On Global Markets

American science may be under threat. Last week, the Financial Times looked at the potential impacts of the Trump administration’s cuts to science funding. As the FT reported: Last month, almost 2,000 researchers including dozens of Nobel Prize winners issued an open letter raising the alarm. “We see real danger in this moment,” said the […] 

The market for US Treasurys has a strong claim to being the most important of all financial markets. To a greater or lesser extent, most other markets are – to some degree at least – priced in relation to it. It provides the benchmark, or risk-free rate, against which riskier assets are priced. And in […] 

In 1970, more than half a century ago, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 2626 committing economically advanced countries to spending 0.7% of their gross national income (GDI) to official development assistance (ODA) by 1975.  Few countries ever actually met that target. And this year both the United States and the United Kingdom have […] 

The dollar is not just America’s currency but also the wider world’s reserve currency. Indeed, it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that, in most cases, the term ‘global financial system’ could just as easily be substituted for ‘global dollar system’. Whilst the extent of dollar dominance in international reserves, trade, and […] 

Over the last few months, On Global Markets has repeatedly warned about the real economic costs of elevated levels of economic policy uncertainty. But, it seems that greater certainty on the shape of Donald Trump’s trade policy has brought its own challenges. The President’s so-called ‘Liberation Day’ reciprocal tariffs went a lot further than just […] 

Driving safely requires an accurate speedometer. Knowing when to press on the brakes and when to push down on the accelerator is much trickier if a driver is not really sure exactly how quickly they are currently travelling. Much the same can be said when it comes to economic policymaking; reliable, timely and reasonably accurate […] 

When it comes to American economic policy, the word of the year may well end up being ‘tariff’. So far President Trump’s programme of on-again, off-again tariffs and threatened protectionist measures have dominated news coverage and driven moves in asset markets. But if ‘tariff’ has a contender it will likely be ‘uncertainty’. Levels of policy […] 

The idea of “infrastructure week” became a reasonably popular joke amongst journalists and commentators during President Trump’s first term. As CNN explained at the time, the idea came from the administration’s frequent announcements that in a given week, the focus would be on infrastructure only for it to then get blown off course by some […] 

The tariff roller coaster is going and taking even wilder turns. In the last week the United States imposed the previously delayed by one month promised 25% tariffs on trade with Mexico and Canada on March 4th. On March 5th, following intense lobbying by the big automakers, the automotive sector secured a further one-month delay. […] 

“This can’t possibly be a serious question” is how Andrew Lo of MIT Sloan responded to a poll posed to the Clark Center’s Finance Expert Panel last week. Matteo Maggiori of Stanford GSB went a little further, noting, “This would strike me as one of the worst policy ideas ever”. It is then fair to […]