https://www.scmp.com/rss/327095/feed Dani Rodrik, a professor of international political economy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the author of Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Dani Rodrik Dani Rodrik Among the disasters of US President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”, one is particularly stinging for political economists. The bill radically phases out the clean-energy subsidies introduced during president Joe Biden’s administration three years ago. These subsidies were considered by many as immune to a change of presidents since they created new jobs and profit opportunities for firms in traditionally Republican-voting “red” states. As allergic as the Trump-controlled Republican... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3317659/how-us-climate-advocates-lost-narrative-battle-over-clean-energy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3317659/how-us-climate-advocates-lost-narrative-battle-over-clean-energy?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 10 Jul 2025 12:30:07 +0000 America’s prodigious wealth and power are founded on two pillars: universities and businesses. The first produces the ideas, research and training that have made the country a mecca for the world’s best minds. The second generates the investment and innovation that have powered America’s formidable economic engine. But now, US President Donald Trump seems intent on wrecking both. Trump’s behaviour is no surprise. His economic policy ideas have always been wacky, and his hatred for elite academic... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3302927/when-will-us-academia-and-business-speak-against-trump?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3302927/when-will-us-academia-and-business-speak-against-trump?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 19 Mar 2025 08:30:08 +0000 Although Donald Trump came to office in America riding a tsunami of public hostility against “elites”, his enablers are leading members of the establishment and plutocracy. As during his first term, Trump – a wealthy businessman and celebrity – has surrounded himself with a mix of conventional Republican politicians, Wall Street financiers and economic nationalists. This time, these groups have been joined by members of the techno-right, represented most glaringly by Elon Musk, the world’s... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3300675/musk-bannon-trumps-rabble-backers-are-heading-brawl?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3300675/musk-bannon-trumps-rabble-backers-are-heading-brawl?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 Mar 2025 11:00:09 +0000 By wielding the threat of imposing across-the-board tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China for no justifiable reason, US President Donald Trump has demonstrated that he is a major risk for America and its trade partners. But how other countries respond to Trump’s reckless policies will ultimately determine how much damage the global economy will sustain. America’s trade partners need to keep their cool and resist the temptation to magnify the insanity. Most analysts seem to believe that... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3297726/retaliatory-tariffs-are-not-best-response-trumps-bullying?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3297726/retaliatory-tariffs-are-not-best-response-trumps-bullying?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Feb 2025 06:30:13 +0000 China’s rise has challenged America’s undisputed hegemony over the world economy – a status the United States has enjoyed since the Soviet Union’s collapse. While some American national-security elites seek continued US primacy, others seem resigned to an increasingly bipolar world. A more likely outcome, however, is a multipolar world where middle powers exert considerable countervailing force, thus preventing the US and China from imposing their interests on others. Middle powers include... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3286184/china-or-us-world-need-not-choose-hegemon?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3286184/china-or-us-world-need-not-choose-hegemon?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Nov 2024 12:30:08 +0000 With major trading countries increasingly resorting to unilateral action to advance their own social, economic, environmental and security goals, the world economy desperately needs a clear normative framework to determine the rules of the road. A useful starting point is for everyone to agree, in principle, not to deploy beggar-thy-neighbour policies. This may sound reasonable, but is it feasible? Aren’t countries relying on such policies too often to be dissuaded from changing their... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3281964/which-us-and-chinese-policies-fail-beggar-thy-neighbour-test?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3281964/which-us-and-chinese-policies-fail-beggar-thy-neighbour-test?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 11 Oct 2024 14:30:09 +0000 I wrote a speculative article in 2000 on what I called “the political trilemma of the world economy”. My claim was that advanced forms of globalisation, the nation-state and mass politics could not coexist. Societies would eventually settle on, at most, two out of three. I suggested that it would be the nation-state that would give way in the long run, but not without a struggle. In the short term, the more likely consequence was that governments would seek to reassert national sovereignty to... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3277885/can-world-tackle-climate-crisis-boost-middle-class-and-cut-poverty?