The euro was trading midday Tuesday above $1.19, higher than the level at its optimistic launch date of Jan. 1, 1999, and more than 30 percent above its nadir. Yet it can go much further — the deutsche mark was at 1.42 to $1 in December 1995, implying a euro value of about $1.37. So […]

In an April 28 column, “The productivity puzzle,” I examined the evidence for the much-touted “productivity miracle” since 1995 and found that the apparent (albeit limited) gains in labor productivity were misleading. This week, I return to the subject, and discuss what the implications of this non-miracle might be for business, government, the U.S. economy […]

During the late 1980s and 1990s, there was general agreement on the policies that emerging markets should implement in order to achieve economic growth, so much so that a term “Washington Consensus” emerged for it. There is no longer such a consensus, and citizens of many countries will suffer for its disappearance.

A country with a heavy natural resource base, a basic illiteracy rate of 15 percent, higher than the Latin American average, a GINI (inequality) coefficient of 0.59, equal to Brazil’s, and corruption equal to that of Belarus is unlikely to be a success story. Add in a race-based government motivated by retribution, and one of […]