T he big mac index was invented by The Economist in 1986 as a lighthearted guide to whether currencies are at their “correct” level. It is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity (PPP), the notion that in the long run exchange rates should move towards the rate that would equalise the prices of an

Nov 18th 2024 M ost central banks are cutting interest rates. Not Russia’s. Last month policymakers raised rates to 21%, a two-decade high; markets expect them to reach 23% by the year’s end. The shift is all the more unusual as it is happening at a time of war, when central bankers are normally loth

E LON MUSK and Vivek Ramaswamy are keen to whip the American government into shape. On November 14th their newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced it wants to hire “super-high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” to get to work on cost-cutting. It is easy to ridicule the enterprise. Mr Musk has talked of ripping $2trn out

Nov 14th 2024 | Singapore and Washington, DC A CROSS CABINET tables, boardrooms and diplomatic missions this week, one topic of discussion has overshadowed all others. The sweeping victory of Donald Trump and the Republican Party in America’s elections will give huge powers to an impulsive president with unorthodox economic beliefs and a belligerent approach

Nov 14th 2024 | Singapore and Washington, DC A CROSS CABINET tables, boardrooms and diplomatic missions this week, one topic of discussion has overshadowed all others. The sweeping victory of Donald Trump and the Republican Party in America’s elections will give huge powers to an impulsive president with unorthodox economic beliefs and a belligerent approach

T he trickiest issue facing the climate negotiations at COP29, which began in Baku on November 11th, goes by the opaque name of the “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG), mainly because that is more dignified than “bigger pile of money”. The NCQG is meant to replace the longstanding goal of an annual $100bn a year

O ne thing nobody thinks of Donald Trump’s return to the White House is that it will herald four years of quiet, predictable government. Here, then, is a puzzle for readers interested in the more abstract bits of finance. Why was Mr Trump’s re-election greeted by resounding drops in volatility all across the world’s most

W HEN JIMMY Carter, the Democratic candidate for American president in 1976, wanted to criticise the record of the incumbent Gerald Ford, he reached for a number invented by the economist Arthur Okun. A rough-and-ready indicator of the state of the economy, what Okun called the economic discomfort index added together the unemployment rate with

Nov 12th 2024 D onald Trump’s victory has a flavour of revenge—not just for the man but also for crypto bros and their assets of choice. Over the course of election night, as it became clear Mr Trump had won America’s presidential election, the price of bitcoin, the most widely traded cryptocurrency, jumped by 10%.

T O HEAR DONALD Trump’s transition team describe it, everyone wants to work for him. Howard Lutnick, the boss of Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment firm, and a co-head of the recruitment crew, has bragged that he is in touch with “the top 150 businesspeople across the United States of America”. A vast array of names