Word: economisters
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...centuries-old debate: how do some nations attain long-term economic growth and an ever higher standard of living while others don't? What determines whether people in your part of the planet live in McMansions, mobile homes or mud huts? In the 18th century, proto-economist Adam Smith pointed to the transformative effect of the division of labor. In the 19th, David Ricardo highlighted the benefits of trade. In the 20th, Harvard University's Michael Porter made the case for industry clusters. Geography, physical capital, technology, worker education--they've all taken a turn as the supposed silver bullet...
...fact, increasingly popular. In September, Alan Greenspan, former chief of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said it's "absolutely conceivable that the euro will replace the dollar as [the] reserve currency, or will be traded as an equally important reserve currency." If that ever happens, says HSBC chief economist Stephen King, "the dollar goes into free fall." ABN Amro's de Jong agrees that this would trigger a crisis, but doesn't think it will happen anytime soon: "Ultimately, the U.S. will lose its unique reserve-currency status, but it may take 20, 30 years." At the moment, he says...
...which has been further boosted by soaring demand, political turmoil in the Middle East and rampant speculation by trend-following investors. "Four times in the last 40 years we've had major disruptions in global oil supplies coming from geopolitical events in the Middle East," says Lewis Alexander, chief economist at Citi. "If you were to see one of those scenarios play out, that would be a big additional shock. The consequences could be quite dire." True enough. But for now, the greater threat to the global economy remains more prosaic: the real and present danger that battered U.S. consumers...
That may depend on where you stand. When TIME's Board of Economists met during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late last month, the perspectives varied according to geography. "The U.S. economy is on steroids," said a worried Pascal Blanque, chief economist at the French bank Credit Agricole. Blanque fears an America bulking up on dangerous deficits, a lax monetary policy and the falling dollar. "The European economy is on tranquilizers," retorted Laura D'Andrea Tyson, dean of the London Business School and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton Administration. She argues that...
...French economist, like Fang, warned against excessive focus on currency. Governments, particularly in France and Germany, need to continue reforming their economies to boost productivity, reduce the relatively high cost of labor and find better investment uses for a huge pool of savings that is sitting in bank accounts that yield very low returns. France's savings rate is higher even than Japan's. "The strength of the euro highlights European structural problems; it doesn't cause them," Blanque said...