 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Sign up to receive automatic updates to RealTime Economic Issues Watch.
A website forum in which senior fellows of the Peterson Institute for International Economics discuss and debate their responses to global economic and financial developments as they occur each day and offer insights that others might overlook.
There will be an eerie familiarity to this weekend’s G-20 meetings. Disagreements between the United States and Europe on two important issues—macroeconomic policy, and specifically the timing of withdrawal of policy support, and financial regulation—will characterize these meetings. Resolution of these issues seems unlikely. The verdict will be that [...]
India has just implemented a policy coup. In arguably its most important policy reform over its two stints in office, the Congress-led Indian government announced a major package of deregulation of its petroleum pricing regime, which would reduce substantially consumer subsidies in this area. The reform covers four products: petrol, diesel, [...]
Last weekend’s announcement by China to introduce greater exchange rate flexibility is unambiguously good news. Greater currency flexibility will help China with its domestic overheating problem. But China deserves a lot of credit for its act of responsible international citizenship, for making its contribution to global rebalancing. Two implications follow.
First, [...]
When China decided last weekend to “relax” its dollar exchange rate policy, at least rhetorically, much drama-seeking media attention instead shifted to the next likeliest flashpoint at the coming G-20 Summit, namely the alleged transatlantic crisis over fiscal policies.
On this side, as expressed in his letter to the G-20 leaders, President Obama is “concerned by [...]
The G-20 leaders meet again in Toronto on June 26–27 and hopefully will make progress on reform of the International Monetary Fund and other issues of global economic governance. But on one distinctive part of their agenda, financial regulation, achievements so far are less impressive than the initial ambition.
At [...]