There has been much discussion in Turkey in recent days about the performance of the economy under the AKP government, occasioned in part by an exchange I had with Minister of Finance Mehmet Şimşek. The Turkish government likes to claim that the GDP expanded by more than three-fold between 2002 ...

My newest Project Syndicate column is on the BRICS. These countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – have little in common. Most prognostications suggested they would agree on very little. Yet they have surprised the world by proposing a New Development Bank to focus on infrast...

This is so absolutely brilliant and important: “One thing that experts know, and that non-experts do not, is that they know less than non-experts think they do.” It comes from Kaushik Basu, currently chief economist at the World Bank and one of the world’s most thoughtful expert-economists. ...

The World Economics Association recently interviewed me on the state of economics, inquiring about my views on pluralism in the profession. You can find the result on the WEA's newsletter here (the interview starts on page 9). I reproduce it below. 1. How would you briefly state your perspectiv...

What follows below is the original, unedited version of my oped in the Financial Times today, for those who cannot access it. (UPDATE: I should add that neither the title of the FT piece nor the subtitle is mine. The subtitle in the print edition "A political class has turned violent to mask it...

There has been much discussion in Turkey in recent days about the performance of the economy under the AKP government, occasioned in part by an exchange I had with Minister of Finance Mehmet Şimşek. The Turkish government likes to claim that the GDP expanded by more than three-fold between 2002 ...

So big changes ahead for me. This is my last week at Harvard, as I am moving to the Institute for Advanced Study as the Albert O. Hirschman professor in the School of Social Science. Here is the Institute’s official announcement. My new home page is here, although it is barely under constructi...

I spent a few short days in Latvia last week. My meetings centered on industrial policy, which Latvia is serious about – quite interestingly for a country that is often viewed as a hotbed of conservative economics. But my time there also gave me an opportunity to reflect on the country’s much di...

This has been a long-standing concern of mine: what are the respective roles of ideas iand interests in shaping policy outcomes? The most widely held theory of politics is also the simplest: the powerful get what they want. Financial regulation is driven by the interests of banks, health policy ...

My colleague Lant Pritchett teaches a course on globalization with Larry Summers, and he invited me to his class recently to debate Summers on free trade. I used a few thought experiments to get students to understand how thinking about trade policy requires going beyond economics to considering...

I spent a few short days in Latvia last week. My meetings centered on industrial policy, which Latvia is serious about – quite interestingly for a country that is often viewed as a hotbed of conservative economics. But my time there also gave me an opportunity to reflect on the country’s much di...

I spent a few short days in Latvia last week. My meetings centered on industrial policy, which Latvia is serious about – quite interestingly for a country that is often viewed as a hotbed of conservative economics. But my time there also gave me an opportunity to reflect on the country’s much di...

Guest Post by Danny Leipziger,Professor of International Business at George Washington University, and former Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management at the World Bank A new president will take over the World Bank on July 1st. Dr. Jim Kim inherits a venerable institution tha...

I have blogged before about a rather surprising result (to me at least) regarding productivity convergence in manufacturing. Despite the lack of convergence among economies as a whole, there is apparently quite strong convergence within manufacturing industries. What this means is that manufac...