History of Ideas: The Great Dollar Shortage Debate Between Friedman and Kindleberger
In the post‑World War II era the United States faced a chronic shortage of dollars, a condition that constrained European reconstruction and sparked a fifteen‑year scholarly debate. Milton Friedman blamed an overvalued fixed exchange rate that made the dollar too expensive, while Charles Kindleberger pointed to financial frictions and a persistent US‑Europe productivity gap as the root causes. Kindleberger argued the gap would keep European current‑account deficits chronic, a view later challenged by Bloomfield’s optimism about rising European incomes. The authors link Kindleberger’s framework to modern intertemporal models and argue the Triffin dilemma was largely irrelevant.
The Value of Reliable Statistics
A recent study by Nicholas Bloom, Erica Groshen, Duncan Hobbs and Michael Strain quantifies the economic value of trust in official statistics. The authors examine the August 1, 2025 firing of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics chief by President Trump, which...
Historical Perspective on Competition and Regulation in Health Services
Professor Paul Ginsberg’s essay in the Journal of Economic Perspectives traces how competition and regulation have shaped U.S. health‑care financing since Medicare and Medicaid began in the mid‑1960s. Early on, competition was viewed skeptically because physicians dominated care and low...
Book Review: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
Grzegorz Kolodko’s 2023 book dissects the economic fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, framing it as a catalyst for a second Cold War between the West, Russia and China. The review highlights Ukraine’s war costs outpacing its entire GDP, while...
Easing Capital, Reviving Risk: The Quiet Return of Too Big to Fail
Regulators are rolling back capital requirements for the world’s largest banks, framing the move as a technical tweak rather than a policy shift. The change lowers the cushion that banks must hold against losses, effectively easing constraints on institutions with...
Heatwaves, Coldwaves, Floods, and Droughts: The Short-Term Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Economic Activity
A new ECB working paper quantifies the short‑term macroeconomic fallout from heatwaves, coldwaves, floods and droughts across Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Using novel temperature and precipitation indices within country‑specific Bayesian VAR models, the authors find sizable effects on real...
Why Would a Market Leader Choose Not to Patent an Innovation? Case of Samsung’s Patent Protection for Dual SIM Technology
Samsung chose not to patent its dual‑SIM technology in India, keeping the innovation open for competitors. A BIS study using quarterly handset data shows that rival adoption generated a preference‑discovery externality that amplified consumer awareness of dual‑SIM benefits. The externality...
Norwegian 1000-Krone Banknote: Remains as Legal Tender, but Banks Can No Longer Order New
Norway’s central bank announced that the 1000‑krone note, worth roughly $100, will stay legal tender but banks can no longer order fresh copies. Existing notes will gradually disappear as they are withdrawn from circulation. Norges Bank emphasized cash’s role as...
How Reform Happens
A new NBER study of 3,590 regulatory reforms in 189 nations from 2005‑2022 finds that richer countries pursue and pass more reforms, yet each reform has a smaller net impact on business‑friendliness. Regulations have become more business‑friendly in certain sectors,...
How a Nation Was Born: Lessons From Four Centuries of Brazilian Growth
New research tracing Brazil’s economy from 1574 to 1920 reveals more than two centuries of stagnant GDP per capita. The study finds that the abolition of slavery in 1888 coincided with the first sustained rise in living standards, linking the...
Thousands of AI‑written, Edited or ‘Polished’ Books Are Being Sold – an Eerie Echo of Orwell’s ‘Novel‑writing Machines’
A wave of AI‑written, edited, and "polished" books is flooding the market, spotlighting the legal fallout from recent AI copyright disputes. In 2025 Anthropic agreed to a settlement of up to $1.5 billion to compensate thousands of authors whose works were...
Book Recommend – Samuelson Friedman: The Battle Over the Free Market
Nicholas Wapshott’s new book, *Samuelson & Friedman: The Battle Over the Free Market*, revisits the decades‑long intellectual duel between Paul Samuelson’s Keynesian fiscalism and Milton Friedman’s monetarist libertarianism. The narrative centers on their Newsweek columns from 1966 onward, using the rivalry to...
