Showing 11 - 18 of 18
Good statistics are crucial amid the pandemic
Oped, Jeffrey Frankel, Published on 05/06/2021
» 'There are three kinds of lies," Mark Twain famously wrote. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics." Too often, the Covid-19 crisis has lent support to the suspicions Twain's bon mot expresses.
Terms which misdefined 2020
Oped, Jeffrey Frankel, Published on 01/01/2021
» US President Donald Trump and the Covid-19 pandemic dominated the news headlines in 2020. Three terms, in particular, came to symbolise the year: "witch hunt", "black swan" and "exponential".
The connection between Covid-19 and climate
Oped, Jeffrey Frankel, Published on 02/10/2020
» From early on in the Covid-19 pandemic, a common refrain has been, "At least maybe now we will get serious about addressing climate change." One can certainly see the logic behind this thinking. The terrible toll the pandemic has taken should remind us of the importance of three things that are also necessary to tackle global warming: science, public policy, and international cooperation.
So what exactly's in a recession?
Oped, Jeffrey Frankel, Published on 26/06/2020
» On June 8, the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research declared that economic activity in the United States had peaked in February 2020, formally marking the start of a recession. But we already knew that we were in a recession that had likely begun around that date. So, why does the NBER's formal declaration matter?
Democrats no strangers to tariffs
News, Jeffrey Frankel, Published on 15/06/2018
» US President Donald Trump's aggressive approach to trade, which was on stark display at last week's G7 summit in Quebec, has elicited widespread derision. Critics point out that his tariffs hurt the domestic economy -- by raising costs for consumers and producers, and reducing foreign sales of farmers and other exporters -- while undermining America's relationships with its own allies. But there is one point that many observers get wrong: contrary to popular belief, Mr Trump's tariffs are not an unprecedented departure from historical Republican orthodoxy.
Why anti-Obamacare crusade was bound to fail
News, Jeffrey Frankel, Published on 28/07/2017
» Since the United States' Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- or "Obamacare" -- was enacted in 2010, Republicans have been promising to "repeal and replace" it. When the 2016 presidential and congressional elections delivered all three branches of the US government to the party, the time to fulfill that promise seemed to have arrived. Yet the anti-Obamacare crusade has just been dealt a crushing blow, owing to the refusal of some Republican senators to vote for the replacement legislation.
Obama leaves with higher rating than predecessors
News, Jeffrey Frankel, Published on 16/01/2017
» Any assessment of Barack Obama's eight-year US presidency should start at the beginning: His first inauguration, on Jan 20, 2009. The US economy was in free-fall: Financial markets had seized up, GDP was shrinking, and employment was plummeting, with some 800,000 jobs being lost each month. And two ill-conceived and badly executed foreign wars were under way.
It's time to overhaul the price of fuel
News, Jeffrey Frankel, Published on 13/08/2015
» World oil prices, which have been highly volatile during the last decade, have fallen more than 50% over the past year. The economic effects have been negative overall for oil-exporting countries, and positive for oil-importing countries. But what about effects that are not directly economic?