The Internet plays a dramatic role in the development of China’s consumption. Encouraging information products could become a new engine of growth. But the success of such an ambitious 2.0 plan will depend on the new reforms announced by mid-November at the Communist Party Central Committee plenum.
SAO PAOLO | By Benjamin Cole at Marcus Nunes’ Historinhas | Slated to be No. 2 at the Fed is Stanley Fischer, who espouses adjustable inflation-targeting more than the locally preferred shooting for steady increases in nominal GDP (Market Monetarism), who knows?—it may amount to the same thing in practice.
PARIS | By Jérôme Hourdeaux at Mediapart via Presseurop | Despite being strong advocates of competition, European institutions are bound to the US software giant through murky contracts. Any transition to “open source” software, which in theory they encourage, would be too complicated and too expensive, they claim. Excerpts.
MADRID | José Fernández Albertos at El Diario via Presseurop | European elections are transnational, but voting is determined by campaigns on local issues, and the political consequences of the election results are essentially local. This paradox is a major obstacle for European integration.
LONDON | By Sigrún Davíðsdóttir via Icelog | Today [the author wrote this post on Dec 12] I was interviewed both on BBC radio 5 live and BBC radio 2 regarding bankers being sentenced to prison in Iceland. On both stations I was asked why bankers are being prosecuted in Iceland. I would rather turn that question around? Why are bankers not being investigated – and eventually charged, if there is a case against them – in other countries, for example in Britain?
MEXICO CITY | By David Brunat | Mexico is broadly considered as one of the most promising emerging markets. A member of the so-called MIST countries (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey), a group of economies that are soon to equal the BRICS’ influence, according to Goldman Sachs. However, Mexico still has to face several internal threats if it wants to fulfil the forecasts. Along with high-scale corruption, the North American country must solve the huge problem that crime gangs pose to economic development.
LONDON | By Nigel Morris at The Independent via Presseurop | A generation gap has opened up among Britons, with 41 per cent of 18-24 year olds saying they are firmly in favour of the UK’s EU membership or leaning towards support, compared to 32 per cent who are against, according to a new poll published in The Independent.
LONDON | By Barclays analysts | We expect Europe to experience a long period of moderate economic growth, coupled with very low inflation: for the EU28, GDP should grow 1.5% in 2014 and accelerate to 1.7% in 2015, while inflation should bottom at 1.2% in 2014 before edging up slightly, to 1.4%, in 2015.
BEIJING | By Qin Min at Caixin | U.S. tech giant Apple and Chinese telecoms company have been at loggerheads since the first iPhone launched, but there are signs they are inching toward a deal.