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3277885/can-world-tackle-climate-crisis-boost-middle-class-and-cut-poverty?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Sep 2024 06:30:08 +0000 Recent elections in France and the UK, together with America’s presidential campaign, reflect the dilemmas left-leaning parties confront as they try to fashion new identities and present credible alternatives to the far-right. It was the far-right that first capitalised on the backlash to neoliberalism and hyper-globalisation that grew in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. A decade ago, one could justifiably complain about the “abdication of the left”. To their credit, leftist... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3269959/europe-us-new-left-must-renew-focus-jobs-and-workers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3269959/europe-us-new-left-must-renew-focus-jobs-and-workers?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Jul 2024 06:30:09 +0000 “The era of free trade seems to be over. How will the world economy fare under protectionism?” This is one of the most common questions I hear nowadays. But the distinction between free trade and protectionism – like the one between markets and the state, or mercantilism and liberalism – is not especially helpful for understanding the global economy. Not only does it misrepresent recent history, it misconstrues today’s policy transitions and the conditions needed for a healthy global... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3233687/why-geopolitics-not-protectionism-global-economys-true-enemy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3233687/why-geopolitics-not-protectionism-global-economys-true-enemy?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 07 Sep 2023 07:30:08 +0000 Economists have long argued that productivity is the foundation of prosperity. The only way a country can increase its standard of living sustainably is to produce more goods and services with fewer resources. Since the Industrial Revolution, this has been achieved through innovation, which is why productivity has become synonymous, in the public imagination, with technological progress and research and development. Our intuition about how innovation promotes productivity is shaped by everyday... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3226935/technology-not-enough-ensure-productivity-matters?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3226935/technology-not-enough-ensure-productivity-matters?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Jul 2023 07:30:09 +0000 Two competing agendas are currently vying to shape the United States’ domestic and foreign economic policies. One agenda is inward-looking, focusing on the creation of an inclusive, resilient, prosperous and sustainable American economy. The other focuses on geopolitics and on maintaining US primacy over China. The future of the world economy depends on the outcome of this conflict and whether these opposing priorities can coexist. US President Joe Biden’s administration represents a radical... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3219675/washingtons-new-china-narrative-meant-reassure-world-economy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3219675/washingtons-new-china-narrative-meant-reassure-world-economy?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 07 May 2023 19:00:08 +0000 Developing countries are increasingly worried that the United States will turn its back on the multilateral trade regime. Amid rising geopolitical tensions, policymakers in lower- and middle-income countries fear that a breakdown of that regime could make them hostages to great-power politics, undermining their economic prospects. Their concerns are not groundless: US trade policies have changed significantly over the past few years. What seemed like a series of haphazard measures under former... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3216414/us-and-eu-trade-barriers-go-developing-economies-must-learn-help-themselves?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3216414/us-and-eu-trade-barriers-go-developing-economies-must-learn-help-themselves?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Apr 2023 12:15:09 +0000 The narrative that underpins the current global economic system is in the midst of a transformative plot twist. Since the end of World War II, the so-called liberal international order has been premised on the free flow of goods, capital and finance, but this arrangement now seems increasingly anachronistic. Every market order is supported by narratives – stories we tell ourselves about how the system works. This is especially true for the global economy because, unlike individual countries, the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3213044/ills-hyper-globalisation-wont-be-solved-turn-zero-sum-geopolitical-rivalry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3213044/ills-hyper-globalisation-wont-be-solved-turn-zero-sum-geopolitical-rivalry?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 Mar 2023 08:45:10 +0000 This year may prove devastating for the developing world, as more countries find themselves engulfed in debt crises. Several are already in default, and scores of others urgently need debt relief to ward off economic collapse and sharp rises in poverty. The prevailing response to debt crises is to negotiate complex packages involving the debtor country, international financial institutions (IFIs), and other external creditors. Domestic bondholders, labour unions and others play a part too. The... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3206496/global-debt-crisis-widens-relief-must-be-restructured-unlock-growth?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3206496/global-debt-crisis-widens-relief-must-be-restructured-unlock-growth?