Diwa C. Guinigundo
Beyond Donald and Kamala
November 07, 2024 6:03 am
As we wrote this piece, the election in the US was likened into a woman in travail, laboring in child birth. In a few hours, the world will know whether it’s a Donald or a Kamala. The market believes it could be problematic if the US pivots back to narrow economic nationalism which involves bringing goods and services production back to the United States, or putting up barriers to immigration. Yet, CNN’s initial exit polls indicate that only about a third of voters thought the economy is in good or excellent shape, down from about half who said the same in 2020. This is not good for Kamala. This seems to confirm Donald’s claim throughout the campaign that the Americans are not getting a fair deal.
When policy gears need some shift
October 30, 2024 11:31 pm
We have been participating almost every year in the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Asian Regional Forum on Investment Management of Foreign Exchange Reserves, before and after my retirement from central banking in 2019. While there was some lull during the pandemic in 2020, which actually provided ADB with a new angle. In our spirited one-on-one session in Sapporo, Japan last September, the Bank’s Deputy Treasurer Sukhumarn Phanachet asked about the important lessons of the health crisis for central banking.
‘Without growth, everything is nothing’
October 24, 2024 12:08 am
When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics in Stockholm last Oct. 14, the role of political institutions in economic development and long-term prosperity received some kind of a revival. It’s been 12 years since the initial release of the pioneering “Why Nations Fail.”
When nations fail…
October 17, 2024 2:22 am
It was the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that announced the winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics at a press conference in Stockholm last week. They were Daron Acemoglu of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Simon Johnson also of MIT, and James Robinson of the University of Chicago. They collaborated in working on the linkage between political institutions, economic development, and long-term prosperity. We have been citing their work in many previous economic briefings on the Philippines’ failure to translate its decent economic growth since 1999 until the 2020 pandemic into real progress and catch up with its ASEAN neighbors.
Candidates, legacy problems, and false hopes
October 09, 2024 11:37 pm
The photos of those who trooped to the Manila Hotel and other Comelec offices to file their certificates of candidacy (COCs) gave us the impression that they have all figured out what they seriously intend to do in the next few years once they get elected.