I'm glad Mark has put exchange rates on the Lowy blog agenda. With the severe damage that the Global Financial Crisis has done to the credibility of the efficient markets hypothesis, it's time to look at exchange rates again. Even the International Monetary Fund (typically ten years behind in its

For Australia, the main 'win' from the London G20 meeting is that the G20 leaders will meet again, together with the wide acceptance that this group has supplanted the G7 as the principal world economic forum. A top priority is to retain our place at the table. The more successful the London meeting

The bank graph Sam linked to yesterday may be 'neat', but it caused a flood of complaints to FT's Alphaville blog because it uses one of the '101 Ways to be Misleading with Graphs'. In this case, the eye reads the area, whereas the data is proportional to the circumference of

So Indonesia has requested budget assistance from Australia. Whatever we might provide will be relatively small compared with the magnitude of the problem, so we have a choice: to go bilaterally and put our own 'label' on what will inevitably be seen as a modest amount, or join a larger

There is a view that the creation of the G20 leaders meeting will diminish the role of APEC. There will be some resistance to this idea among Canberra’s long-standing APEC aficionados, but it might not work out too badly for Australia. Let’s leave to another day the debate about whether APEC has

Just what is World Bank President Robert Zoellick up to? He attended the G20 meeting in Brazil over the weekend, only to argue that this is the wrong grouping and should be replaced by a more exclusive gathering. To say the least, this is an unhelpful intervention, not just for Australia (which

There had been much eager anticipation that the G7 would come up with some coordinated action to fix the financial melt-down. Noted US economist Paul Krugman said 'now is the time for major action'. On Friday G7 met, agreed that 'urgent and exceptional action' is required, and…

In a globalised world, financial markets are a potent transmission channel from the US to the rest of us. Indeed, our stock market responds more to the US than to our domestic fundamentals. At first sight, last week’s policy mimicry might also suggest that the problems are the same.

Ross McLeod is surely right to say that the Indonesian anti-corruption push is home-grown, and has popular support. So much so that, if SBY showed decisive follow-though on current high-profile cases, he would probably bolster his chances considerably for victory in next year’s presidential

We can argue about whether or not the Australian financial system is 'light years' away from the US problems (is the relevant issue distance or dollars?), but it is certainly very different. If the key real-sector problem in the USA was home-loans to NINJAs (No Income, No Job or Assets),

Key aspects of the Indonesian legal process are being tested in ways that could have important implications for the operation of justice, for parliamentary process and for corruption. Will members of the Indonesian Parliament (including two of SBY’s Ministers) be brought to account for receiving

Indonesia’s quiet progress over the past five years has gone largely unnoticed. The economy is back on an even keel, security problems in Aceh have been largely resolved, and there has been an amazing transition to democracy. There has even been progress in tackling corruption, even if this has