Economics and International Affairs Blog

AI's Potential

What if AI made the world’s economic growth explode?
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2025/07/24/what-if-ai-made-the-worlds-economic-growth-explode
Markets for goods, services and financial assets, as well as labor, would be upended.

Related: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/07/24/the-economics-of-superintelligence

Netscape IPO casts a shadow from 1995 over AI boom
https://www.reuters.com/commentary/breakingviews/netscape-ipo-casts-shadow-1995-over-ai-boom-2025-07-24

Meme Stocks 2.0

The Stock Market’s Most Unserious Season Is Back and Dorkier Than Before
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/business/opendoor-krispy-kreme-meme-stocks.html
A new generation of meme stocks are soaring and falling again.

Private Equity: A Cautionary Tale from Britain

How private equity ruined Britain
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-private-equity-ruined-britain/

They made America's clothing. Now they are getting punished for it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9xw5vrvevo
Apparel hubs like Cambodia and Sri Lanka are heavily dependent on the US as an export market.

The risk to poor countries’ exports from the whims of the rich
https://www.ft.com/content/88701f7d-9cc1-42db-a2f5-70b597be9df2
Donald Trump’s tariff threat to Lesotho shows the danger of relying on preferential trade access.

Mankiw on US Fiscal Future

2025, 17th Annual Feldstein Lecture, N. Gregory Mankiw, "The Fiscal Future"
https://www.nber.org/research/videos/2025-17th-annual-feldstein-lecture-n-gregory-mankiw-fiscal-future

Investors beware: Fiscal dominance and financial repression ahead by VIVEKANAND JAYAKUMAR, The Hill - 07/13/25
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5397963-fed-keeping-rates-low-trump-administration/

My take from 2023:
Fitch’s downgrade of US debt wasn’t a mistake — it was long overdue
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4138215-fitchs-downgrade-wasnt-a-mistake-it-was-long-overdue/
America’s long-term fiscal sustainability challenge
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3965613-americas-long-term-fiscal-sustainability-challenge/

Cryptos versus CBDCs

Bitcoin In Your 401(k)? That's Not a Risk I Would Take
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-07-23/bitcoin-in-your-401k-crypto-won-t-crash-and-burn-but
Ungated version:
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/bitcoin-in-your-401-k---that-s-not-a-risk-i-would-take-83395.html

Has Brazil Invented the Future of Money?
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/has-brazil-invented-the-future-of

Pix: Brazil’s Successful Instant Payment System
https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/002/2023/289/article-A004-en.xml

Rethinking the Politics of Money
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/central-banks-serve-finance-not-broader-public-by-katharina-pistor-2025-07

Does Economics Need Competition of Ideas?

How economics teaching became the Aeroflot of ideas
https://www.ft.com/content/9aabb4a9-d896-4b4c-a40a-1c4477a47a29
The discipline is failing students by ignoring the biggest social, political and ecological challenges facing the world today.