In 2014, Thomas Piketty's book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, reshaped the inequality debate. However his central argument – that capitalism inevitably leads to growing inequality – falls apart when looking at cross-country inequality.

So far, financial markets have remained largely indifferent to the upcoming November US presidential election. In my view, the odds of a Democratic sweep are increasing, and investors would be wise to pay attention.

Listening to central bankers, one would think the recent bout of high inflation was merely an excusable post-pandemic forecasting error made under extreme uncertainty. But this presumes a level of central-bank independence that is simply unrealistic.

After 15 years of economic upheavals, from the European debt crisis to the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the European economy appears set to underperform in 2024. But are appearances deceiving?

It is past time to revisit the widely prevailing "free lunch" view of government debt. With a few notable exceptions, those who championed the notion have not acknowledged the likelihood of a new reality.

As finance ministers and central bankers convened in Marrakesh for the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in mid October, what surprised veteran analysts the most was the expected calamity that hasn't happened - an emerging-market debt crisis.

Could Japan become the world's next great growth story? Warren Buffett seems to think so and the IMF expects the Japanese economy to grow by 1.4% in 2023. But the Japanese economy could also be a ticking time bomb.

Many who attended this year's World Economic Forum in Davos were struck by the jubilant mood of the CEOs in attendance. It was hard to reconcile this optimism economic uncertainty caused by the war in Ukraine.

FTX may be the biggest scandal in crypto so far. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, rumours of the death of crypto itself have been much exaggerated.

The risks of a global recession trifecta are rising by the day. I am not sure politicians and policymakers are up to the task they may soon confront.

With the US's disastrous exit from Afghanistan, the parallels between the 2020s and the 1970s just keep growing. Has a sustained period of high inflation just become much more likely?

The greenback's dominance may well be more fragile than it appears, because expected future changes in China's exchange-rate regime are likely to trigger a significant shift in the international monetary order.

Economic recovery, like Covid-19 vaccines, will not be evenly distributed around the world over the coming two years. A rising tide of recovery is inevitable, but it will not lift all boats.

There is a fundamental inconsistency over the long run between an ever-rising share of US debt in world markets and an ever-falling share of US output in the global economy.

The risk today of a debilitating 1930s-style overshoot in deglobalisation is massive, particularly if the US-China relationship continues to fray. And it is folly to think a retreat from globalisation will not introduce more, vastly more serious, problems.

For those who viewed negative interest rates as a bridge too far for central banks, it might be time to think again. Emergency implementation of deeply negative interest rates would not solve all of today's problems. But it would be a start.

Even with all-out efforts by central banks and fiscal authorities to soften the blow, a deep economic slump and financial crisis are unavoidable. The key questions now are how bad the COVID-19 recession will be and how long it will last.

With interest rates on government debt at multi-decade lows, a number of leading economists have argued that almost every advanced economy can allow debt to drift up toward Japanese levels. This ignores what can go wrong.

If a final US-China trade deal prevents China from gaining greater monetary-policy autonomy, it could create major problems when the next big Asian recession hits.

The arguments of supporters of Modern Monetary Theory have a grain of truth, but also rest on some fundamental misconceptions and have unpredictable, potentially serious consequences.