Philippe Legrain

Private consumption is 7% up on pre-crisis levels in the 10 largest Asian economies (excluding stagnant Japan) http://bit.ly/9hxgPW

In recent years, Western governments have voiced concerns about Asian governments’ vast sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) investing in Western companies. Some called this "investment protectionism" But as Western banks faced collapse, they were delighted to receive capital injections from Asian SWFs – and Western governments didn’t object. In a crisis, needs must. Now, though, Asia’s […]

For years, the US has lectured China on how it should run its economy. Now, the tables are turned. US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson went to Beijing to urge the Chinese government not to let its currency weaken. The Chinese hit back in style. Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the Chinese central bank, urged the US […]

Willem Buiter sums it up perfectly: The private financial sector has to deleverage massively, but would (with credit markets and wholesale financial markets closed for business) do so in an unnecessarily destructive way if left to its own devices. The household sectors in the US, the UK and a number of other European countries have […]

Philip Stephens has written an excellent article in the FT about why the Doha breakdown matters. He concludes: The collapse of Doha, however, speaks to the failure of both sides to own up to the world as it is. On the side of the rich countries, particularly the US but no less many European nations, […]

From the Commission on Growth and Development’s recent report, courtesy of Martin Wolf’s column in the FT:   1) The global economy is growing fast, and with it average living standards. 2) East Asia’s performance has been spectacular – living standards rose 10-fold between 1960 and 2004 – and even in Africa living standards doubled. […]

The Center for International Relations has organised an International Affairs Forum on the future of world trade. They ask: In the wake of the failure of the Doha round, what does the future hold for world trade? What can, and should be done to get negotiations back on track? My reply follows. To read the […]

Prospect, October 2006. Apple’s threat to sue companies that use the word “Pod” in product names is reminiscent of the bully-boy tactics that made Microsoft so unpopular in the 1990s

Prospect, September 2006. Disappointment at Doha, but it wasn’t all America’s fault. Is BP having too much bad luck? And Wolfowitz demands that the World Bank stops corruption

Prospect, August 2006. Higher energy prices are likely to mean rising inflation and slower growth. Plus the misguided populism of EU commissioners

As I explained in a recent post, the notion that the IMF can act as a global economic policeman is pure fantasy. But that won’t stop the Fund from trying. It is sending crack teams to the US, the eurozone, Japan, China and Saudi Arabia to examine how their economies contribute to the worrying global […]

I don’t usually have a problem with foreign companies taking over British ones, or with sourcing supplies abroad. But the British government should block any move by Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned monopoly gas exporter, to buy Centrica, which owns British Gas and is the UK’s biggest gas distributor.

Prospect, June 2006. David Cameron has joined in the Tesco-bashing, but the OFT should leave it alone. And the IMF is proving better at spin than at giving poorer countries votes

If you believe the hype in today’s Guardian and FT, leading governments achieved "a breakthrough in the governance of the global economy" over the weekend, transforming the International Monetary Fund into a "world economic watchdog". Larry Elliott’s ebullience can be explained by his closeness to the UK Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who happens to chair the […]

“Shock! Horror! Cato Institute declares American capitalism superior to European social democracy.” That was my cynical initial reaction to Cowboy Capitalism: European Myths, American Reality, a new book published by the free-market Washington, DC-based think-tank that comes recommended by the usual right-wing suspects: Milton Friedman, James Buchanan and Henry Paulson, the boss of Goldman Sachs.

The US economic recovery is unsustainable. Americans cannot live beyond their means forever.