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 12 Jan 2023 17:30:10 +0000 Late last month, a foreign leader accused US President Joe Biden of pursuing “super aggressive” industrial policies. It was not Russian President Vladimir Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose countries are America’s main geopolitical rivals. Nor was it Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi or Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose countries have struggled under the weight of US-led sanctions. No, the complaint came from French President Emmanuel Macron, a US ally, about the Inflation... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3203243/global-trade-rules-should-not-get-way-national-decarbonisation-efforts?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3203243/global-trade-rules-should-not-get-way-national-decarbonisation-efforts?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 14 Dec 2022 06:45:07 +0000 At the Communist Party’s 20th National Congress last month, the country’s one-man rule under President Xi Jinping became fully entrenched. Xi’s centralisation of power does not bode well for how the country will deal with its mounting problems. US President Joe Biden has added to these challenges by launching what Edward Luce of the Financial Times has called “a full-blown economic war on China”. Just before the party congress, the United States announced a vast array of new restrictions on the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/united-states/article/3199232/us-china-rivalry-geopolitics-ruining-chance-shape-better-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/united-states/article/3199232/us-china-rivalry-geopolitics-ruining-chance-shape-better-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 11 Nov 2022 06:16:12 +0000 I wrote recently about the possible emergence, from both the left and right of the political spectrum, of a new economic-policy paradigm that could supersede neoliberalism. The new framework gives governments and community organisations greater responsibility to shape investment and production – in support of good jobs, the climate transition, and more secure, resilient societies – and is much more suspicious of markets and large corporations. I called it “productivism”, though others can no... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3188315/can-we-build-better-economic-framework-looks-beyond-market-state?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3188315/can-we-build-better-economic-framework-looks-beyond-market-state?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 10 Aug 2022 03:30:21 +0000 A new economic paradigm becomes truly established when even its purported opponents start to see the world through its lens. At its height, the Keynesian welfare state received as much support from conservative politicians as it did from those on the left. In the United States, Republican presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon bought fully into the paradigm’s essential tenets – regulated markets, redistribution, social insurance and countercyclical macroeconomic policies. They worked to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3184278/could-productivism-fill-gap-polarised-era-waning-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3184278/could-productivism-fill-gap-polarised-era-waning-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 06 Jul 2022 17:30:20 +0000 When I started teaching at Harvard’s Kennedy School in the mid-1980s, competition with Japan was the dominant preoccupation of US economic policy. The book Japan as Number One by Harvard’s premier Japan expert at the time, Ezra Vogel, set the tone of the debate. I remember being struck back then by the degree to which the discussion, even among academics, was tinged by a certain sense of American entitlement to international pre-eminence. The United States could not let Japan dominate key... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3180953/eyes-others-us-not-benign-power-it-thinks-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3180953/eyes-others-us-not-benign-power-it-thinks-it?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 09 Jun 2022 17:30:27 +0000 The post-1990s era of hyper-globalisation is now commonly acknowledged to have ended. The Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine have relegated global markets to a secondary role behind national objectives – in particular, public health and national security. But all the talk about deglobalisation should not blind us to the possibility that the current crisis may produce a better globalisation. In truth, hyper-globalisation had been in retreat since the global financial crisis of... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3177171/end-hyper-globalisation-need-not-mean-world-where-geopolitics?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3177171/end-hyper-globalisation-need-not-mean-world-where-geopolitics?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 11 May 2022 17:30:16 +0000 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – a flagrant violation of international law that has resulted in a humanitarian disaster – has nailed shut the coffin of the post-1989 “liberal” international order. The model was already on its deathbed, having been mortally wounded by the geopolitical conflict between China and the United States, and the backlash against hyper globalisation. Any hopes for its resuscitation have now been dealt a final blow. The global order we are leaving behind rested on the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3169923/ukraine-invasion-signals-death-liberal-world-order-what-will?