Author: Choong Yong Ahn, Chung-Ang University

Since the fourth quarter of 2010, the global economy has faced serious uncertainty and a turbulent outlook.

Both the US and Europe have gloomy growth prospects due to a lack of credible medium-term plans for debt reduction in the US and the sovereign debt crisis in southern Europe. Read more…

Author: Bandid Nijathaworn, Thai Bond Market Association

The development of Thailand’s financial sector has been a story of restructuring, adjustment and renewal, following the devastating effects of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s.

The crisis was very costly to the Thai financial system, with an estimated gross fiscal loss equivalent to about 33 per cent of 2006 GDP. Read more…

Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum

As Europe continues its desperate struggle to salvage the euro and monetary union, the spotlight of regional cooperation is shifting to Asia.

In December, European leaders retro-fitted the union with fiscal disciplines which impose binding limits on national budgets and borrowing. All but Britain opted in; the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron argued, was not prepared to yield such fiscal sovereignty. Read more…

Author: Rajiv Kumar, FICCI

For the foreseeable future at least, India will meet the majority of its energy demand with fossil fuels.

Renewable energy does not yet offer effective substitutes for oil in transport and power generation, despite marked improvements in hybrid transport technology and the steep decline of photovoltaic panel prices. Read more…

Author: Arief Ramayandi, ADB

The slow resolution of the European debt crisis has evolved into a liquidity problem which threatens the global financial system.

And these long-drawn-out efforts to address the sovereign debt problems have heightened uncertainties about resolving the crisis and induced speculative activities, threatening the survival of many European banks. Read more…

Author: Wang Yong, Peking University

The upcoming G20 Summit in Cannes will undoubtedly attract the world’s attention, as many look to see whether the G20 can play a positive role in the global economic recovery.

And while searching for an effective solution to the crisis, the world will also focus on China, asking whether it might become a responsible ‘leadership state’ in an emerging global governance structure like the G20. The answer, it seems, is that based on its own interests, China is choosing to become a responsible contributor to global governance and wants to become part of the solution to the current global crisis. Read more…

Author: Shekhar Shah, NCAER, Delhi

We live in troubled times. The Dow has taken several multi-hundred point hits as fears rise and fall on Europe’s debt crisis.

The rising debt crisis has left many seriously doubting the United States’ ability to provide global economic leadership. And the news about the global economy’s slowing down is not good. Read more…

Author: Razeen Sally, ECIPE

The last economic era, roughly from 1980 to 2008, was the most successful combination of globalisation, growth and prosperity in history.

The West benefited, but, more importantly, this was when ‘the Rest’ came on board: ‘underdeveloped countries’ cast off post-colonial isolation and embraced the world economy. Read more…

Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, EAF

The US debt-ceiling deal at the beginning of last month helped send world financial markets into a round of renewed volatility.

The deal significantly increased the probability of a double dip recession and put on display for all to see the contemporary flaws in the American political system. Read more…

Author: Peter Warr, ANU

Since the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98, the countries of East Asia have, in aggregate, run huge annual current account surpluses.

The counterparts of these surpluses, including Europe and the US, have been correspondingly huge current account deficits. Read more…

Author: Wendy Dobson, University of Toronto

With no clear leader and few strong incentives for deep integration, Asian cooperation for the foreseeable future is likely to be intergovernmental, with little pooling of sovereignty to create supranational institutions or agree common rules and disciplines.

As Asia’s weight in the world economy grows, however, its interests will also be served by a strong commitment to global institutions. Read more…

Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, EAF

Rather than restoring confidence in the United States’ setting a course for sustainable recovery from the financial (and policy) failures that precipitated the global financial crisis, the debt-ceiling deal last week has significantly elevated the probability of a double dip American recession and put on display for all to see the contemporary flaws in the American political system.

The antics of the Congressional leadership and the cynical, half-baked nature of the deal that they put in place, has downgraded US economic and political assets around the world. Read more…

Author: Barry Eichengreen, UC Berkeley

How serious is the risk of a double dip recession in the US and Europe? Why did global stock markets fall so dramatically last week? How worried should Asia be? The answers, I submit, are: we don’t know, we don’t know, and very.

Start with the stock market. Read more…

Author: Bruce E Aronson, Creighton University

The ‘lost decade’ of the 1990s in Japan has now become two decades, with the latter marked by persistent deflationary pressure.

Beginning in the 1990s, the Japanese introduced short-term fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate the economy and ‘structural reform’ to achieve sustained economic recovery through a new post-industrial economic model. Read more…

Author: Max Corden, University of Melbourne

People critical of global imbalances often blame the surplus countries and their currency manipulation. This column introduces a Policy Insight that argues that the basic problem has been the inefficiency of the world’s financial sector, which led to unfruitful investment in the US rather than productive investment in emerging economies.

The global imbalances are widely seen as a problem, especially by the US government and US economists. Read more…