• OPINION

  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?

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  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?

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  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".

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  The G20's coronavirus agenda

  Oped, Jeffrey Frankel, Published on 27/08/2021

  » Finance ministers, central bank governors, and political leaders are hard at work preparing for the 2021 G20 Heads of State and Government Summit in Rome on Oct 30-31. With the Covid-19 pandemic stretching well into its second year, the meeting will come at a time of heightened uncertainty about public health and the global economy. And though the mechanisms of international cooperation have been weakened by the pandemic and remain bruised by former US President Donald Trump's legacy, they are more important than ever.

• OPINION

  El Salvador's Bitcoin bet is a dangerous folly

  News, Jeffrey Frankel, Published on 30/09/2021

  » El Salvador this month became the first country to adopt a cryptocurrency -- in this case, Bitcoin -- as legal tender. I say the first, because others might follow. But they should think twice, because the idea is highly dubious -- and likely to be economically dangerous for developing countries in particular.

1 2 Next Last