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3169923/ukraine-invasion-signals-death-liberal-world-order-what-will?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 10 Mar 2022 17:30:22 +0000 US President Joe Biden’s economic and foreign policies represent a sharp departure from those of his predecessor, Donald Trump. But when it comes to relations with China, Biden has largely maintained Trump’s tough line – refusing, for example, to reverse Trump’s tariffs on Chinese exports and warning of further punitive trade measures. This reflects the widespread hardening of US attitudes towards China. When Foreign Affairs magazine recently asked leading US experts whether American “foreign... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3155651/us-china-great-power-conflict-inevitable-perhaps-not?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3155651/us-china-great-power-conflict-inevitable-perhaps-not?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Nov 2021 17:30:12 +0000 On June 5, the world’s leading economies announced an agreement that will bolster their ability to raise taxes on global corporations. It still needs approval from a wider set of countries, and many details need to be worked out. Nonetheless, the deal is historic. The Group of Seven agreement has two planks. First, it proposes a global minimum tax of 15 per cent on the largest corporations. Second, a portion of these corporations’ global profits will be clawed back to countries where they do... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3136448/how-g7-put-tax-havens-notice-rewriting-rules-hyper-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3136448/how-g7-put-tax-havens-notice-rewriting-rules-hyper-globalisation?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 08 Jun 2021 17:30:13 +0000 Neoliberalism is dead. Or perhaps it remains very much alive. Pundits have been calling it both ways these days. But either way, it is hard to deny that something new is afoot in the world of economic policy. US President Joe Biden has called for a vast expansion of government spending on social programmes, infrastructure, and the transition to a green economy. He wants to use government procurement to rebuild domestic supply chains and bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. His... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3133206/why-biden-right-depart-decades-old-western-economic-orthodoxy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3133206/why-biden-right-depart-decades-old-western-economic-orthodoxy?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 13 May 2021 08:45:05 +0000 The Covid-19 pandemic will leave the US economy with a deeply scarred labour market. More than 20 million jobs have been lost during the crisis, and only half have been regained. Not surprisingly, job losses have hit disadvantaged and less-educated workers especially hard. This aggravates a pre-existing trend. Long before the pandemic, the US labour market was becoming increasingly polarised. Good, middle-class jobs had been disappearing for decades, owing to automation, deindustrialisation,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3113145/why-joe-biden-should-not-look-tax-incentives-bring-back-good-jobs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3113145/why-joe-biden-should-not-look-tax-incentives-bring-back-good-jobs?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 09 Dec 2020 17:30:11 +0000 As Joe Biden secured victory in the US presidential election after a few suspenseful days, observers of American democracy were left scratching their heads. Buoyed by polls, many expected a landslide for the Democrats, with the party capturing not only the White House but also the Senate. How did US President Donald Trump manage to retain the support of so many Americans – receiving an even larger number of votes than four years ago – despite his blatant lies, evident corruption and disastrous... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3109183/bidens-election-win-over-trump-obscures-democratic-partys-long-term?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3109183/bidens-election-win-over-trump-obscures-democratic-partys-long-term?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Nov 2020 17:30:06 +0000 Fifty years ago, Milton Friedman published an article in The New York Times that articulated what has come to be known as the Friedman doctrine: “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” It was a theme he had developed in his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, where he argued the “one and only” responsibility business owes to society is the pursuit of profits within the legal rules of the game. The Friedman doctrine put its stamp on our era. It legitimised the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3105029/how-making-business-more-democratic-can-improve-global-governance?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3105029/how-making-business-more-democratic-can-improve-global-governance?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Oct 2020 09:30:15 +0000 The international trade regime we now have, expressed in the rules of the World Trade Organisation and other agreements, is not of this world. It was designed for a world of cars, steel and textiles, not one of data, software and artificial intelligence. Already under severe pressure from China’s rise and the backlash against hyper-globalisation, it is utterly inadequate to face the three main challenges these new technologies pose. First, there is geopolitics and national security. Digital... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3100718/huaweis-troubles-show-limits-old-trade-order-world-data-software?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3100718/huaweis-troubles-show-limits-old-trade-order-world-data-software?