Regardless of whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins the US presidential election in November, Chinese decision-makers expect bitter disputes over trade, technology, and Taiwan. Feeling under siege, China is girding itself for long-term enmity with the world’s largest economy.

The US economic data released in early August not only triggered a brief, but dramatic episode of financial-market volatility. It also fueled an abnormal degree of instability in forecasts by leading Wall Street economists, suggesting that they, like the Federal Reserve, may have lost their strategic bearings.

Those warning that the US Federal Reserve is dragging the economy down are deeply mistaken. Far from being too restrictive, US monetary policy is almost certainly too loose, judging by the robustness of financial markets and broader economic conditions even after 500 basis points of interest-rate hikes.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to reshape our economies, labor markets, societies, and politics. But despite the rosy forecasts of an AI-driven boom, history shows that technological advances rarely lead to immediate improvements in living standards and often lead to profound disruption.

With its current course leading only to economic stagnation, the EU must establish a vision for a more dynamic, productive future. Above all, Europeans must answer a simple but critical question: What should the EU look like – in terms of innovation, the economy, security, and resilience – in a decade?

The US Treasury’s debt-issuance polices have become a powerful form of policy easing. By shortening its issuance profile to reduce long-term interest rates, the Treasury has delivered economic stimulus equivalent to a one-point cut to the Fed’s policy rate, impeding the central bank’s efforts to control inflation.

After absorbing the US Federal Reserve's repeated assurances that a “fundamentally healthy” economy gave it ample time to decide on when to cut interest rates, the market was caught by surprise when new data suggested otherwise. Such is the danger of signaling a consensus where none exists.

The US Federal Reserve appears to have finally brought about the recession that it engineers whenever unemployment is low and the president is a Democrat. If it costs the party the White House in November, may its leaders use their time out of power to reflect on the unwisdom of their decades-old bargain with Wall Street.

While gold prices rise due to heightened geopolitical uncertainty, the US stock market is breaking records, and global demand for the dollar remains robust. This can be attributed to growing confidence in the US economy, which continues to surprise on the upside.

US stock markets have remained bullish in the face of deepening domestic and international risks, owing to three key factors. But with two of these coming under pressure, the durability of the current cycle will depend on the third: the US Federal Reserve.

Investors are betting on interest-rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve in September, and potentially even in late July. But the outlook for inflation and the labor market in the United States does not indicate that policymakers should begin lowering rates in the next two months.

The China trade shock of the 1990s and 2000s is widely blamed for hollowing out the US manufacturing sector. But anyone who thinks that unwinding trade with China will not result in price increases and significant political backlash is in for a rude awakening.

Philanthropy is not a substitute for government action in areas like health, education, and the distribution of income and wealth, but it can advance public goods and improve human well-being. The key is to design institutions that deliver the reputational benefits that donors crave.

Father Gregory Boyle developed the world’s largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program based on the belief that jobs stop bullets. Following his lead, US policymakers must learn to appreciate the broader meaning of work as they navigate uncertain economic waters, particularly the looming artificial-intelligence revolution.

After years of insufficient investment and sagging productivity in the UK, the Labour Party recognizes that achieving high-quality growth will require a comprehensive policy approach that builds on many intermediate objectives. But devising a strategy is only the first step; the real challenge lies in implementation.

Americans remain pessimistic about the state of the economy largely because the big jump in prices overwhelmingly outweighs the drop in inflation. Unfortunately, the current state of US politics means that more attention will be paid to assigning blame, rather than debating solutions, ahead of November’s presidential election.

Readers of the IMF’s latest annual review of the US economy will be startled to learn that, in the Fund’s estimation, US government debt is on a sustainable path. That assessment makes sense – but it is only as good as the assumptions that underpin it.

While rules-based monetary policy thrived when globalization put downward pressure on inflation, the COVID-19 pandemic has revived central bankers’ long-dormant preference for inflationary policies. This shift may help central banks maintain their independence, but it also increases the likelihood of another surge of price growth.

America’s political leaders have resorted to playing the blame game to convince voters that they are fixing the country’s trade deficit. But by going after China, they are ignoring the root of the problem – the American government’s unchecked spending – while increasing the risk of a full-blown superpower conflict.

Making the power sector fit for the twenty-first century requires a “banker” that finances and coordinates relevant long-term investments, and an “architect” that guides the development of a complex, interconnected smart-grid system. National governments need to fill both roles.

The current debate about generative AI focuses disproportionately on the disruption it might unleash. While it is true technological advances always disrupt legacy industries and existing systems and processes, one must not ignore the opportunities they can create or the risks they can mitigate.

The dollar's strength, particularly against major Asian currencies, has triggered a wave of skittishness in financial markets. Can anything be done to stem the greenback's rise, and even if something can be done, should it?

The first-quarter GDP report supports the view that the US economy has not landed. While some economists are concerned about stagflation, the real worry is that taming price pressures may require a mild downturn, given strong consumer spending and inadequately restrictive monetary policy.

Until recently, any suggestion of fiscal prudence was quickly dismissed as “austerity” by economists on the left. But with higher interest rates fast becoming the new normal, the idea that any economic problem can be solved with more government borrowing has become untenable.

Following yet another release of US macroeconomic data that lies outside the range that anyone had predicted, the only certainty is that forecasters' jobs are not getting any easier. But while the global outlook is growing murkier, it has not become inscrutable.

Nouriel Roubini, Stephen S. Roach, Nancy Qian, and more assess what it will take to improve the country’s economic prospects.