The Fed and Inflation: Origins of the 2 Percent Target Rate
The Federal Reserve’s 2 percent inflation target, formally adopted in January 2012, remains the cornerstone of its monetary policy framework. The target directs the FOMC to raise or cut the fed funds rate to keep inflation near 2 percent while supporting maximum employment....
Macroeconomics of Conflicts and Recovery
The IMF’s April 2026 World Economic Outlook chapter quantifies the macroeconomic fallout of armed conflicts, showing they generate output losses that surpass those from financial crises or severe natural disasters. The analysis, based on post‑World II wars, finds that these losses are...
The Political Economy of Financial Crises
Charles Calomiris and Matthew Jaremski argue that financial crises are rooted in political equilibria rather than pure technical failures. They detail how policymakers craft bank‑chartering rules, safety nets, credit subsidies, and sovereign borrowing structures that favor powerful interest groups while...
Monetary Policy Transmission in Primary and Secondary Markets: Evidence From Indian Government Securities
A new XKDR paper by Barik, Singh and Harsh Vardhan examines how RBI policy‑rate changes affect borrowing costs of Indian government securities. Using monthly data from 2004‑2025 and an ARDL error‑correction model, the authors find that policy‑rate pass‑through is near‑instant and...
It May Be Time for Sweden to Join the Euro
Swedish economist Lars Calmfors argues that the benefits of euro adoption now outweigh the costs. Sweden has remained outside the monetary union since a 2003 referendum rejected the euro, but recent analysis finds limited economic differences between membership and non‑membership....
War and the Lost Generation of Inventors
A new VoxEU study finds that British towns that lost large numbers of young men in World War I suffered lasting drops in inventive activity. The research links higher wartime casualties to fewer patents and slower adoption of frontier technologies...
Shaping of Two-Way Street Between Economic History and Macroeconomic Policy
Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member Alan Taylor delivered a speech highlighting the growing two‑way street between economic history and macroeconomic policy. He argues that since the 2008 crisis, historians have adopted modern macro tools while policymakers increasingly draw...
Networked Information and Industrial Output: Evidence From Chile’s 1972 Truckers’ Strike
The NBER paper investigates Chile’s cybernetic coordination system, Cybersyn, during the October 1972 national truckers’ strike, which slashed aggregate industrial output by roughly 9 percent. By applying monthly data from twenty sectors to a calibrated CES‑Leontief model, the author constructs...
Gulf Wars 1991 and 2026: India’s Economic Challenges and Policy Shifts
The article revisits the 1991 Gulf War’s shock to India’s economy—sharp oil price spikes, a ballooning import bill and a fiscal squeeze that accelerated market liberalisation. It then projects how a hypothetical Gulf conflict in 2026 could repeat and amplify...
100 Years of Hilton Young Commission
The 1926 Hilton Young Commission, chaired by Edward Hilton Young, examined India’s currency and exchange‑rate challenges and famously advocated for a central bank. Its recommendations directly led to the Reserve Bank of India Act of 1934 and the RBI’s establishment in...
Moving the Goalposts: The Changing Objectives of Industrial Policy
A new EBRD study of over 31,000 industrial policies across 150 economies (2009‑2022) shows a clear shift toward multi‑objective programs, often blending goals that can conflict. Environmental targets dominate in Western nations, while supply‑security aims are prevalent in economies aligned...
Fruit of the Boom: The Impact of the Industrial Revolution on Economic Growth
The article examines how the Industrial Revolution transformed the United Kingdom’s economy by dramatically increasing output per worker and reshaping labor markets. It highlights the rise of factories, the surge in the marginal product of labor, and the resulting boost...
The Ideological Profile of France’s Economic Bestsellers
An analysis of France’s 100 best‑selling economics books from FN‑AC’s 2024 list shows a pronounced ideological bias toward state‑led, anti‑liberal perspectives. Anti‑liberal titles outnumber liberal ones by roughly four to one, with most works reflecting Keynesian or statist viewpoints. Liberal...
