Word: economisters
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...Others argue that the global economy is now better able to withstand potential shocks such as slower Chinese growth because it's more flexible and healthier, and because interest rates around the globe are relatively low. Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard professor and former chief economist at the IMF, believes Asia is not immune to a sharp U.S. slowdown, although he says Europe may be better insulated because of its big internal market, which now covers 490 million people. But he also points out that, until the early 1990s, Japan was a vital source of global growth that virtually disappeared during...
...What economists are struggling to predict is how extensive the impact of this housing slowdown will be. Many other real estate markets around the globe rose in tandem with the U.S. in recent years, but so far none have come back down to earth with the same force. Perhaps most surprisingly, American consumers are continuing to spend, regardless: automobile purchases are sluggish, but monthly retail sales rose by a higher-than-forecast 0.9% from November to December. "I'm not prepared to bet against the American consumer. That's a highly dangerous proposition," says Jesper Koll, chief Japan economist...
...Jean-Philippe Cotis, chief economist at the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, says the critical question is whether America's housing woes are a signal that the entire U.S. economy is overextended. "For the moment it looks like there is only marginal overheating," he says. That's very different from the situation in 2000, when massive overinvestment in technology around the world created the Internet bubble. When that popped, it sent global financial markets and economies into a tailspin. Today, though, Cotis sees the issue as "an idiosyncratic problem in the U.S. spilling over only moderately...
...EXPORTS Spending by Asia's rising middle classes has made the region far less dependent on America's appetite for Asian exports. Today, only 16.5% of Asia's exports are sold in the U.S., down from 25.5% in 1993. Yet there are significant regional differences. Jonathan Anderson, chief economist for Asia at Swiss bank UBS, says Singapore, Malaysia and Japan remain more vulnerable if tapped-out Americans start to shop less, given that their own domestic spending is relatively weak; by contrast, China's consumption is rising steadily, propelled partly by housing demand. He points out that China wasn...
...most welcoming destinations for overseas investment. At the same time, the government is clamping down on the thousands of foreigners who work in Thailand without proper permits. "Given the strong regional competition for foreign investment, Thailand should be sending a message that we welcome foreigners," says Sompop Manarungsan, an economist at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. "Instead, we're doing the opposite...