Economics & Global Affairs

473 Items

Servers keep digital currency transactions flowing at light-speed in Ashburn, Va., outside Washington, where Visa has built one of the world's most advanced processing networks, Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2010.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Policy Brief

Central Bank Digital Currencies: Tools for an Inclusive Future?

| September 2020

In this brief, we outline the common motivations driving central bank work on CBDCs. We then explore CBDCs’ potential impacts on financial inclusion, a primary motivation in developing and emerging markets that has also gained significant traction in developed economies during the COVID-19 related global recession. We conclude that for CBDCs to achieve its financial inclusion goals, more technical advancement in offline adaptability and policy deliberations around issues of identity and traceability are needed. 
 

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Analysis & Opinions - Bloomberg Opinion

After Oil: Throwing Money at Green Energy Isn’t Enough

| Sep. 17, 2020

The geopolitical and geo-economic forces wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, as examined previously in this series, are likely to slow the transition to a more sustainable global energy mix. Fortunately, the pandemic has also resulted in governments gaining vastly greater influence over whether this shift stalls or accelerates.

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Analysis & Opinions - Bloomberg Opinion

Pandemic Is Hurting, Not Helping, Green Energy

| Sep. 16, 2020

For most people, there was nothing to celebrate when the International Monetary Fund downgraded its outlook for global economic growth in June, anticipating a contraction of 4.9% for 2020. Yet for others, such as the small but persistent group of economists and others known as the degrowth movement,” the Covid-induced economic slowdown has a silver lining.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

The Significance of Gold’s Record $2,000 Price

| Aug. 24, 2020

The price of gold reached an all-time record high of $2,000 per ounce this month.  Mainstream economic thinking has treated gold as a side-show since the world went off the gold standard. Nevertheless, the recent spiking in the price signals some important trends. It is not merely “sound and fury signifying nothing,” as sometimes seems true of financial markets.

There are three ready explanations for the historic increase in the price of gold: (i) monetary policy, (ii) risk, and (iii) a spreading desire for an alternative to the dollar as a safe haven.  Each of these explanations contains some truth.

Different Swedish bank notes and coins.

Sven-Erik Johansson/AP

Analysis & Opinions - Telos

Post COVID-19 Economy: State Capitalism with Expiration Date

| June 25, 2020

As economies begin to orient themselves towards recovery and growth in a post-COVID-19 era, they will first need to disentangle themselves from their prior bedfellows, the state, whose courtship was necessary for survival during the pandemic.  Such bedfellow relationships have become increasingly common as government intervention is urgently needed for economic stabilization. Governments have also embraced their new role with vigor. According to the IMF, as of April 2020, countries have committed around $8 trillion to combat the pandemic and to remedy its ill effects on economies and societies. Decisions about how this money will be spent will undoubtedly recalibrate the logic of capitalism for years to come. 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a press briefing at the State Department on Wednesday, May 20, 2020, in Washington.

Nicholas Kamm/Pool Photo via AP

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

Pompeo’s ‘Madison Dinners’ Aren’t Scandalous. I Went to One.

| May 26, 2020

When assessing the Trump administration, let’s make sure that our outrage meters are well-calibrated, so that we don’t waste time on trivial topics. A case in point is the recent uproar over the “Madison Dinners” held by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife, Susan.

A photo of the Bundesverfassungsgericht ("Federal Constitutional Court") in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Flickr/Al Fed

Policy Brief

Pushing the EU to a Hamiltonian Moment: Germany’s Court Ruling and the Need to Build a Fiscal Capacity Force a Constitutional Debate

May 20, 2020

The recent ruling of the German Constitutional Court on the ECB was an economic and political bombshell. The deep controversy that resulted – within Germany and on a European scale – illustrates that the ambiguity surrounding the euro area’s legal order and architecture may have reached its limit.