4 January 2021 Finally, nearly 1,500 days after the Brexit referendum, the United Kingdom has both left the European Union and signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) outlining its future trading relationship with its largest partner. Political partisans will continue to defend their entrenched positions regarding the merits of this deal. On the one hand, [...]
31 August 2020 The Republican and Democratic conventions are over, and the US election campaign will shift into high gear. Surely, climate change will be one of the most important topics for the US electorate to consider. Democratic candidate Joe Biden wants America to become net-carbon neutral by 2050, and to eliminate the use of [...]
30 January 2020 In its recently released report on foreign exchange markets, the US Treasury added Switzerland to its watchlist of currency manipulators. To be sure, the Swiss franc does meet some of the criteria. Indeed, Switzerland's current account surplus is a staggering 10% of GDP, and its bilateral trade surplus with the USA has [...]
29 September 2019 The European economy has been decelerating since 2017. Indeed, the meagre 0.2% gain in GDP during Q2 2019 suggests economic activity may be stalling. And, as Germany, Italy, and the UK all recorded negative growth rates during the interval (and with Q3 looking decidedly weak as well), financial markets are increasingly concerned [...]