The Korea Herald

[Daniel Moss] The great trade war that didn’t happen in 2017

ViewpointsJan 2, 2018

The trade war didn’t happen. Prepare for a few skirmishes. It was high on many observers’ lists of things that could go badly wrong in 2017. Buying and selling of goods and services across borders n...
[Noah Smith] Monopolies may be worse for workers than for consumers

ViewpointsJan 2, 2018

Monopoly power is a hot topic of economic debate. Economists are starting to ask whether increasing industrial concentration is choking off productivity growth, reducing capital investment, throttlin...
[Noah Feldman] Tillerson won’t admit: The US has no leverage

ViewpointsJan 1, 2018

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may think his year-end summary of US foreign policy is a tale of success. But the remarkable op-ed article in the New York Times in fact illustrates the opposite: It ...
[Nathaniel Bullard & Adam Minter] The upside to America’s gadget infatuation

ViewpointsJan 1, 2018

Americans have never been more addicted to devices. Thanks to the mobile revolution initiated by the iPhone, the US alone is home to 238 million mobile phones and 140 million tablets that are rarely ...
[Noah Smith] A road map for reviving the Midwest

ViewpointsDec 28, 2017

John Austin is a man with a mission: to revive the Rust Belt. The former president of the Michigan State Board of Education, he is also a researcher at the Brookings Institution and has been the dire...
[Mac Margolis] President’s narrow survival is good news for Peru

ViewpointsDec 27, 2017

Given the notoriously glacial pace of Latin American justice, Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s fall from grace and, almost, from power was dizzying. Barely a week after being accused of lyi...
[Christopher Balding] China bets on more state control for 2018

ViewpointsDec 27, 2017

As 2017 wraps up and 2018 beckons, it‘s worth reviewing what we forecast for China in the year now ending, and to cast ahead for what themes might play out over the next 12 months. After this week’s ...
[Noah Smith] Suddenly, America’s trade deficit isn’t so awful

ViewpointsDec 26, 2017

It’s possible that more than half of the US’ trade deficit is a mirage -- an artifact of corporate shenanigans designed to avoid taxes. Official statistics say that the US trade deficit is about 3 ...
[Eli Lake] Nikki Haley confronts the UN’s ‘jackals’

ViewpointsDec 25, 2017

When UN member states vote Thursday on a resolution condemning America’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Ambassador Nikki Haley will be watching. As she tweeted Tuesday, “The US will be...
[Jonathan Bernstein] GOP tax bill needn’t be popular to be successful

ViewpointsDec 22, 2017

With the passage of the Republican tax bill, we’re now getting a debate over whether it will become more popular in time for the 2018 midterm elections. The answer? All that matters is its effect on ...
[Leonid Bershidsky] Maybe the free world doesn’t need a leader

ViewpointsDec 21, 2017

Who is the leader of the free world? Important as the question sounds, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s better left unanswered. The US president is no longer the obvious choice. Even the new US Natio...
[Michael Schuman] Japan has figured out factories

ViewpointsDec 21, 2017

Reviving manufacturing has become a prime policy objective for national leaders from Washington to Beijing to New Delhi. We can debate whether chasing factories is worth the effort in the 21st centur...
[Michael Pettis] Let China’s workers roam free

ViewpointsDec 19, 2017

Over the past few weeks, people in Beijing have been riveted by the so-called migrant “clean-out” -- the government’s attempt to evict tens of thousands of migrant workers from their homes in the poo...
[Leonid Bershidsky] Russia’s military is leaner, but meaner

ViewpointsDec 18, 2017

During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual press conference Thursday, a friendly journalist asked Putin whether the escalating tension in relations with the US and the crumbling of arms control...
[Conor Sen] Bad news for doomsayers (good news for workers!)

ViewpointsDec 18, 2017

Despite a US unemployment rate that’s at its lowest level in 17 years, gloomy types manage to see dark omens. Some, especially those shaped by the inflationary period in the late 1970s, fear that wh...