World Economy

The World is Flat! China is the Future! America is Finished! Many of our most celebrated econopundits traffic in such oversimplified, sensationalized rhetoric, especially in times of market turmoil and economic uncertainty. But the global economy is too complicated for slogans. Which is one reason why Michael Spence 's new book is so refreshing. Spence, who shared the Nobel Prize in economics with Joseph Stiglitz in 2001, has systematically investigated the origins...

MADRID — A Dutch sociologist has been awarded Spain's Prince of Asturias social sciences prize for her work in the field of globalization and urban sociology. The jury said that one of Saskia Sassen's greatest scientific contributions was "her concept of the ‘global city', now accepted and used worldwide. " The concept describes cities that are centers of the world economy. Sassen, a professor at Columbia University, was born in the Hague in 1949, obtained her PhD from Notre...

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. " — L.P. Hartley, English novelist It must now be obvious that, economically speaking , we're in another country. Things we once took for granted no longer apply; things we never imagined occur all the time. We've entered a zone of ignorance where familiar experience and ideas count for less. "Thirty years ago, if you'd said that the United States and Europe were going to be the centers of financial crises, people would have thought you were...

UNITED NATIONS — Brazilian Ambassador Roberto Azevedo won approval Tuesday as the next director-general of the U.N. World Trade Organization and will become the first Latin American to hold the top trade post when he takes over on Sept. 1. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed Azevedo's endorsement by the WTO General Council, calling his selection "important and timely at this critical juncture in the world economy. " Azevedo won consensus support from the organization's 159 members on...

There was something fitting about Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's reckless call for a referendum on the latest rescue package for his country. World leaders gathering in Cannes for a Group of 20 summit face stark realities. The global economy is faltering, and no country has assumed leadership in organizing recovery. There is a loss of control, a vacuum of power. Papandreou's disruptive decision — now apparently withdrawn — symbolizes this larger erosion of collective purpose.

OSAKA, Japan , June 14 -- Finance ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations urged oil producers Saturday to boost output to help stabilize record-high oil and food prices, calling the situation a serious threat to global economic growth. The world economy faces "headwinds" because of the recent rise in prices, the G-8 ministers said in a joint statement at the conclusion of two days of talks here. "Elevated commodity prices, especially of oil and food, pose a serious challenge...

UNITED NATIONS — Brazilian Ambassador Roberto Azevedo won approval Tuesday as the next director-general of the U.N. World Trade Organization and will become the first Latin American to hold the top trade post when he takes over on Sept. 1. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed Azevedo's endorsement by the WTO General Council, calling his selection "important and timely at this critical juncture in the world economy. " Azevedo won consensus support from the...

Japan plans to flood its economy with freshly printed yen in coming months in an effort to shock one of the world's major industrial powers out of a 20-year-old stupor. The impact of an unexpectedly ambitious move by the Bank of Japan on Thursday could course quickly through the world economy, pulling down the value of Japan's currency and with it the prices of the cars, electronics and other goods the country sells worldwide. That could mean a larger U.S. trade deficit with...

SAO PAULO — When the Brazilian economy began to stall last year, officials in Latin America's largest country started pulling pages from the playbook of another major developing nation: China. They hiked tariffs on dozens of industrial products, limited imports of auto parts, and capped how many automobiles could come into the country from Mexico — an indirect slap at the U.S. companies that assemble many vehicles there. A large state-funded bank grew larger, steering cheap money to projects that rely on locally...

What's the world's greatest moral challenge, as judged by its capacity to inflict human tragedy? It is not, I think, global warming, whose effects -- if they become as grim as predicted -- will occur over many years and provide societies time to adapt. A case can be made for preventing nuclear proliferation, which threatens untold deaths and a collapse of the world economy. But the most urgent present moral challenge, I submit, is the most obvious: global poverty. There are roughly 6 billion people on the planet; in 2004, perhaps 2.5...

AYLESBURY, England — Finance leaders from the Group of Seven leading industrial economies say Japan's stimulus policies are directed at boosting its economy out of a two-decade period of stagnation, not an attempt to drive down its currency to make Japan's exports more competitive. At the conclusion of a two-day meeting of leading financial representatives from the G-7 countries — the U.S., Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada and the U.K. — host British Treasury chief George Osborne said...

TOKYO — International Monetary Fund officials say they are watching carefully for signs that massive flows of cash unleashed in world markets by unprecedented monetary easing might lead to asset bubbles, or to overheating in some emerging markets. "There is a risk of overheating of domestic economies, so we have to pay close attention to this risk," said IMF Deputy Managing Director Naoyuki Shinohara. "There are some warning signals, but it is not up to the level to...

AYLESBURY, England — Financial leaders from the world's top seven developed economies are gathering in the U.K. to discuss how to shore up the global recovery just as the stimulus measures of one its members, Japan, has caused its currency to take a dramatic slide. Supporting the global economy and the role of central banks are set to be the key points of this weekend's discussions among financial ministers and officials from the Group of Seven countries — the U.S., Germany, Japan, the...

Leading global financial officials on Saturday pledged faster action to boost growth and job creation in the developed world, amid deepening concern that advanced nations have become too reliant on cheap money and loose central bank policies to sustain their economies. The 24 members of the International Monetary and Financial Committee, a collection of finance ministers and other top officials who oversee the International Monetary Fund, had "a meeting of the minds" that the...

Topic A, the core agenda for world leaders, has become clear: how to fill the economic middle with jobs that can put Europe back to work, get incomes climbing in the United States and absorb a bulge of young people in parts of Asia and the developing world. But deep into the world's financial crisis response, and as officials wrap up annual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, there is no consensus on how to proceed. Europe remains locked in a feud over more...

The world economy has maintained strength over the past six months, but Europe remains a weak spot with even France now facing a troubling decline, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday in its latest global economic forecast. The IMF outlined what it has termed a "three speed recovery," with developing nations growing smartly, the United States gathering momentum and Europe lagging with serious risks still surrounding the 17-nation euro currency union. Developing nations are...

Facing high unemployment and a difficult economy, most Americans think the United States will have a smaller role in the world economy in the coming years, and many believe that while the 20th century may have been the "American Century," the 21st century will belong to China . These results come from a new Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted during a time of significant tension between Washington and Beijing. "China's on the rise," said Wayne Nunnery, 56, a retired U.S. Air Force employee from...

Plenty of investors have abandoned Europe over the past couple of years, but one of the more telling examples came on Friday from the far north when Norway's public pension fund reported that it was basically ditching France in favor of the Washington property market. The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global , a sovereign wealth fund that provides an unusual level of public disclosure about its operations, said its European holdings have dipped below 50 percent of its total...

BERLIN — Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on Tuesday played down differences in their views on whether to focus more on growth or austerity in lifting Europe's economy, but deep divides between the two remained. On the second day of his trip to Europe, Lew met with Schaeuble, the architect of Germany's response to the financial crisis buffeting the continent, and argued that more must be done to encourage economic growth. Germany has acknowledged the need to do more to...

Japan plans to flood its economy with freshly printed yen in coming months in an effort to shock one of the world's major industrial powers out of a 20-year-old stupor. The impact of an unexpectedly ambitious move by the Bank of Japan on Thursday could course quickly through the world economy, pulling down the value of Japan's currency and with it the prices of the cars, electronics and other goods the country sells worldwide. That could mean a larger U.S. trade deficit...