By Ray Kwong | In recent years, international firms in China have faced greater scrutiny for price-fixing and corruption. No one is immune, as companies like Swiss snack giant Nestlé, American fast food purveyor McDonald’s, French supermarket chain Carrefour and German engineering group Siemens can attest. The latest high profile multinational in China’s cross hairs is British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline.
By Knowledge@Wharton via The Fair Obsever | Apple has set up at least three foreign subsidiaries that are “not tax resident in any nation” in order to avoid paying millions of dollars. Is the US tax system broken? And how can one decide if the effective tax rate paid by a multinational is “fair”?
BARCELONA | By CaixaBank research team | Our scenario expects this expansion to continue in 2014 since the effects of the Bank of Japan’s quantitative easing should continue until well into the coming year.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | Since Quantitative Easing programmes began, the dollar has been strengthened, that is, its price has gone up against the most used currencies in the international markets.
NEW YORK | By Ana Fuentes | Americans blame Bush more than Obama, who seems to be benefiting from the current economic stability. However, everything could change once the Fed stops injecting QE steroids.
LONDON/MADRID | Eurogroup leaders must be helplessly looking at the other side of the Atlantic with at the very least a moderate degree of envy: job numbers are improving at a pre-crisis rates.
MADRID | By Antonio Arroyo | The U.S. is undoubtedly the world’s military leader: 40% or the world’s defence spending comes from the country and since 9-11 attacks the budget has been increasing until 2011 cuts. Although worldwide criticized by its espionage programs, the U.S. remain sort of a global moderator, which in the author’s opinion is better than having several countries doing the same or no referee at all.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | So-called libertarians sell mostly smoke: their conception of individuals isn’t real, their economic model is ideology.
MADRID | By JP Marín Arrese | The real task facing negotiators is tackling the non-trade barriers. Divergent regulation on goods and services represents a formidable hurdle for exporters on both sides of the Atlantic.
By Antonio Sánchez-Gijón, via capitalmadrid | In little more than fifty years, Egypt has gone from being the country with almost absolute power to regulate the use of the Nile, to be forced to negotiate with all countries upstream.