Eshe Nelson

Barry Eichengreen, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and expert in global currency systems, warns that the US dollar’s future as the all-mighty global-reserve currency is in danger. A deterioration in US relationships with other countries could lead central banks internationally to reconsider their reliance on the dollar, he wrote in a column for Project Syndicate this week.

Norway is by far the world leader in electric cars. The zero-emission vehicles make up almost 30% of the total market. But now, the government is putting the brakes on some of the subsidies that revved up this market. A proposal, presented as part of next year’s budget, has been put forward to remove a tax exemption on electric vehicles that weigh more than two metric tons.

The British reputation for being cold, unfeeling and sporting a stiff upper lip is being dismantled by the UK government as it decides to dive into some uncomfortable truths. This week, the government launched a website that is dedicated to collecting and tracking statistics of racial disparity across the country.

The International Monetary Fund is getting more optimistic about the strength of the global economy. In new forecasts published today, the organization predicts global growth to be 3.6% this year and 3.7% next year, a small upgrade from previous projections in July. Global GDP growth was 3.2% in 2016.

Sorry to say it, but you’re not perfect. We like to believe that we are smart, rational creatures, always acting in our best interests. In fact, dominant economic theory these days often makes that assumption.

The 2017 Nobel prize in economics was awarded to Richard H. Thaler, an American economist at the University of Chicago, for his contributions to behavioral economics.

The UK economy’s decade-long struggle with low productivity is showing little sign of abating. In the second quarter of 2017, output per hour fell by 0.1%, after falling 0.5% in the previous quarter, according to data released today (Oct. 6) by the Office for National Statistics. 

This year, Tesla’s stock price has surged 66%. And buying shares in Elon Musk’s company is far from the only way to cash in on the future of electric cars.

Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto, the mayor Puerto Rico’s capital of San Juan, garnered international attention this weekend after she pleaded to President Trump and his administration to send more help to the US territory in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria. Trump rebuked her, saying Puerto Ricans wanted everything done for them, and that Cruz showed “poor leadership ability.”

It’s been more than a week since Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico, and still much of the island is without power. Lack of access to drinking water risks creating a public health crisis, and food and fuel are in short supply. President Trump has claimed the US government’s relief efforts have made “tremendous strides.” Yesterday, Trump said that the death toll (at least 16 people have died) was a sign of how successful the recovery has been.

The catastrophic devastation that Hurricane Maria brought to Puerto Rico has been made worse by the island’s struggling economy and the US government’s poor efforts to help aid its recovery. When the hurricane made landfall on Puerto Rico over a week ago—as the worst storm to hit the island in almost 90 years—it left it completely without power. It could take months to restore access to electricity, while a public health crisis is in danger of emerging as huge swathes of the population don’t have access to safe drinking water.

For years, slow wage growth has plagued the US economy, perplexing workers, economists, and policymakers alike. But the latest numbers from  the Federal Reserve’s triennial consumer finance survey offers some good news on this front. Between 2013 and 2016, the median income of US households grew by 10%, to $52,700, compared with a 5% decline between 2010 and 2013. And it gets better: Across every income percentile, race group, and education level, the median income has increased over the past three years. What’s more, the growth has been particularly strong for those without a high school diploma and minority groups. 

Germany’s messy federal election has resulted in its first major reshuffle. Wolfgang Schäuble has been Germany’s finance minister since 2009, and under him it became one of the most powerful political positions in Europe. Today, his party, chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) announced that he will be nominated to become president of the German parliament (link in German).

Donald Trump has spent the past two years—on the campaign trail and in office—railing about how the US has lost its competitive edge and how corporate-tax reform must be one of the pillars of his presidency. The latest Global Competitiveness Report from the World Economic Forum tells a slightly different story.

Two weeks, 143 million hacked accounts, and more than $4 billion in lost market value later, Equifax CEO Richard Smith is stepping down. “At this critical juncture, I believe it is in the best interests of the company to have new leadership to move the company forward,” Smith said in a statement.

In the past three months, the price of Brent crude oil—the international benchmark—has steadily climbed by almost 30%, reaching nearly $60 a barrel this week.

On Sunday, Angela Merkel secured her fourth term as German chancellor. But instead of celebrating, Merkel, the German media, and financial markets all seem to agree that it was a hollow victory.

In 2014, the UK was the fastest-growing economy in the G7. Four years later, it will be slowest, according to the OECD’s latest forecasts (pdf).

The remaining traces of the euro zone’s sovereign debt crisis are steadily fading away. One of the worst affected countries, Portugal, had its debt rating upgraded by S&P, to “investment grade” status, on Sept. 15 after five years as “junk” debt.

Updated at 3:00pm in London

Ten years after the global financial crisis, economists are still puzzling over how they (mostly) failed to predict such a massive crash. Given all the data and experience at their disposal, how did they miss something so consequential?

In the UK, 32.1 million people are in work, that’s 75.3% of the working-age population and the highest employment rate since records began in 1971, according to data released today (Sept. 13) by the Office for National Statistics. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate was the lowest since 1975 and more jobs were added in the three months to July than have been since late 2015. But hold off on the celebrations.

The gap in employment and earnings between black and white workers in the US is nothing new. Still, 53 years after the Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination, research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco shows that the gap in wages between races has widened in recent years.

The euro zone is having quite a year. The euro has gained about 14% against the US dollar so far in 2017, and is up against a wide range of other currencies, too. The euro zone’s economy is exceeding expectations and data today showed GDP rose 2.3% in the second quarter from a year earlier, slightly higher than in the US, when measured in the same way.