Tag Archives: China

The neocon factor dramatically changes the interpretation of the Trump administration’s unilateralist international economic policy chatter. Donald Trump’s first one hundred days have revealed his inclination for unilateralism in international relations. That inclination reflects his opportunistic and bullying disposition, and it also fits well with his anti-globalization pose. Trump’s unilateralism has also spawned a dangerous waltz with [...]

Trumponomics: How Trump skillfully used anti-globalization as bait to cover up his extremely neoliberal switch. A key element of Trump’s political success has been his masquerade of being pro-worker, which includes posturing as being anti-globalization. However, his true economic interests are the exact opposite. That creates conflict between Trump’s political and economic interests. For political leaders [...]

I have discussed here the role of Chinese growth in the decrease of US manufacturing jobs (note that I was, and still am somewhat critical about simplistic stories of deindustrialization). At any rate, for other reasons I was looking at the IMF Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) and ended up with the two graphs below. After the Chinese entry in the WTO in 2001 the rise in Brazilian imports is astounding. Now Chinese imports of manufacturing goods are about the same share as imports from...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Chris Blattman had a nice interview with Stephen Ladek of the Terms of Reference podcast (iTunes). Chris talked about his approach to what RCTs are good for – less about that specific program but more about testing our assumptions behind the mechanism through which something might work. They also get into how he got started studying conflict and resolution (because someone offered to let him borrow some Land Rovers), but why he’s...

Via Tyler Cowen, here is a piece by David Autor, David Dorn, Gordon Hanson, Gary P. Pisano and Pian Shu. Cowen quoted the most important part, so let me follow his lead: The central finding of our regression analysis is that firms whose industries were exposed to a greater surge of Chinese import competition from 1991 to 2007 experienced a significant decline in their patent output. A one standard deviation larger increase in import penetration decreased a...

By William K. BlackOctober 23, 2016     Kansas City, MO The general media has been treating the WikiLeaks disclosures of the Clinton campaign documents, particularly the transcripts of her lucrative talks with Goldman Sachs as much ado about nothing.  I have not found any article about the disclosures, however, that reported on the extraordinary statements she made in her talk with Goldman Sachs on June 4, 2013. Hillary told the Vampire Squid that the “good news” was that China was removing...

Global trade is awful. Really, it is. For the last five years, trade volumes have been growing at their slowest sustained rate since the early 1980s. Here's a horrible chart from the World Trade Organisation's latest forecast: And in the last year, things have got worse: Import demand of developing economies fell 3.2% in Q1 before staging a partial recovery of 1.5% in Q2.  Meanwhile, developed economies recorded positive import growth of 0.8% in Q1 and negative growth of -0.8% in Q2....

This chart has been doing the rounds on Twitter (h/t @dbcurren). It shows manufacturing employment in the USA.  See that huge drop? That's the drain of manufacturing jobs to South East Asia.And see that uptick since 2010, that appears to be tailing off? That's the return of manufacturing jobs to the USA. What they call "reshoring".Reshoring is hype, isn't it?Related reading U.S. reshoring: over before it began? - ATKearney (pdf)

Voters of all stripes have recognized the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as another betrayal of working people, and they have resoundingly rejected it. Despite that, President Obama continues to push it, to the extent of possibly seeking passage in a “lame duck” session of Congress. President Obama’s pushing of the TPP is recklessly irresponsible politics that [...]

In-depth analysis on Credit Writedowns Pro. You are here: Weekly » The titillating and terrifying collapse of the dollar. Again. This post was originally published at China Financial Markets. By Michael Pettis Foreign perceptions about the Chinese economy are far more volatile than the economy itself, and are spread across a fantastic array of forecasts. On one extreme there are still many who hold the view that overwhelmingly dominated the consensus just four...