for Successful Integration

Too often companies put together look great on paper but are fraught with management and structural problems that end up turning deals into busts. Acquiring companies often underestimate the problems that different corporate cultures can inflict on a merger. In fact,

Read More

Michael Pettis: Money Is Not Created Out of Thin Air

A recurring conversation I have with clients concerns the ability of banks to create credit, and of governments to monetise debt, and whether this ability is the solution to or the cause of financial instability and economic crisis. Monetarists and structuralists

Read More

Otaviano Canuto, IMF: Whither Emerging Markets Foreign Exchange Reserves

After a exponential rise in foreign exchange reserves accumulation by emerging markets from 2000 onwards, the tide seems to have turned south since mid-2014. Changes in capital flows and commodity prices have been major factors behind the inflection, with the

Read More

From the editor: The Art of the Doomsayer – Crisis? What Crisis?

Just as a broken watch still tells the right time twice a day, the persistent doomsayer will eventually be vindicated. In the financial world, entire reputations are built on predicting recessions, if not depressions: keep it up long enough and

Read More

Michael Pettis: China – What the New Currency Regime Means and How It Affects the World

On Tuesday, August 18, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) surprised the markets with a partial relaxing of the currency regime, prompting a great deal of discussion and debate about the value of the renminbi (RMB). Part of the discussion

Read More

BRIC-à-Brac: Requiem for a Wishful Thought

In the end, it may have been nothing more than a flash in the pan. Unable to fulfil the promise of a new world order, the BRICS countries have largely ceased to be of note. With sputtering economies and political

Read More

Dambisa Moyo: Looking From a Unique Angle

Growing up in Zambia, amid a failing economy where prospects were far from plentiful, Dambisa Moyo was constantly told that she would not be able to achieve anything. But when her dream of being educated at places like Harvard or

Read More