The Best Five Books on Friedrich Hayek
Philip Mirowski, a historian of economic thought, curates five essential books that illuminate Friedrich Hayek’s role in shaping neoliberalism and modern microeconomics. The selections range from Ola Innset’s political‑philosophical study of early neoliberalism to Naomi Beck’s analysis of capitalism’s evolution, with...
India’s Governing Trilemma and the Paradox of Economic Nationalism
India faces a governing trilemma—democracy, rapid development, and civilizational nationalism—that it cannot satisfy simultaneously. Since 2014, protectionist economic nationalism has limited growth to 5‑6% despite the need for 9‑10% expansion. The paper argues this equilibrium of democracy plus civilizationalism yields...
China’s Trade Dominance: Good Macro or Strategic Industrial Policies?
China recorded a record $1.2 trillion trade surplus in 2025, equal to roughly 6 % of its GDP. The surplus stemmed from a broad-based export expansion across multiple sectors, while import growth remained limited to commodities. Analysts link this outcome to both...
Regulatory Reform for Sustainable Consumption in the FMCG Sector: The Case of Low TFM Soap Bar
The IPPR paper argues that science‑based regulatory reform can boost resource efficiency in India’s FMCG sector, using a low‑Total Fatty Matter (TFM) soap bar as a case study. Reducing TFM—derived mainly from palm oil—through alternative structurants can maintain product performance...
A User’s Guide to Reducing the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet
Authors Anderson, Barbarino, Diercks and Miran outline a menu of policy tools that could shrink the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet by roughly $1.2‑$2.1 trillion. They stress that any reduction would require extensive rule‑making and would likely take at least a year...
The Next Era of Financial System Innovation: Drawing Lessons From Financial History
Reserve Bank of Australia Deputy Governor Brad Jones outlined the next wave of financial innovation—tokenisation and blockchain—through Project Acacia, an experiment to improve wholesale market efficiency. He highlighted three enabling conditions: a compelling economic case, suitable technology, and coordinated public‑private...
The Rise of the Modern Hospital and Early-Life Health: Evidence From the Hill-Burton Act
The Hill‑Burton Act funded over 300,000 new hospital beds between 1948 and 1975, doubling U.S. hospital capacity. This public‑sector expansion coincided with a sharp decline in out‑of‑hospital births, falling from 14% to 1%, and a 50% reduction in infant mortality....
Global Banking and Geopolitics Through Time
A new BIS paper analyzes how geopolitical events shape cross‑border bank credit from 1977 to 2024. Using confidential International Banking Statistics, the study finds that negative shocks—such as Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine—reduce credit flows between opposing geopolitical blocs by...
BISTRO: A “ChatGPT” For Time Series
Researchers Batuhan Koyuncu, Byeungchun Kwon, Marco Jacopo Lombardi, Fernando Perez‑Cruz and Hyun Song Shin unveiled BISTRO, a transformer‑based model designed to forecast macroeconomic time series. Trained on the Bank for International Settlements' extensive macro data, BISTRO acts like a ChatGPT...
Safe Until Crisis: What 300 Years of Wars Reveal About Government Debt Safety
A new VoxEU column by Jiang, Lustig, Van Nieuwerburgh and Xiaolan examines three centuries of U.S. and U.K. war and pandemic episodes. Their analysis shows that sovereign bonds, traditionally viewed as safe havens, have repeatedly suffered large real‑term losses during...
International Comparison of Physician Incomes
A new NBER paper analyzes physician earnings in the United States, Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands using tax‑file data. It finds that doctors rank among the top earners in each country, with U.S. physicians earning the highest absolute salaries. The...
From Ports to Prices: The Inflationary Effects of Global Supply Chain Disruptions
IMF economists published a paper quantifying how shipping delays translate into consumer price inflation. By constructing a port‑to‑port shipping time index from AIS maritime data and linking it to granular trade and price information, they find that a 100‑hour delay...
Book Review: The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics Edited by Matt Seybold and Michelle Chihara. 2019. Routledge.