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 09 Sep 2020 22:45:08 +0000 Innovation is the engine that drives contemporary economies. Living standards are determined by productivity growth, which in turn depends on the introduction and dissemination of new technologies that allow an ever-wider variety of goods and services to be produced with fewer of our planet’s resources.  Policymakers and the public at large understand the importance of innovation. What is less well appreciated is the degree to which the innovation agenda has been captured by narrow groups of... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3097020/ai-medical-research-why-innovation-must-not-be-left-innovators?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3097020/ai-medical-research-why-innovation-must-not-be-left-innovators?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Aug 2020 13:45:06 +0000 As Covid-19 spread from China to Europe and then the United States, pandemic-stricken countries found themselves in a mad scramble for medical supplies – masks, ventilators, protective garments. More often than not, it was to China that they had to turn.  By the time the crisis erupted, China had become the world’s largest supplier of key products, accounting for half of all European and US imports of personal protective equipment. “China has laid the groundwork to dominate the market for... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3092676/why-us-should-emulate-chinas-production-home-rather-trying-undercut?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3092676/why-us-should-emulate-chinas-production-home-rather-trying-undercut?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Jul 2020 17:00:10 +0000 The global economy will be shaped in the years ahead by three trends. The relationship between markets and the state will be rebalanced, in favour of the latter. This will be accompanied by a rebalancing between hyper-globalisation and national autonomy, also in favour of the latter. And our ambitions for economic growth will need to be scaled down. There is nothing like a pandemic to highlight markets’ inadequacy in the face of collective-action problems and the importance of state capacity to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3084040/post-pandemic-world-could-be-more-sustainable-and-inclusive-choice?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3084040/post-pandemic-world-could-be-more-sustainable-and-inclusive-choice?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 13 May 2020 12:00:10 +0000 Crises come in two variants: those for which we could not have prepared, because no one had anticipated them, and those for which we should have been prepared, because they were in fact expected. Covid-19 is in the latter category, no matter what US President Donald Trump says to avoid responsibility for the unfolding catastrophe. Even though the coronavirus itself is new and the timing of the current outbreak could not have been predicted, it was well recognised by experts that a pandemic of... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3078766/why-coronavirus-pandemic-unlikely-change-world-better-or-worse?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3078766/why-coronavirus-pandemic-unlikely-change-world-better-or-worse?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 Apr 2020 17:00:18 +0000 US President Donald Trump’s on-and-off trade war against China added ominous clouds of uncertainty to the world economy in 2019, raising the prospect of a significant global economic downturn. His erratic and bombastic style made a bad situation worse, but the US-China trade war is a symptom of a problem that runs much deeper than Trump’s atavistic trade policies.  Today’s impasse between these two economic giants is rooted in the faulty paradigm I call “hyper-globalism”, under which the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3043282/problem-world-trade-not-tariffs-too-much-globalisation-can?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3043282/problem-world-trade-not-tariffs-too-much-globalisation-can?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 24 Dec 2019 17:00:11 +0000 China’s economic rise poses significant political and strategic challenges to the existing global order. The emergence of a new superpower in Asia has inevitably produced geopolitical tensions that some have warned may eventually result in military conflict. Even absent war, the hardening of China’s political regime, amid credible allegations of myriad human-rights abuses, raises difficult questions for the West. Then there is the economics. China has become the world’s top trader, and its... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3036853/us-and-china-can-find-middle-ground-and-get-past-trade-war-heres?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3036853/us-and-china-can-find-middle-ground-and-get-past-trade-war-heres?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Nov 2019 19:00:09 +0000 At the beginning of classes every autumn, I tease my students with the following question: is it better to be poor in a rich country or rich in a poor country? The question typically invites considerable and inconclusive debate. But we can devise a more structured and limited version of the question, for which there is a definitive answer.  Let’s narrow the focus to incomes and assume that people care only about their own consumption levels (disregarding inequality and other social conditions).... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3026660/why-americas-growing-wealth-gap-spells-trouble-rest-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3026660/why-americas-growing-wealth-gap-spells-trouble-rest-world?