Search

Begin New Search Topic Political Economy Publishing Institution American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

41. Paradise Lost

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
It sure was wonderful while it lasted. Last year was a halcyon period of higher growth and lower inflation, when annualized productivity increases of over 5 percent during the last two quarters gave us GDP growth averaging over 6 percent, while inflation and interest rates fell and earnings surged. These conditions were wonderful for the stock market. Fourth-quarter 2003 corporate profits were more than 20 percent above year earlier levels—nearly four times the average rate of increase over the past decade. The S rose over 40 percent between April 2003 and January 2004.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy

42. America Demands; China Supplies

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Say's Law, named after French economist Jean- Baptiste Say (1767–1832), was promulgated at the time of the Industrial Revolution when some feared that purchasing power would be insufficient to absorb the ever-growing output of the newly mechanized economy. It states simply and reassuringly that supply creates its own demand. More specifically, the production of output tends to generate purchasing power equal to the value of that output.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
China, America, and Asia

43. Watch Growth, Not Exchange Rates

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The attention being paid to exchange rates and to utterances about them by finance ministers and central bankers is misplaced. It is distracting policymakers from tending to more serious issues such as global excess capacity and attendant deflation risks.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy

44. The Opposite of Stagflation

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The blissful combination of higher growth and lower inflation that has characterized the U.S. economy since last spring is the inverse of stagflation, the nightmare scenario that followed the oil shock of 1973–74, when higher oil prices produced lower output, lower growth, and higher inflation. The current cycle is fundamentally benign—more output at lower prices—but if policymakers fail to recognize it as such and ignore falling prices because output growth is strong, a global recession could occur.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy

45. As Good As It Gets

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Old habits die hard. Often, criticism leveled at policymakers is well founded. I certainly have offered up my share. But as 2003 ends and 2004 begins, we find ourselves at a point where the performance of the U.S. economy is about as good as it gets. The stock market is up 20 percent this year, inflation and interest rates are low, productivity growth is high, and U.S. exports are rising strongly. The biggest danger going forward arises from ill-founded criticism aimed at policy measures employed to achieve this excellent outcome and the (fortunately low) chance that policymakers will heed such criticism.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States

46. Bolivia: A Revolt That Leads Nowhere

Author:
Mark Falcoff
Publication Date:
12-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Joseph Conrad's novel Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard (1905), considered by many the Polish master's best novel, is set in the fictitious South American country of Costaguana. During the colonial period and for decades thereafter, the republic flourished thanks to the existence of a rich vein of silver mined since the early days of the Spanish conquest. At the time the novel opens, however, Costaguana has fallen on hard times because the most accessible deposits of the precious ore have been exhausted; massive new investment and technology are required to return the mine to full operation. Anglo-Costaguanan Charles Gould finds the necessary financing in London and New York, and almost as if by magic the resumption of mining breathes new life and progress into the republic.
Topic:
International Relations, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
New York, London, South America, and Bolivia

47. Venezuela: Raising the Stakes

Author:
Mark Falcoff
Publication Date:
11-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
It's official: the long-awaited referendum on Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez will take place on February 29, 2004—if all the requirements laid down by the National Electoral Council are met. Theoretically this should put to rest once and for all the question of whether Venezuelans want their president to continue in office and should make possible the selection of a replacement thirty days thereafter should he fail to win the referendum.
Topic:
International Relations, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
South America

48. "Animal Spirits" and Policy Stimulants

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
12-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The policy stimulants administered in very large doses to the U.S. economy at midyear are wearing off fast. China's boom, while not ending, is cooling. The result of those two facts will be U.S. growth of 3 percent or less in the final quarter of this year and the first quarter of next before tax rebates kick in to provide a lone quarter of 4 percent growth next spring. Then it will be back to 3 percent, plus or minus half a percent, in the second half of 2004 as the boost from tax cuts fades, provided stock markets hold up.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and China

49. The World Economy after Dubai

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
11-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The outlook for the global economy has become clouded since the September annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Dubai. Going into the meetings, views were broadly optimistic, tied to the familiar, reassuring sense of a recovering U.S. economy, the prospect of rising exports, and a firm dollar. America, an oasis of firmer demand growth in a desert of global excess capacity, was back— again, for the second time since the bubble economy burst in March 2000. Only this time, it was for real, not like the false, post-9/11 recovery that fizzled out in the spring of 2002. Or, so it seemed.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Dubai