When the risk premium in the US stock market fell far below its historic level, Shiller (2000) attributed this to a bubble driven by psychological factors. As an alternative explanation, we point out that the observed risk premium may be reduced by one-sided intervention policy on the part of...

This paper argues that the way in which China is portrayed in the revived Bretton Woods thesis (BW2) is not consistent with several important trends in, and features of, the Chinese economy; nor does the strategy in the BW2 seem sensible for China's long-term economic development. Whether it is...

Much of the conventional wisdom concerning social spending is faulty, especially in the United States. Analyses typically focus on readily available information about direct government social expenditures and overlook how tax systems and private spending affect the level of social spending in...

One of the big questions of our time is whether the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) will survive. Too often, analysts discuss a possible departure of one or several countries from the euro area as little more than a devaluation, but Åslund argues that any country’s exit from the euro area...

This paper introduces a new probabilistic approach to sovereign debt projections and presents new estimates of debt ratios through 2020 for Italy and Spain. The new approach takes account of likely correlations across 243 alternative scenarios with three states (good, baseline, bad) for five key...

This working paper maps out the structure and value chains of the wind industry, analyzes the wind industry's increasing global integration via cross-border trade and investment flows, and offers recommendations to policymakers for the design of investment and trade policies to help realize wind...

We study a dynamic model in which the interaction between debt accumulation and asset prices magnifies credit booms and busts. We find that borrowers do not internalize these feedback effects and therefore suffer from excessively large booms and busts in both credit flows and asset prices. We...

This paper addresses the agenda for the Group of Twenty (G-20) leaders' meeting in Seoul, Korea in November 2010. This is an opportunity and challenge for Asian leaders in particular. Their test will be, first, to demonstrate that they can responsibly advance economic recovery. They must also...

Bail-ins and creditor haircuts have long been a feature of resolutions and recapitalizations when banks have become, or are on the verge of becoming, “gone” concerns. The public outcry against taxpayer bailouts has led to the development of something new—the automatic bail-in of creditors...

Rock phosphate is a critical, nonrenewable resource for which there is no known substitute in agriculture. Cordell, Drangert, and White (2009) use Hubbert methodology (1956) to estimate the peak--the year after which production will monotonically decline--of world rock phosphate production at...