Monday, May 14, 2012
IMF BOOK FORUM: The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
Time Magazine called Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Yergin one of the “hundred people who mattered” worldwide in 2011, saying, “If there is one man whose opinion matters more than any other on global energy markets, it’s Daniel Yergin.”
Dr. Yergin is Chairman and Founder of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, one of the leading energy advisory firms in the world, and he serves as CNBC’s Global Energy Expert.
Dr. Yergin is known for his book The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil Money and Power, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. It became a number one New York Times best seller. Both The Prize and Commanding Heights, Yergin’s next book, were made into award-winning television documentaries for PBS and BBC.
The New York Times said recently that “Mr. Yergin, operating as a kind of one-man think tank, has had a virtual monopoly on the subject of energy and geopolitics. Such is his influence that one half expects his competitors to file antitrust litigation against him.”
About the Book:
The Quest tackles “three big and longstanding fears: energy scarcity, energy security and, more and more, the environmental ruin that energy can cause.” (The Economist).
- Will we run out of oil? Will enough energy be available to meet the needs of fast-growing economies, at what cost, and with what technologies?
- How can the security of the world energy system be maintained? Since World War II, many crises have disrupted energy supplies. Will the next crisis come from the cyber vulnerability of energy systems?
- How will energy development affect the environment? Will the world be able to shift in time toward a new age of energy, a radically different mix that relies more on renewables and alternatives?
What the Reviews Say:
- New York Times: “Mr. Yergin is back with a sequel to The Prize. It’s an even better book. It is searching, impartial and alarmingly up to date.”
- Financial Times: “it is impossible to think of a better introduction to the essentials of energy in the 21st century … the value of The Quest is in the clarity and fair-mindedness of Yergin’s thought.
- The Economist: “The Quest is a masterly piece of work and, as a comprehensive guide to the world’s great energy needs and dilemmas, it will be hard to beat.”
Also, read an interview with Daniel Yergin.
IMF BOOK FORUM
Presents
DANIEL YERGIN
The Quest:
Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
Monday, May 21, 2012
3.30 to 4.30 pm
Room: HQ1 R-710 (Red Level, Auditorium)
Please send an email to ploungani@imf.org if you’d like to attend
About the Presenter:
Time Magazine called Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Yergin one of the “hundred people who mattered” worldwide in 2011, saying, “If there is one man whose opinion matters more than any other on global energy markets,
Posted by at 6:46 PM
Labels: Energy & Climate Change
Monday, May 7, 2012
Why’s austerity so unpopular in Europe? Because it’s not working.
Europeans are rebelling against austerity. That’s the read on Sunday’s elections in Greece and France. But why do voters loathe austerity so much? Perhaps because, as economists have found, efforts to rein in budget deficits can take a wrenching toll on living standards, especially in a recession.
In a recent paper for the International Monetary Fund, Laurence Ball, Daniel Leigh and Prakash Loungani looked at 173 episodes of fiscal austerity over the past 30 years. These were countries that, for one reason or another, cut spending and hiked taxes in order to shrink their budget deficits. And the results were typically painful: Austerity, the IMF found, “lowers incomes in the short term, with wage-earners taking more of a hit than others; it also raises unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment.” Read the full story on the Washington Post.
Europeans are rebelling against austerity. That’s the read on Sunday’s elections in Greece and France. But why do voters loathe austerity so much? Perhaps because, as economists have found, efforts to rein in budget deficits can take a wrenching toll on living standards, especially in a recession.
In a recent paper for the International Monetary Fund, Laurence Ball, Daniel Leigh and Prakash Loungani looked at 173 episodes of fiscal austerity over the past 30 years.
Posted by at 4:14 PM
Labels: Inclusive Growth
Monday, April 30, 2012
Jobs and Growth: Can’t Have One Without the Other?
IMF Deputy Managing Director Min Zhu wrote today in imfdirect:
As Frank Sinatra crooned about love and marriage, so it seems about jobs and growth:
“This I tell ya, brother, you can’t have one without the other.”
The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook projects global growth of 3 ½ percent this year. To the person on the street, what matters is how this growth translates into jobs and wages. The news on the jobs front, unfortunately, remains grim.
Five years after the onset of the Great Recession, 16 million more people are likely to remain unemployed this year than in 2007. This estimate is for a set of countries for which the IMF forecasts unemployment rates; adding in some countries for which the International Labour Organization provides forecasts only boosts the number.
The bulk of this increase in unemployed people has been in the so-called advanced economies (the IMF’s term for countries with high per capita incomes), as shown in the chart below.
Why isn’t the jobs picture better? Quite simply, it’s because the growth picture isn’t very good.
Consider Chart 2, which shows how for advanced economies the change in unemployment rates expected between 2011 and 2012 correlates with the IMF’s forecasts for growth this year.
Countries such as Cyprus, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, where GDP is expected to decline in 2012 are the ones where unemployment is expected to increase this year.
In Iceland, New Zealand, and the United States, where GDP is expected to grow, unemployment rates are expected to decline.
While these declines are welcome, unemployment rates are still expected to remain high in most advanced economies this year.
The average unemployment rate in these economies is expected to 7 ¾ percent, with several populous economies such as the United States, France, the United Kingdom at or above this average.
Policy response
The need to bring down these high unemployment rates is paramount.
That’s why the IMF stated in its recent World Economic Outlook that “the highest priority, but also the most difficult to achieve, is to durably increase growth in advanced economies, and especially in Europe.”
Specifically, policies must be strengthened to solidify the weak recovery and contain the many downside risks.
In the short term this will require:
- more efforts to address the euro crisis;
- a temperate approach to fiscal restraint in response to weaker activity;
- a continuation of the very accommodative monetary policies; and
- ample liquidity to the financial sector.
IMF Deputy Managing Director Min Zhu wrote today in imfdirect:
As Frank Sinatra crooned about love and marriage, so it seems about jobs and growth:
“This I tell ya, brother, you can’t have one without the other.”
The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook projects global growth of 3 ½ percent this year. To the person on the street, what matters is how this growth translates into jobs and wages.
Posted by at 1:46 PM
Labels: Inclusive Growth
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
The Global Recovery: Where Do We Stand?
The recovery from the Great Recession has been unusually uneven: very weak in many advanced economies but surprisingly strong in many emerging and developing economies. The trajectory of the ongoing recovery in advanced economies has so far displayed some disturbing similarities with the sluggish recovery following the much shallower 1991 global recession. Read the full article here.
The recovery from the Great Recession has been unusually uneven: very weak in many advanced economies but surprisingly strong in many emerging and developing economies. The trajectory of the ongoing recovery in advanced economies has so far displayed some disturbing similarities with the sluggish recovery following the much shallower 1991 global recession. Read the full article here.
Posted by at 12:09 PM
Labels: Uncategorized
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Is U.S. Long-Term Unemployment Set to Decline?
Is U.S. long term unemployment set to decline? That’s what an updated version of my paper on cyclical versus structural unemployment predicts. The data in recent quarters have shown an even faster pace of decline than the prediction. Tomorrow’s unemployment number will tell if this trend continues. The paper was presented at the San Francisco Fed Conference (see my presentation). Here’s what Valerie Ramey and Steve Davis said about the paper.
Is U.S. long term unemployment set to decline? That’s what an updated version of my paper on cyclical versus structural unemployment predicts. The data in recent quarters have shown an even faster pace of decline than the prediction. Tomorrow’s unemployment number will tell if this trend continues. The paper was presented at the San Francisco Fed Conference (see my presentation). Here’s what Valerie Ramey and Steve Davis said about the paper.
Posted by at 7:51 PM
Labels: Inclusive Growth
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