Macroeconomy & Globalization

MILESTONES By Justin Keay Not long ago, it would have been almost impossible to get the leaders of the various Western Balkan countries [Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania] together in the same city—let alone the ...

Given the spate of recent fines by UK and US regulators against banks for failure to comply with anti-money laundering regulations, it’s worth exploring the question of why the banks keep coming up short. The most recent headline was the ...

MILESTONES By Tiziana Barghini Argentina has it tough. With GDP growth expected to fall to approximately 1.5% this year (compared with growth of more than 8% in 2011), foreign reserves at a seven-year-record low and an unofficial inflation rate well ...

MILESTONES By Valentina Pasquali The US Federal Reserve’s gradual withdrawal from the unconventional monetary policies of the past few years is causing panic across emerging markets, forcing central banks to raise interest rates in an effort to thwart ongoing capital ...

NEWSMAKERS By Anita Hawser One woman who worked hard to ensure that the wheels of global trade kept turning, even in the midst of the global financial crisis, was Bonnie Galat, global head of business development for trade and supply ...

EMERGING MARKETS ROUNDUP By Aaron Chaze For the first time ever, the Indian central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, is looking at setting a long-term inflation target as part of a new monetary policy mechanism, after interest rates were ...

By Laurence Neville Thirty-four developing countries—including all of the so-called Fragile Five nations—will have elections this year. Their results will be felt not only by other emerging economies but by global markets. At the end of January, panic gripped emerging ...

MILESTONES By Valentina Pasquali The referendum that could make Scotland an independent nation is fast approaching, and authorities in London are preparing for the eventuality that it might pass. The UK Treasury announced in January that “in all circumstances” it ...

MILESTONES   By Thomas Clouse   Bangladesh held national elections in early January despite escalating political violence and a boycott by opposition parties. The ruling party, the Awami League, easily kept control of parliament, with its candidates winning 232 of ...

CORPORATE FINANCING NEWS   By Gordon Platt   The value of global mergers and acquisitions has failed to pick up, despite low interest rates and an improving global economy. Worldwide M&A totaled $2.4 trillion in 2013, a decline of 6% ...

SPECIAL REPORT   By Anita Hawser   To be or not to be? Compliant, that is. Apparently, the answer is it doesn’t matter—at least not yet. Just a few weeks before the February 1 SEPA deadline came to pass, the ...

MILESTONES By Forrest Jones Few things polarize policymakers like free-trade agreements, especially the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) linking the United States, Canada and Mexico. Critics of the agreement feared it meant jobs and industries would relocate to underdeveloped ...

MILESTONES By Valentina Pasquali Ever since Raúl Castro took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, he has been opening up Cuba’s struggling centralized economy. Though the ongoing liberalization process is gradual and aimed at preserving the political status quo, ...

NEWSMAKERS By K.A. Badarinath Fourth-generation Nehru-Gandhi family scion, Rahul Gandhi, looked set to enter the political fray as ruling Indian National Congress nominee for prime minister ahead of parliamentary elections this May. Several top Congress party leaders stated that it ...

MILESTONES By Tiziana Barghini A grand plan to transform a vast area round the Suez Canal—one of the world’s longest and oldest waterways, linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas—into a trading and industrial center could finally see the light of ...

COUNTRY REPORT By Gordon Platt The coming year could be crucial for Saudi Arabia, as the Middle Eastern powerhouse deals with a changing global landscape in terms of both its primary economic driver—oil—and its key international partnerships. Three years after ...

February 3, 2014 As the US Federal Reserve Board slowly moves away from the expansionary monetary policy it has pursued for a long time, the debate over the consequences for emerging markets is still raging on Wall Street. Bulls say ...

Demo site: Protestors in Istanbul's Taksim Square last summer ( Photo: Fleshstorm ) Turkey, the onetime sick man of Europe, is ailing again. And the setback has come on with remarkable speed. Just a year ago, the governing Justice and ...

Bernanke: The Visible Hand For Ben Bernanke, a rocky eight-year tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is ending on a good note. The U.S. economy, teetering on the brink in the wake of the financial crisis that erupted ...

NEWSMAKERS   KA Badarinath   World powers represented by US, EU and Japanese trade ministers openly disliked him. They held 60-year-old Indian trade minister Anand Sharma squarely responsible for holding up the World Trade Organization’s Doha Development Agenda discussions at ...