For the last several years, world leaders have made big promises and laid out bold plans to mitigate the climate crisis and help the neediest countries adapt. At this year's World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings, they must demonstrate that they can fulfill these promises, rather than simply touting new ones.

Germany’s ongoing economic weakness suggests that the European Union’s long-term economic slump is not likely to end anytime soon. But with traditional laggards like Italy and France showing signs of recovery, and Central and East European members performing well, the bloc’s economic outlook could still take a turn for the better.

The question of whether the US dollar will be dethroned by a cryptocurrency, a stablecoin, or some other digital asset or payments system ultimately misses the point. What really matters is the mix of possible alternatives that today's evolving financial landscape will offer to governments pursuing a geopolitical advantage.

While China obviously needs to boost private-sector confidence and revive growth with a more sustainable economic model, it is not clear that Chinese leaders fully appreciate the challenges they face. The shift back to state capitalism over the last decade is plainly incompatible with President Xi Jinping’s development goals.

With India's development continuing to gain steam, one of the biggest challenges will be to avoid the mistake that others have made when they failed to recognize their newly acquired global systemic influence and adapt accordingly. Both China and Big Tech show that it is never too early to start managing one's own rise.

Tech companies know that if there is an open, democratic debate about data security, consumers’ concerns about digital safeguards will win out. And while the industry's lobbyists tried to ensure that no such debate could ever occur, one of their more cynical moves has now been exposed and thwarted.

The economic outlook in the United States is unusually murky, with different sets of indicators telling different stories. But it is entirely possible that inflation will get stuck at a level inconsistent with the US Federal Reserve’s target, reducing – perhaps even to zero – the number of interest-rate cuts this year.

Although the world is beset by wars, rising great-power tensions, and other geopolitical risks, most of these factors have not radically affected the outlook for economies and markets in the near term. But that could change if the United States returns to an aggressive "America First" posture.

Buoyed by the artificial-intelligence boom, the US stock market is breaking records with no apparent end in sight. But given the significant challenges and uncertainties facing the American economy regardless of who occupies the White House in 2025, there is little reason to believe that the current rally can last.

Despite rosy forecasts, the US economy faces powerful headwinds that call into question its ability to serve as the world’s main growth driver. These challenges are compounded by domestic and geopolitical uncertainties that have not been reflected in market valuations and economic assessments.

Critics of the Federal Reserve argue that the acceleration of US inflation in early 2021, and the rapid disinflation of recent months, had nothing to do with monetary policy, because the sources of above-target price growth were all on the supply side. This view is both right and too simple.

There is no shortage of hope – and hype – about what artificial intelligence could do for productivity and economic growth in the future. But we must bear in mind that our politics have proven too dysfunctional, and our policies too misguided, to manage even the most obvious threats to our future.

Despite analysts’ increasingly optimistic forecasts for the coming year, the risks to global growth are still tilted to the downside. In fact, recent developments in China, Europe, and the United States suggest that the world economy’s biggest challenges may lie ahead.

Despite its original stated goal, US antitrust policy has always been used merely to ensure the free entry of competitors into all markets, rather than to address the problem of market power. But in the age of Big Tech, this approach has become woefully inadequate.

The unexpected resilience of the global economy in 2023 has led many analysts to adopt an optimistic outlook for the upcoming year. But given the escalating crisis in the Middle East and persistent market volatility, the chances of a robust worldwide economic recovery appear slim.

American progressives, together with populists and nationalists on the right, argue that “every billionaire is a policy failure” and propose applying special taxes to them. But bashing the ultra-wealthy is based on flawed ideas about income inequality and sends the message that success is a dirty word.

Heading into 2024, most economists and market analysts have adopted a baseline scenario in which most major economies avoid both a recession and renewed inflation – the much-desired "soft landing." But the current encouraging consensus could still be derailed by any number of factors, not least geopolitics.

As geopolitical tensions spike and interest rates remain elevated, 2024 is poised to be yet another tumultuous year for the world economy. This is especially true for emerging markets, which managed to avert a crisis in 2023 but could struggle to do so again if global growth fails to meet expectations.

Contrary to many Western analysts’ expectations, the shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world economy will not lead to a China-led alternative order but to global instability. Amid deepening economic fragmentation, leaders must forestall a rapid descent into chaos by strengthening the existing multilateral architecture.

The long-standing economic consensus that interest rates would remain low indefinitely, making debt cost-free, is no longer tenable. Even if inflation declines, soaring debt levels, deglobalization, and populist pressures will keep rates higher for the next decade than they were in the decade following the 2008 financial crisis.

Once again, larger deficits and higher debt-to-GDP ratios in rich countries have become fodder for fiscal hawks and bond vigilantes to warn of a looming crisis that will demand a return to austerity. But the case for such pessimism has no logical or historical basis.

Despite an increasingly challenging economic and geopolitical environment, the global economy performed better than expected over the past year. But although analysts’ projections for 2023 were too pessimistic, it appears that consensus forecasts for the coming year may have have swung too far in the opposite direction.

More than two years after economists divided into opposing camps over the nature of the post-pandemic inflation, we now know which side was right. Disinflation has confirmed that the earlier price increases were “transitory,” driven largely by supply disruptions and sectoral shifts in demand.

Contrary to many analysts’ expectations, emerging markets have not spiraled into a debt crisis. This can be partly attributed to central banks’ decision to reject populist policy proposals in favor of a modern iteration of macroeconomic orthodoxy.