• OPINION

  No such thing as the fourth industrial revolution

  News, Satyajit Das, Published on 30/11/2016

  » The theme of the 2016 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos was the "Fourth Industrial Revolution". Professor Klaus Schwab, WEF's founder, has even published a hasty, crowd-sourced book. He warns that the scale, speed and impact of new technologies, focused on artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, blockchains and biotechnology, are "so profound" that in history "there has never been a time of greater promise or potential peril".

• OPINION

  No one can win a global currency war

  News, Satyajit Das, Published on 18/08/2016

  » It has been a year since a sudden, 1.9% decline in the Chinese yuan rattled global markets and prompted fears of a global currency war. China has mostly soothed nerves by moderating the renminbi's swoon since then. But what should really put minds to rest is the knowledge that no one could win a true currency war today.

• OPINION

  There is no simple solution to the looming downturn

  News, Satyajit Das, Published on 16/06/2016

  » A growing number of economists seem convinced that the US, EU and China are all headed for a prolonged period of sluggish growth -- secular stagnation, in the words of former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. A close parallel would seem to be 1990s Japan. There, too, the bursting of debt-funded asset price bubbles gave way to multiple rounds of fiscal stimulus, massive monetary easing and rock-bottom interest rates. Rescue efforts stabilised conditions but couldn't spark a sustainable recovery, leaving the economy mired in low growth, low inflation and high debt.

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