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November 22, 2024
 

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Robert J. Shiller
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2013
Best, brightest and least productive?
Financial traders and speculators help to allocate society's resources to the most promising businesses. But these people's activities also impose costs on the rest of us.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 6, 2013
The link between austerity and demoralization
High unemployment in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere is also tragic because of the emotional cost to the jobless of not being part of working society.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2012
Speculative bubbles without financial markets
A speculative bubble is a social epidemic whose contagion is mediated by price movements.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 29, 2012
EU can live on without the euro
Great significance — probably too much — has been attached to a possible breakup of the eurozone. Many believe that such a breakup — if, say, Greece abandoned the euro and reintroduced the drachma — would constitute a political failure that would ultimately threaten Europe's stability. Speaking...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2012
Does austerity promote economic growth?
In his classic "Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices," Publick Benefits (1724), Bernard Mandeville, the Dutch-born British philosopher and satirist, described — in verse — a prosperous society (of bees) that suddenly chose to make a virtue of austerity, dropping all excess expenditure and extravagant...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2011
Toadies to the debt-to-GDP ratio
Economists like to talk about thresholds that, if crossed, spell trouble. Usually there is an element of truth in what they say, but the public often overreacts to such talk.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2011
Economics for the people
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — We are in the midst of a boom in popular economics: books, articles, blogs, public lectures, all followed closely by the general public.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2010
Seven more years of hard economic times?
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Much of the talk emerging from the August 2010 Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, attended by many of the world's central bankers and economists, has been about a paper presented there that gave a dire long-run assessment of the future of the world's economies.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2010
Safeguarding financial stability
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Central bankers around the world failed to see the current financial crisis coming before its beginnings in 2007. Martin Cihak of the International Monetary Fund reported in July 2007 that, of 47 central banks found to publish financial stability reports (FSRs), "virtually all" gave...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2009
Ghost in the recovery machine
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The International Monetary Fund's October World Economic Outlook proclaimed that "Strong public policies have fostered a rebound of industrial production, world trade, and retail sales." The IMF, along with many national leaders, seem ready to give full credit to these policies for...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 18, 2009
Economists banked too much on rationality
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The widespread failure of economists to forecast the financial crisis that erupted in 2008 has much to do with faulty models, which meant that economic policymakers and central bankers got no warning of what was to come.
COMMENTARY / World
May 17, 2009
A story line to push the economy
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Since hitting bottom in early March, the world's major stock markets have all risen dramatically. Some, notably in China and Brazil, reached lows last fall and again in March, before rebounding sharply, with Brazil's Bovespa up 75 percent in May compared to late October 2008, and...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2008
Coaxing a turnabout in our 'animal spirits'
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The world's fundamental economic problem today is a staggering loss of business confidence. Commercial banks, investment banks and hedge funds all owe their ongoing trouble to its decline, which in turn is jeopardizing the plans of companies and entrepreneurs to launch enterprises...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2008
Bailout raises moral issues
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The United States government's takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac constitutes a huge bailout of these institutions' creditors, whose losses have ballooned as house prices continue to plummet. With the government now fully guaranteeing Fannie's and Freddie's debts,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2008
Do images of scarcity drive prices higher?
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Could the television image of the Greenland ice cap crumbling into the ocean because of global warming — indirectly and psychologically — be partly responsible for high oil and other commodity prices? The usual explanation of today's scarcity and high prices focuses on explosive...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2008
Build that nest egg with government help
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — People are fascinated by wealth. They enjoy watching the wealthy, savoring the thought of their fine homes, luxurious vacations, fancy cars, and gourmet dining. But if you infer from this that people spend a lot of time planning the lifetime accumulation of their own wealth, you...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 20, 2007
Worldwide bubble trouble
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — The future of the housing boom, and the possible financial repercussions of a substantial price decline in coming years, are a matter of mounting concern among governments around the world.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2007
Something's up as 'buy' confidence slips
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — The sharp drop in the world's stock markets on Aug. 9 — after BNP Paribas announced that it would freeze three of its funds — is just one more example of the markets' recent downward instability or asymmetry. The markets have been more vulnerable to sudden large drops than...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2007
That hazy, crazy bubbly feel of liquidity
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — We increasingly hear that "the world is awash with liquidity," and that this justifies expecting asset prices to continue rising. But what does such liquidity mean, and is there really reason to expect that it will sustain further increases in stock and real estate prices?...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2007
The taming of 'speculative capitalism'
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Nicolas Sarkozy, the leading contender in the French presidential election, recently lashed out against what he called "speculative capitalism," and says he wants to "moralize the financial zone" created by the euro. What does Sarkozy mean by "speculative capitalism?" Something immoral,...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ex-yokozuna Kitanofuji dies at 82
Yokozuna Kitanofuji enters the ring during the May 1970 grand sumo tournament in Tokyo.
Man charged with murder allegedly made victim date other men for money
A car carrying suspect Ryotaro Masuda, who was indicted for allegedly beating his 25-year-old girlfriend to death, leaves the Shibuya Police Station in Tokyo on Thursday.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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