Number of results to display per page
Search Results
652. The China-United States Strategic and Economic Dialogue
- Author:
- Zhou Wenzhong
- Publication Date:
- 10-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Council of American Ambassadors
- Abstract:
- This year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the United States. Over the course of these three decades, the relationship has had its ups and downs. However, owing to our joint efforts, steady progress has been made and remarkable achievements have been noted.
- Topic:
- International Relations and Economics
- Political Geography:
- United States and China
653. The Future of the Dollar
- Author:
- Richard N. Cooper
- Publication Date:
- 09-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- The US dollar is not the world's key currency by policy design, just as English is not the leading global language by policy design. It is the evolutionary outcome of practice and experience. It would take both a major shock to the dollar and a viable alternative to dislodge it from widespread use. Like a common language, the dollar enjoys “network externalities”— the greater the number of people who use and accept it, the more useful it is to everyone, and the more entrenched it becomes. Also, what is not quite the same thing, the dollar enjoys a large market in low-risk and highly liquid securities, most notably US Treasury bills; the liquidity both enhances and is enhanced by the network externalities. Most of the world's foreign exchange transactions directly involve the US dollar. It is easy to hold and easy to use, even on a large scale. In short, it is highly convenient.
- Topic:
- Economics, Foreign Exchange, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States
654. Why SDRs Could Rival the Dollar
- Author:
- John Williamson
- Publication Date:
- 09-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- In a recent Cato Institute paper, Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar (2009) asserts that the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights (SDRs) cannot rival the US dollar, as suggested by the Chinese central bank governor (Zhou Xiaochuan 2009). “The SDR is not a currency and never can be,” Swami declares confidently in the first paragraph of his paper. He presents two arguments, which are presumably supposed to be proofs of this proposition.
- Topic:
- Economics, Foreign Exchange, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States
655. The 2008 Oil Price "Bubble"
- Author:
- Mohsin S. Khan
- Publication Date:
- 08-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- As oil prices began to rise in 2009 from a low point of about $40 a barrel in January to around $70 a barrel in July, a key question is whether the world is in for another oil price spike in the near term similar to that witnessed in early 2008. Several hypotheses were advanced when world oil prices started their inexorable climb from 2003–04 onwards, then skyrocketed from $92 a barrel in January 2008 to cross the $140 a barrel mark in June, finally hitting a record high of $147 a barrel on July 11, 2008, before collapsing to less than $40 a barrel in December (figure 1). There was the “peak oil” explanation, based on the theories of M. King Hubbert of “Hubbert's Peak” fame and his supporters, notably Colin Campbell and Matthew Simmons, that the world was running out of oil. There were the market “fundamentalists,” including importantly John Lipsky, the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Philip Verleger, a well-known oil expert, who argued that the fundamentals of demand and supply were primarily behind the extraordinary rise in oil prices in the first half of 2008 (Lipsky 2009a, 2009b; Verleger 2005, 2008). Interestingly, this fundamentals view was also shared by the US Treasury and was articulated by David McCormick, then undersecretary for international affairs, in a presentation in July 2008 at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Finally, there were those who maintained that such an increase could only be a “bubble,” unexplained by peak oil theory or market fundamentals. Many financial-market participants were proponents of this third view, notably Michael Masters (2008), as well as the main oil producers, who were as surprised as anyone at the speed and size of the price increase over only a few months. Their argument was that the phenomenal increase in financialization of commodity markets during 2006–08, including in particular the oil market, led to speculation and momentum trading, which pushed oil prices way beyond their long-term equilibrium level as determined by fundamentals.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Oil
- Political Geography:
- United States
656. Structural and Cyclical Trends in Net Employment over US Business Cycles, 1949-2009: Implications for the Next Recovery and Beyond
- Author:
- Jacob Funk Kirkegaard
- Publication Date:
- 08-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- Th is paper expands on the methodology of Groshen and Potter (2003) for studying cyclical and structural changes in the US economy and analyzes the net structural and cyclical employment trends in the US economy during the last 10 trough-to-trough business cycles from 1949 to the present. It illustrates that the US manufacturing sector and an increasing number of services sectors, including parts of the fi nancial services sector, are experiencing structural employment declines. Structural employment gains in the US labor market are increasingly concentrated in the healthcare, education, food, and professional and technical services sectors and in the occupations related to these industries. Th e paper concludes that the improved operation of the US labor market during the 1990s has reversed itself in the 2000s, with negative long-term economic eff ects for the United States.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- United States
657. American Multinationals and American Economic Interests: New Dimensions to an Old Debate
- Author:
- Theodore H. Moran
- Publication Date:
- 07-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- The 2008 election rekindled debate about whether US multinationals shift technology across borders and relocate production in ways that might harm workers and communities at home. President Obama now pledges to end tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas. The preoccupation about the behavior of American multinationals takes three forms: (1) that US-based multinational corporations may follow a strategy that leads them to abandon the home economy, leaving the workers and communities to cope on their own with few appealing alternatives after the multinationals have left; (2) worse, that US-based multinational corporations may not just abandon home sites but drain off capital, substitute production abroad for exports, and “hollow out” the domestic economy in a zero-sum process that damages those left behind; and (3) worst, that US-based multinational corporations may deploy a rent-gathering apparatus that switches from sharing supranormal profits and externalities with US workers and communities to extracting rents from the United States. Each of these concerns contains a hypothetical outcome that can be compared with contemporary evidence from the United States and other home countries.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
658. The Global Economic Crisis after One Year: Is a New Paradigm for Recovery in Developing Countries Emerging?
- Author:
- Wim Naudé
- Publication Date:
- 08-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- T HE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN AND RECESSION, WHICH spread across the globe following the US sub-prime mortgage crisis in September 2008, has become the dominant news topic of the past year. One year into the crisis it has become clear that the paradigm for international development has changed irrevocably. With leadership, moral authority and the capacity of the West diminishing, developing countries' recovery and future growth will critically depend on their own initiatives and solutions.
- Topic:
- Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- United States
659. Improving the International Investment Regime: priorities for the new U.S. Administration
- Author:
- Pablo M. Pinto, Karl P. Sauvant, Petros C. Mavroidis, Curtis J. Milhaupt, Peter Rosenblum, and Hans Smit
- Publication Date:
- 01-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
- Abstract:
- The international investment regime has grown rapidly over the past two decades, along with foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, which reached $1.8 trillion in 2007. Even in the absence of a single comprehensive multilateral investment treaty or institution, that regime is governed by principles and rules enshrined in some 2,600 bilateral investment treaties and another 250 free trade agreements that contain substantial investment provisions. These treaties are supplemented by a number of other relevant multilateral agreements and customary international law, along with complementary principles applied by international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, that cover aspects of the activities of multinational enterprises as well as how states regulate them.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- United States
660. The United States in the New Asia
- Author:
- Robert A. Manning and Evan A. Feigenbaum
- Publication Date:
- 11-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- President Barack Obama heads to Singapore in November for the 2009 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) summit. It will be his first foray into the arcane world of Asian multilateralism. And if his administration adopts a new approach, it could yet fashion a more sustainable role for the United States in a changing Asia.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- United States and Asia