Donald Trump’s election has been greeted around the world with justifiable bewilderment and fear. His victory — following a fact-free, vicious election campaign — has trashed the brand of American democracy. But while Trump is impulsive and occasionally vindictive — a p

This summer, an electrical power auction in Chile attracted successful bids by wind generators willing to provide electricity at $0.04 per kilowatt-hour and solar generators at $0.03 per kWh, easily beating fossil fuel competitors.That success reflects dramatic cost reductions ov

Eight years after the 2008 crisis governments and central banks — despite a plethora of policies and approaches — have failed to stimulate enough demand to produce sustained and strong growth. In Japan, so-called Abenomics promised 2 per cent inflation by 2015; instead, the

At the end of 2015, Greece’s public debt was 176 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), while Japan’s debt ratio was 248 per cent.Neither government will ever repay all they owe.

Faced with a slowing global economy, a number of observers — including former US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and Berkeley economist Brad DeLong — have argued that money-financed fiscal expansion should not be excluded from the policy toolkit.But talk of such “helicopter

The Chinese economy faces an enormously challenging transition.

The global economy faces a chronic problem of deficient nominal demand.Japan is suffering near-zero growth and minimal inflation.

Financial markets were surprised by the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) recent introduction of negative interest rates on some commercial bank reserves. They shouldn’t have been.The BOJ clearly needed to take some new policy action to achieve its target of 2 per cent inflation.

Last year, three facts about climate change became clear: achieving a low-carbon economy is essential; new technologies make that goal attainable at an acceptable cost; but technological progress alone will be insufficient without strong public policies.Extreme weather in Decembe