Standpoint
26.12.09
A Way to Share in a Nation’s Growth
Robert J. Shiller, Professor of Economics and Finance at Yale and Co-founder and Chief Economist of MacroMarkets LLC.Borrowing a concept from corporate finance, governments could sell a new type of security that commits them to paying shares in national “profit,” as measured by gross domestic product. >>
Luigi Zingales, Professor at the University of Chicago, author of "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists"The idea of imposing a tax on financial transactions, also called the Tobin tax after the economist who first proposed it, is back in vogue. It has strong political appeal, catering to demands to punish banks for the crisis they have bestowed. It satisfies the political need to do something to avoid a repeat of the crisis. >>
14.12.09
Too Big to Reform?
Martin Feldstein, The writer is professor of economics at Harvard UniversityIn this new world, the dollar has shifted from being almost the sole “reserve currency” of many countries to being the primary “investment currency”, a role that it will continue to play far into the future. >>
Edmund S. Phelps, Director of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University and the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics.The near global financial meltdown and ensuing downturns left the Anglo-Saxon nations pondering what they should do both to set their economies on a path toward recovery and to avoid a similar crisis in the future. >>
Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.We don’t need to reinvent the wheel; we just need to follow up on the commitments made ten years ago. Dealing with the short-run challenges of the current crisis should not distract us from the objective of preventing future meltdowns. >>
