This paper explores from a regional perspective the distorted nature of trade in energy products within the CIS countries. The persistence of pricing distortions, barter arrangements, and discriminatory access to pipelines, as well as failure to honor contracts, has disrupted and distorted energy exports to non-CIS countries, undermined energy sector reforms, and distorted investment decisions. The paper focuses on cross-border issues as an integral component of the wider problem of inefficie...

Pan-African banks are expanding rapidly across the continent, creating cross-border networks, and having a systemic presence in the banking sectors of many Sub-Saharan African countries. These banking groups are fostering financial development and economic integration, stimulating competition and efficiency, introducing product innovation and modern management and information systems, and bringing higher skills and expertise to host countries. At the same time, the rise of pan-African bank...

International BestsellerOne of Foreign Policy's "21 Books to Read in 2012"A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Business Book“The best book on global economic trends I’ve read in a while.”—Fareed Zakaria, CNN GPSTo identify the economic stars of the future we should abandon the habit of extrapolating from the recent past and lumping wildly diverse countries together. We need to remember that sustained economic success is a rare phenomenon. After years o...

**International Bestseller"Quite simply the best guide to the global economy today." —Fareed Zakaria**Shaped by his twenty-five years traveling the world, and enlivened by encounters with villagers from Rio to Beijing, tycoons, and presidents, Ruchir Sharma’s The Rise and Fall of Nations rethinks the "dismal science" of economics as a practical art. Narrowing the thousands of factors that can shape a country’s fortunes to ten clear rules, Sharma explains how to spo...

How trade imbalances spurred on the global financial crisis and why we aren't out of trouble yetChina's economic growth is sputtering, the Euro is under threat, and the United States is combating serious trade disadvantages. Another Great Depression? Not quite. Noted economist and China expert Michael Pettis argues instead that we are undergoing a critical rebalancing of the world economies. Debunking popular misconceptions, Pettis shows that severe trade imbalance...

Is China a rogue donor, as some media pundits suggest? Or is China helping the developing world pave a pathway out of poverty, as the Chinese claim? In the last few years, China's aid program has leapt out of the shadows. Media reports about huge aid packages, support for pariah regimes, regiments of Chinese labor, and the ruthless exploitation of workers and natural resources in some of the poorest countries in the world sparked fierce debates. These debates, however, took placewith very ...

Inside the engine-room of China's economic growth—the China Development BankAnyone wanting a primer on the secret of China's economic success need look no further than China Development Bank (CDB)—which has displaced the World Bank as the world's biggest development bank, lending billions to countries around the globe to further Chinese policy goals. In China’s Superbank, Bloomberg authors Michael Forsythe and Henry Sanderson outline how the bank is at the...

Lauded by reviewers and scholars alike, Paul Blustein's The Chastening examines the role of the International Monetary Fund in the series of economic crises that rocked the globe in the last decade. Based on hundreds of interviews with officials at the IMF, the World Bank, the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the White House, and many foreign governments, The Chastening offers a behind-the-scenes look at the Fund during an extraordinarily turbulent period in modern eco...

The idea that Brazil, Russia, India and China (the "BRICs") are the rising stars of the world economy is now widely accepted. However, the "old" developed nations have not adjusted to the new world order as they struggle with the legacy of the financial crisis. The BRICs and others (especially Korea) have already ‘emerged’ as economic powers. This requires rapid adjustment in economic policies and especially global economic institutions. This book makes a strong case for a radical overhaul...

For more than a decade, emerging markets have proved one of the most exciting areas of investment, but the sector has not been without its dangers. Private and professional investors alike have continuously been attracted by the promise of riches on offer from countries such as China, India, Brazil and Russia but, as often as not, have been left with their fingers burnt.Investing in Emerging Markets: The BRIC Economies and Beyond tempers the undoubted causes for emerging m...

Two years into the deepest global financial crisis in the post-war era the world economy is still experiencing uneven economic recovery and financial weakness. Financial market conditions are signaling improved investor confidence and more appetite for cross-border investments. As part of its mandate to encourage investment to developing countries the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) seeks to foster more understanding of the role of political risk and instruments to mitigate it...

Starting on Jan. 1, 2011, President Obama’s economic recovery policy will begin the implementation of comprehensive, across-the-board tax rate increases for every major federal tax, along with some completely new taxes. Yet Obama and Congressional Democrats seek even more tax increases.In this insightful Broadside, Peter Ferrara shows that while President Reagan’s tax policies created a 25-year economic boom, the Obama tax tsunami will sink the economy further if it is not stopped....