August 2025
11Aug

China’s consumption weighed down by weak expectations

China’s economy registered a respectable GDP growth rate of 5.3 per cent in the first half of 2025. Despite US President Donald Trump’s tariff war, China’s exports grew by 7.3 per cent and contributed more than one-third of the first half of the year’s growth. But domestic demand remains weak and prices are still falling. The conventional wisdom identifies weak consumption as the culprit. The Chinese authorities have prioritised boosting household consumption. A 200 billion RMB (US$28 billion) programme was...

August 11, 2025
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July 2025
15Jul

Argentina’s Milei told to ‘grow up’ by VP in spat over pensions

Argentine President Javier Milei and his vice-president, Victoria Villarruel, have engaged in a bitter public war of words over plans to increase pensions. Milei shared posts on X in which his running mate had been called "stupid" and described as "a traitor", and in response Villarruel told the president to "grow up". The president's anger was triggered by a heavy defeat in Congress on Thursday, when the Senate approved motions aimed at boosting pensions and increasing disability allowances - which Milei...

July 15, 2025
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June 2025
30Jun

US. Trump may name a ‘shadow’ Fed chair, an unprecedented development in American history

President Donald Trump said last week that he will announce his pick to succeed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell “very soon.” The problem is that Powell still has 11 months left until the end of his term. Trump remains frustrated as ever with the Fed because it has not yet lowered interest rates. He has relentlessly attacked Powell for months. But announcing a Fed chair nominee this far in advance — if he makes good on that plan — would be an...

June 30, 2025
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12Jun

UK households told to ‘hoard physical cash’ as millions rush to act

UK households have received an advisory to 'hoard physical cash' amidst economic uncertainty and concerns about outages, with Brits taking action in response to worldwide instability. The Bank of England's chief cashier has observed that families are creating emergency cash reserves as they did during past crises related to Covid and living costs. On Tuesday, Victoria Cleland highlighted the trend of UK households amassing a cash contingency pot, noting the substantial rise in banknotes circulating in recent months. "At a time...

June 12, 2025
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May 2025
09May

The Singular Role of Public Pension Funds in Corporate Governance

By Jill E. Fisch & Jeff Schwartz With more than $5 trillion in assets, public pension funds are significant players in financial markets. Like private asset managers, public pension fund managers are typically expected to exercise their discretion over investing and engagement to serve the interests of the funds’ beneficiaries exclusively, a model that we term “beneficiary primacy.” To this end, beneficiary primacy imposes fiduciary duties on fund managers to maximize the economic value of the fund. We argue that...

May 9, 2025
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08May

No one wins in a U.S.-China trade war, Milken speakers say

The standoff between the U.S. and China over trade and tariffs presents enormous risks for the global economy, with implications for combatting climate change, nuclear weapons security, and for the development of international standards for artificial intelligence, speakers said May 6 at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2025 in Beverly Hills, Calif. “We are tearing apart an international trade regime that served our country and the world very well," Robert Rubin, who served as secretary of the Treasury in the...

May 8, 2025
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April 2025
11Apr

Tariffs, Tokens, and Turmoil: The Market Fallout from Trump’s Policy Uncertainty

By David Krause This paper investigates the financial consequences of economic policy shifts following President Trump's second inauguration in January 2025. Using empirical data from April 2024 through April 7, 2025, this study assesses asset performance across U.S. equities, cryptocurrencies, gold, and bonds. The administration's aggressive trade protectionism, ambiguous digital asset directives, and deregulatory approach to artificial intelligence have triggered heightened market volatility, diminished investor confidence, and a rotation toward defensive assets. Indexed returns reveal that traditional safe havens like...

April 11, 2025
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09Apr

Trade war threatens pensions, risks recession

A local financial adviser pegs the risk of global recession at between 30 and 40 per cent, after Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping global tariffs sent the US stock market in a tail spin. The prediction from Bryan Dooley, the chief investment officer for LOM Asset Management Ltd, may be conservative. Goldman Sachs raised the odds of a US recession to 45 per cent, their second hike in a week. Others are at 50 per cent. JP Morgan chief economist Bruce Kasman,...

April 9, 2025
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March 2025
07Mar

The Macroeconomy After Tariffs

By Davide Furceri, Swarnali A Hannan, Jonathan D Ostry & Andrew K Rose What does the macroeconomy look like in the aftermath of tariff changes? This study estimates impulse response functions from local projections using a panel of annual data that spans 151 countries from 1963 to 2014. Tariff increases are associated with persistent, economically and statistically significant declines in domestic output and productivity, as well as higher unemployment and inequality, real exchange rate appreciation, and insignificant changes to the...

March 7, 2025
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December 2024
06Dec

Argentina. Pensioners the big losers in Milei’s world

 Alicia Ceresoli yearns for the smell of new leather shoes and her mouth waters when she imagines sinking her teeth into a succulent steak, two indulgences the 80-year-old Argentine can no longer afford. Pensioners have taken the most pain in a year of budget-slashing by maverick "anarcho-capitalist" President Javier Milei, whose austerity measures have tipped an additional five million people into poverty since he took power last year. In September he vetoed a law that increased pensions by eight percent --...

December 6, 2024
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