The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics, edited by Matt Seybold and Michelle Chihara, assembles 38 essays that map literary representations of economic ideas from medieval texts to the 2008 financial crisis. The volume argues that modern economics has become...
The Macroeconomic Consequences of Undermining Central Bank Independence: Evidence From Governor Transitions
An IMF study of 132 central‑bank governor transitions across 28 economies finds that politically motivated appointments erode independence and alter macro outcomes. Such governors are linked to higher, more volatile inflation and cause professional forecasters to anticipate dovish policy. Following...
Rethinking India’s Healthcare System: Design Is the Main Issue
India’s health crisis stems more from systemic design flaws than from a lack of funding. The current insurance and financing structures incentivize hospitalization, leaving primary care under‑developed and driving high out‑of‑pocket costs. Research cited by Nachiket Mor shows that, when...
Europe’s Digital Autonomy – Between Fault Lines and Vault Lines
In a recent BIS speech, Steven Maijoor warned that Europe’s digital ecosystem is riddled with “fault lines” – hidden dependencies on foreign technology that could trigger sudden disruptions. He contrasted these cracks with “vault lines,” deliberate architectural safeguards that can absorb...
ChatGPT Vs. DeepSeek: What 5,000 Chinese Stocks Reveal About AI’s Limits
Harvard Business School researchers examined how ChatGPT and China‑based DeepSeek evaluate roughly 5,000 Chinese publicly listed firms. The study found a pronounced “foreign bias”: ChatGPT consistently issued higher price targets and more buy recommendations than DeepSeek, yet its forecasts were...
Taxes on Smoking, Drinking, and Sugar Should Keep Tab on the Emerging Alternatives
Excise taxes on alcohol, tobacco and sugar remain a key tool for raising revenue and improving public health, especially in low‑income nations. However, the rapid emergence of products such as e‑cigarettes, nicotine pouches and low‑alcohol beverages is exposing gaps in...
RTI @20 : How India’s Right To Information Act Was Gradually Weakened
The Right to Information (RTI) Act, enacted in 2005, initially empowered Indian citizens, journalists, and activists to demand government data, sparking a wave of transparency. Over the past two decades, a series of legislative amendments and administrative reforms have expanded...
Transformative Central Banker: Bank of Korea Governor Chang Yong Rhee
Bank of Korea Governor Chang Yong Rhee, appointed in April 2022, argues that central banks must broaden their remit beyond pure monetary policy. He has transformed the BoK into a more public‑facing institution, adding video studios, visualizations, staff media training...
Building Businesses and Firms that Build “Made in Europe” Brands
Isabel Schnabel, ECB executive board member, urged the EU to create a unified "28th regime" that gives firms seamless access to the entire Single Market. She argued that Europe’s main deficit is scale, not innovation, and that internal regulatory barriers...
Profile of Myrto Kalouptsidi: How Shipping and Industrial Policy Shapes the Global Economy
Myrto Kalouptsidi, a Harvard economist highlighted in the IMF’s *Finance and Development*, studies how maritime shipping underpins roughly $20 trillion of annual global trade. Her research reveals that shipping costs and industrial policies directly shape trade patterns, supply‑chain resilience, and the...
History of RBI Communications
In early 2026 the Reserve Bank of India launched its first official podcast, "RBI Talks Paisa to Policy," building on a 2025 web‑series released to celebrate the institution’s 90‑year anniversary. Both initiatives expand RBI’s communications toolkit, which has evolved from...
A Brief History of Bank Notes in the United States and some Lessons for Stablecoins
Mark Carlson’s Federal Reserve note examines the era before the Fed when U.S. commercial banks issued their own paper money, backed by a mix of bank assets and government bonds. The piece highlights how those privately‑issued notes depended on a...
Book Review: India’s High-Tech Leap
Sunil Mani’s new book India’s High‑Tech Leap reviews the rise of six high‑tech sectors—pharmaceuticals, software services, COVID‑19 vaccines, wind turbines, solar photovoltaics and electric vehicles—under India’s Make‑in‑India and Atmanirbhar Bharat initiatives. He credits government intervention and public‑private collaboration for early successes but flags...