A global economy that is levering up, while unable to generate enough aggregate demand to achieve potential growth, is on a risky path.
A split between the U.S. and its traditional allies, if it becomes a permanent feature of the new global order, would lead to deeper fragmentation among the world's market-oriented democracies. That will surely shift the long-term balance of power in China's favor, as it moves steadily toward becoming the world's largest economy.
We tend to think that employment is employment, and we don't ask the question: is this rewarding employment? Research establishes pretty clearly that typical notions of happiness - that more is better - really don't correspond to the way people think and feel.
All countries will eventually need to rebuild their growth models around digital technologies and the human capital that supports their deployment and expansion.
China's economic transformation began with the introduction in the 1980s of market incentives in the agricultural sector. These reforms were followed by a gradual opening to the global economy, a process that accelerated in the early 1990s.
During my Ph.D. program, I became interested in the informational structure of markets that turned into the work on signaling, which was the part of my early work that was recognized for the Nobel Prize, but it was not really a subject at the time.
Digitally enabled supply chains initially increased efficiency and dramatically shortened lead times. Capital was mobile; labor, less so. Economic activity (production, research, design, etc.) moved to any accessible country or region that had relatively inexpensive labor and human capital.
For physical goods, there are costs associated with logistics and lead times, owing to inventories and poor forecasts of the market. With digital capital-intensive technology, however, production will inevitably move toward the final market, wherever it is. This re-localization constitutes a major shift in the structure of global supply networks.
Globalization is the process by which markets integrate worldwide.
The research side of academic life is often viewed from the outside as a solo and, at times, lonely activity. In fact, it is quite the opposite: a communal activity in significant part where interaction and interchange generate ideas and critiques of them.
There is no question that the recovery from the global recession triggered by the 2008 financial crisis has been unusually lengthy and anemic.
China's continued growth and rising household income are creating opportunities for lower-income economies in low-cost manufacturing.
Monetary policy should never have been expected to shift economies to a sustainably higher growth trajectory by itself.
Whatever advantage Trump thinks he will gain by positioning the U.S. in opposition to its natural allies will be dwarfed by the losses.
Although everyone does benefit from lower-priced goods and services, people also care greatly about the chance to be productively employed and the quality of their work. Declining employment opportunities feel real and immediate; the rise in real incomes brought by lower prices does not.
One way to measure the size of a company, industry, or economy is to determine its output. But a better way is to determine its added value - namely, the difference between the value of its outputs, that is, the goods and services it produces, and the costs of its inputs, such as the raw materials and energy it consumes.
Productivity gains are vital to long-term growth because they typically translate into higher incomes, in turn boosting demand. That process takes time, of course - especially if, say, the initial recipients of increased income already have a high savings rate.
For highly indebted governments, low interest rates are critical to keep debt levels sustainable and ease pressure to restructure debt and recapitalize banks. The shift to a high sovereign-debt-yield equilibrium would make it impossible to achieve fiscal balance.
Robotics has already made significant inroads in electronics assembly, with sewing trades - traditionally many countries' first entry point to the global trading system - likely to come next.
My mother was strong-willed, demanding, and very supportive all at the same time.
