Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Policy makers should heed the lessons of the Great Recession and enact the structural and regulatory reforms needed to protect the world against the next crisis.
Despite the grim economic outlook for California, America’s Golden State holds lessons for how Europe can survive its own debt crisis and make the continent more resilient to future shocks.
Despite headlines proclaiming otherwise, the G20 summit made substantial progress on several issues, including financial and IMF governance reforms and the rejection of current account and currency targets.
Given the real danger of a currency war, countries should refocus on the impediments to sustainably increasing their domestic demand and give the recovery more time to take hold.
Achieving sustainable fiscal policies in the United States is likely to prove more important for the promotion of sustained growth, both domestically and globally, than anything that could be done by China or Germany.
When rethinking the institutional arrangements that underpin their monetary union, Europeans should take note of the California’s experience during the Great Recession.
Faster growth in the G20 must come through increased demand in advanced nations—beginning with the United States and Germany—rather than agreements about currency appreciations or current account targets.
Threats of a currency war hang in the air, but few countries have actually seen their exchange rate appreciate significantly. Major world economies should refocus on domestic policies before the rhetoric turns into reality.
European policy makers need to respond to the Great Recession and subsequent debt crisis with far-reaching structural reforms in order to ensure that today’s downturn does not devolve into long-term slow growth and deflationary trends.
Economic growth in Africa over the last ten years has been at its strongest in decades, but continued reform efforts—especially those affecting governance and the business climate—are needed to ensure that this renaissance continues.
