Economics

If AI is a public good, nationalisation should be considered

A technology so consequential, potentially disruptive and paradigm-shifting cannot be managed through basic regulation alone

A building destroyed by US-Israeli air strikes on the campus of Sharif University of Technology
 in Teheran. Even before the destruction wrought by this phase of the conflict, Iran’s civilian economy suffered from severe underinvestment.

The road to de-escalation with Iran

There is an off-ramp for the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, but it requires taking economic incentives seriously

SCCB’s survey asks 200 business owners and senior executives from major industry sectors in Singapore if they expect increases, decreases or no changes in six indicators.

Singapore business confidence slides for second straight quarter: SCCB

The Business Optimism Index falls to 4.1 percentage points for Q2

Software companies have suffered big sell-offs on concerns that the emergence of AI agents may unravel their businesses
MARK TO MARKET

Citrini’s dystopian AI narrative may be wrong, but it could catalyse deeper thinking, policy change

The research firm imagined a tax on the use of AI, and the establishment of a public claim on the returns from AI infrastructure

Nearly seven in 10 Venezuelans believe their livelihoods will improve over the next year, after the US' capture of President Nicolas Maduro.
PERSPECTIVE

The economics of regime change

Lessons from history for Venezuela and Iran

Although US-China bilateral trade dropped sharply by 33%, Chinese EV exports to Asean surged 75%.
NEW GLOBAL ORDER

The tariff war that wasn’t: What economists missed about Trump’s trade gambit

Reality proves more complex with non-traditional factors at play, including structural shifts

A former US Treasury official has urged companies to create a new role of “CGO” – or chief geopolitics officer – “to navigate the increasingly blurred lines between commerce and statecraft” where “referees (meaning governments) have changed the rules”.
PERSPECTIVE

Welcome to the new age of geoeconomics

Tech, trade, finance and military policies are mingling in a manner not seen during the neoliberal era

(L-R) Turkish-American Daron Acemoglu and British-Americans Simon Johnson and James Robinson are winners of the 2024 Nobel economics prize “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity”.

Nobel economics prize goes to researchers of prosperity

The economics prize has been dominated by US academics since its inception

Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei told the General Assembly that instead of the UN’s “supranational programme of a socialist nature”, the world needs a “freedom agenda”.
THE BROAD VIEW

Who needs a new economic paradigm?

What’s behind the ambition, on both the left and right, to promote a transformative vision of the field?

The limited number of core economic principles, such as supply and demand, make it relatively easy to derive their major implications.

Exciting economics is often misguided economics

Breakthroughs in the field are rare, but we have an impressive catalogue of possible solutions to real-word problems