Globalization

Although the global economic performance shows signs of improvement, growth remains fragile. Certainly, lower energy costs contribute to slowing down the rise in prices and this is good news for…

Background Global economic activity is expected to slow down because of record-high inflation, large public budget deficits and debts, conflicts between monetary and fiscal policy targets, and lower central banks’…

When President Joe Biden campaigned under the slogan “build back better,” he meant to break away from limited government and expand the role of the state in a variety of…

Today, the African economies face another economic crisis. Supply chains disruption, money printing, the questionable responses to Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, currency depreciation and years of economic mismanagement have…

The ECB Report on a digital euro states explicitly that a digital euro would support the role of the European Union as a sovereign entity and foster the international role…

According to the recent report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global average temperature increase over the period 1850–1900 was about 1.1°C by the 2010s. Several countries in the world have seen increases in average temperatures approaching 2°C. From 1820 to 2016, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in most of the Western world grew by about 25 times, and in the non-Western world by 13.5 times. This economic growth has been associated with enormous improvements in different indicators of human well-being, such as higher life expectancy, lower child mortality, and lower malnutrition.

The IFO Institute (Munich) has just revised its forecast for the German economy. GDP is now expected to grow 2.5%. IFO’s previous prediction was 3.3% and the prediction the European Commission put forward last Summer was 3.6% (Fig.1). However, according to IFO the economy will rise 5.1% in 2022 and thus bring the country back where it was before the Covid-19 shock.

In early 2011, an unprecedented wave of political uprisings swept the Arab world. It was the so-called Arab Spring. Protesters in several Arab countries took to the street and demanded changes in governments, freedom, bread, and dignity. The main slogan was “the people want to bring the regimes to an end.” The reasons that inflamed the uprisings across the region included excessive levels of corruption, police brutality, lack of political freedoms, low levels of income along with high income inequality, high levels of youth unemployment and, last but not least, dictatorial regimes.

A four-day workweek or Universal Basic Income (UBI) straight away? Demands for shorter labour time, preferably complemented with compensatory wage increases, are a must-have for any electoral campaign. But do we really work more, at the expense of time spent with the family or leisurely activities? Do we really need new regulation to cut our working hours? While some workers do work long hours, generalisations are dangerous, as documented by the statistics on how we spend our time. Germany offers an interesting case study.

In spite of the attacks it has suffered in the past years, globalization is doing well. In particular, last November free trade supporters celebrated the birth of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a free trade agreement that includes the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), plus China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. India initially took part in the negotiations but later decided to leave. The 15 RCEP member countries account for about 30% of the world population and 30% of global GDP, and are the largest trade bloc in history, larger than the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement and the European Union. The deal will take effect 60 days after ratification by at least six ASEAN and three non-ASEAN signatories. Thus far, it was ratified by Japan, China, Singapore and Thailand. Presumably, RCEP will be operational by the end of this year.