Until last year, oil prices had ranged from $90 to $100 a barrel for about a decade, notwithstanding a drop during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. By December 2015, the price of Brent crude had dropped to $36 a barrel. As a result, countries heavily reliant on oil exports like Saudi Arabia, have been forced to […]
From Rags to Riches: An American Dream or Reality?
As Capital in the 21st century, a recent book by economist Thomas Piketty, remains sold out across bookstores around the world – income inequality has shown to be a major concern both among citizens and policymakers. However, little attention has been given to a mechanism closely related to income inequality, but perhaps even more tangible […]
The Fight Against Creative Destruction
Uber – an app that links private taxi drivers with customers – has encountered several roadblocks around the world …
Marry Someone Poorer than You, Reduce Income Inequality
Everybody is talking about inequality and everybody seems to have their own favorite culprit, from globalization, to deregulation, to skill-biased technical change, and political capture. Yet a recent paper by Greenwood, Guner, Kocharkov and Cezar Santos (Greenwood, Jeremy, et al. “Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality.” National Bureau of Economic Research, No. w19829, […]
Are We Heading for Permanent Stagnation?
The global downturn that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 has now lasted for more than five years and the world as a whole is far from normal employment or economic activity. Even the United States, which has seen a healthier recovery than much of Europe, is still struggling with high unemployment and […]
