"China’s economic policymakers want to shift the country’s production away from exports and heavy industry, and to increase the share of consumption in GDP. A relatively simple institutional change to encourage health-care insurance could do much to promote the latter goal," writes Martin Feldstein.

"Public pension programs around the world are in financial trouble. Because of continuing increases in life expectancy," writes Martin Feldstein, "the number of eligible retirees is rising more rapidly than the tax revenue available to finance benefits."

The near-term outlook for the US economy has improved, owing to the sharp increase in household wealth in 2013, together with the end of the fiscal drag caused by the increase in tax rates in 2012. The United States now has a chance to raise real (inflation-adjusted) per capita GDP faster than the feeble 1.7% average rate recorded during the four years since growth resumed in the summer of 2009.

For the past six years, I have been sceptical about the standard optimistic forecasts of the pace of the United States' economic growth in the year ahead. Where most forecasters and policy officials saw green shoots and reasons for confidence, I saw strong headwinds that would cause an economic downturn and then a subpar recovery.

But I think the evidence for 2014 is more balanced. Although there are serious risks facing the US economy in the coming year, there is also a good chance that growth will be substantially stronger than it has been since before the recession began.

President Obama declared last week that "it's well past the time to raise [the] minimum wage." Demonstrators at fast-food restaurants in several cities also demanded a higher wage. But hiking the minimum wage is not the right policy to alleviate poverty. A better approach would be to integrate the existing minimum wage with current welfare transfer payments. This would lead to higher incomes for low-wage workers and increased employment.

THE Federal Reserve is pursuing a very risky monetary policy, writes Martin Feldstein. "Its leaders — the departing chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and the vice chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, whom President Obama has nominated to succeed him — are correct that the American economy needs more stimulus, and they believe that the central bank, because of political paralysis, is the only game in town. But if Congress and the Obama administration could agree on a fiscal stimulus that goes beyond a short-term budget deal, the Fed would not have to take such risks."

Recently, newspaper headlines declared that Greece would have a balanced budget for 2013 as a whole. The news came as quite a shock: Recall that when Greek officials came clean about the true state of their country’s public finances in 2010, the budget deficit was more than 10% of GDP – a moment of statistical honesty that triggered the eurozone debt crisis. It seemed too good to be true that the Greek deficit would be completely eliminated in just three years.

Obamacare, officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is the health-insurance program enacted by US President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats over the unanimous opposition of congressional Republicans. It was designed to cover those Americans without private or public health insurance – about 15% of the US population.

Global financial markets were stunned when the US Federal Reserve announced on September 18 that it was not ready to begin the widely anticipated reduction in the pace of its “quantitative easing” (QE) program. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the Fed would continue its monthly purchases of $85 billion of long-term securities. Understanding the reasons for the Fed’s unexpected change of plans may help to anticipate what is coming next.

The US Federal Reserve’s decision last week to delay the start of its so-called “tapering” has confused investors about the reliability of its forward guidance. It has also created a trap that will make it difficult to start the tapering programme in the future unless the Fed changes its basic approach.