The hallmark of a systemic, as distinct from a cyclical or sporadic, crisis of capitalism is that every effort to resolve the crisis within the broad confines of the system, defined in terms of its prevailing class configuration, only worsens…
In the past decade, talk of “currency manipulation” has become a frequent trope in discussions of international trade. Much of this stems from the US government’s aggressive position on the bilateral trade deficits the US has with several countries, and…
The tariff war with China unleashed more than a year back by the Trump administration threatens to turn into full-fledged economic war. The US claims that China is engaging in unfair trade practices and adopting coercive measures against US firms,…
World trade is in deceleration mode. After having recovered smartly from 2.3 and 1.6 per cent in 2015 and 2016 to 4.6 per cent in 2017, the growth in the volume of world merchandise trade slowed to 3.0 per cent…
We often miss this aspect in our discussions, but Modi’s re-election is part of a global Right-ward shift that is taking place. Netanyahu got re-elected in Israel. Erdogan got massively re-elected in Turkey. The Conservative government came back to power…
With China having successfully convened the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing late April, discussions on the significance, impact and sustainability of this ill-defined, even if tangible, effort at economic diplomacy have revived. That effort is the Belt and…
On May 2, the Trump administration brought to an end the waiver the US had granted eight countries, including India, of sanctions on imports of oil from Iran. Having pulled out of the 2015 multi-country agreement with Iran to limit…
This year’s just-concluded spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were marked by a mood of gloom among the world’s leading policy makers. As recently as January 2018 the IMF had claimed that “the cyclical upswing…
Just before the Global Financial Crisis more than a decade ago, China had emerged as the most significant trading partner for a majority of the world’s economies. Since then, it has had even more significant impacts on global exports and…
When the third estimate of US growth in the last quarter of 2018 was released the euphoria exuded by forecasters of global growth even a few months earlier waned. The annualised quarter on quarter growth rate that had risen to…
