Given long term demographic trends, how can governments manage the increasing cost of retirement savings plans? Perhaps external sovereign bonds, say Carmen Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch.

China has fueled an unprecedented surge in official lending over the past 15 years. The most remarkable feature of this wave of credit, however, is not its size, but its dangerous lack of transparency.

What We Should Have Learned From 2008.

The rates of US economic growth and especially personal saving have been higher than previously believed, according to revised data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. But it's not all good news, because the largest economic imbalances remain unchanged.

Empirical relationships in economics are sufficiently fragile that there is even a “law” about their failure. As British economist Charles Goodhart explained in the 1980s, “any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.” Central banks in advanced economies have recently been providing a few more case studies confirming Goodhart’s Law, as they struggle to fulfill their promises to raise inflation to the stable plateau of their numerical targets.

Booms and busts in international capital flows and commodity prices, as well as the vagaries of international interest rates, have long been associated with economic crises, especially – but not exclusively – in emerging markets. The “type” of crisis varies by time and place. Sometimes the “sudden stop” in capital inflows sparks a currency crash, sometimes a banking crisis, and quite often a sovereign default. Twin and triple crises are not uncommon.

The primary focus of this year’s Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which convenes the world’s leading central bankers, was not explicitly monetary policy. Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s opening remarks emphasized the changes in regulatory policy that followed the 2008 global financial crisis, while European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s luncheon address dwelled on the need for continued reforms in Europe to sustain the eurozone’s recent economic recovery.

Earlier this year, the consensus view among economists was that the United States would outstrip its advanced-economy rivals. The expected US growth spurt would be driven by the economic stimulus package described in President Donald Trump’s election campaign. But the most notable positive economic news of 2017 among the developed countries has been coming from Europe.