It is almost impossible to assess the progress of the United States economy over the past four decades without feeling disappointed.From the perspective of the typical American, nearly one-third of the country’s productive potential has been thrown away on spending that adds noth

One does not need to be particularly good at hearing to decipher the dog whistles being used during this year’s election campaign in the United States.Listen even briefly, and you will understand that Mexicans and Chinese are working with Wall Street to forge lousy trade deals th

In “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, French economist Thomas Piketty highlights the striking contrasts in North America and Europe between the Gilded Age that preceded World War I and the decades following World War II.In the first period, economic growth was sluggish, wealt

It is difficult to read former US Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke’s new memoir, “The Courage to Act”, as anything other than a tragedy.It is the story of a man who may have been the best-prepared person in the world for the job he was given, but who soon found himself outmatch

Back in the early days of the ongoing economic crisis, I had a line in my talks that sometimes got applause, usually got a laugh, and always gave people a reason for optimism.

As bubbles go, it was not a very big one.From 2002 to 2006, the share of the American economy devoted to residential construction rose by 1.2 percentage points of GDP above its previous trend value, before plunging as the United States entered the greatest economic crisis in near

For the past 25 years, a debate has raged among some of the world’s leading economists.At issue has been whether the nature of the business cycle underwent a fundamental change after the end of the “30 glorious years” that followed World War II, when the economy was characterised

When policy makers turn to economists for guidance, they expect the advice they receive to be grounded in science, not academic factionalism or political presuppositions. After all, the policies they will be putting in place will have real implications for real people.Unfort

Ideas matter.