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 11 Sep 2019 19:00:09 +0000 Is it culture or economics? That question frames much of the debate about contemporary populism. Are Donald Trump’s presidency, Brexit and the rise of right-wing nativist political parties in continental Europe the consequence of a deepening rift in values between social conservatives and social liberals, with the former having thrown their support behind xenophobic, ethno-nationalist, authoritarian politicians? Or do they reflect many voters’ economic anxiety and insecurity, fuelled by... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3017907/donald-trump-brexit-and-europes-new-right-populism-driven-both?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3017907/donald-trump-brexit-and-europes-new-right-populism-driven-both?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 10 Jul 2019 15:00:04 +0000 US President Donald Trump has used national security as a justification for his tariffs on steel imports, his threatened tariff hikes on automobiles and the tariffs he recently vowed to impose on Mexican imports. “If you don’t have steel, you don’t have a country,” he tweeted, to cite just one example. While Trump’s national security claim seems absurd on the face of it, it raises difficult questions for the world trade regime and global economic governance more broadly.  The critical challenge... https://www.scmp.com/comment/article/3014126/why-donald-trumps-tariffs-should-not-be-concern-world-trade-organisation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/article/3014126/why-donald-trumps-tariffs-should-not-be-concern-world-trade-organisation?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Jun 2019 19:00:14 +0000 The world economy desperately needs a plan for “peaceful coexistence” between the United States and China. Both sides need to accept the other’s right to develop on its own terms. The US must not try to reshape the Chinese economy in its image of a capitalist market economy, and China must recognise America’s concerns regarding employment and technology leakages, and accept the occasional limits on access to US markets implied by these concerns.  The term “peaceful coexistence” evokes the cold... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3005674/capitalism-us-and-chinese-characteristics-can-peacefully?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3005674/capitalism-us-and-chinese-characteristics-can-peacefully?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Apr 2019 19:30:10 +0000 Labour advocates have long complained international trade agreements are driven by corporate agendas and pay little attention to the interests of working people. The preamble of the World Trade Organisation Agreement mentions the objective of “full employment”, but otherwise labour standards remain outside the scope of the multilateral trade regime. The only exception is a clause, left over from the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the precursor to WTO), which permits governments to... https://www.scmp.com/business/article/2164417/can-international-trade-agreements-help-introduce-labour-reforms?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/article/2164417/can-international-trade-agreements-help-introduce-labour-reforms?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 16 Sep 2018 09:03:20 +0000 Defying common sense as well as business and financial elites, US President Donald Trump seems to relish the prospect of a trade war. On July 6, his trade restrictions – 25 per cent tariffs on about US$34 billion of Chinese imports – took effect. They were promptly met by retaliatory tariffs on an equivalent volume of US exports to the Chinese market. Trump has said he will impose tariffs on another US$200 billion worth of Chinese exports, as well as tariffs on automobile imports from Europe.... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2154767/why-trumps-trade-war-calls-dignified-restraint?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2154767/why-trumps-trade-war-calls-dignified-restraint?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 11 Jul 2018 06:00:45 +0000 When Italy’s president recently vetoed the appointment of the Eurosceptic Paolo Savona as finance minister in the government proposed by the Five Star Movement-League party alliance, did he safeguard or undermine his country’s democracy? The question goes to the heart of democratic legitimacy. The euro represents a treaty commitment from which there is no clear exit within prevailing rules of the game. President Sergio Mattarella and his defenders point out that an exit from the euro had not... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2150338/if-euro-remain-viable-democratic-legitimacy-ecb-decisions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2150338/if-euro-remain-viable-democratic-legitimacy-ecb-decisions?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Jun 2018 05:15:45 +0000 A high-profile United States  trade delegation appears to have returned empty-handed from its mission in China. The result is hardly a surprise, given the scale and one-sided nature of the US demands. The Americans pushed for a wholesale remaking of China’s industrial policies and intellectual property rules, while asking Beijing to refrain from any action against US President Donald Trump’s proposed unilateral tariffs against Chinese exports.   This is not the first trade spat with China, and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2145690/why-should-china-change-its-successful-trade-policies-just?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2145690/why-should-china-change-its-successful-trade-policies-just?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 May 2018 02:03:10 +0000