Written By Nikhil Rangarajan The Michigan economy has been boisterous since COVID with Governor Whitmer announcing that 27,000 jobs were added in the 2024 fiscal year. Additionally, wages in manufacturing increased by 5% with plans to continue to grow the automotive industry through workforce and technological innovation. In the electric vehicle industry, batteries and electric…
Category: International Economics
Solutions to the Spiraling German Economy
Written By Aryan Samaga Introduction Throughout the last 30 years, the German economy has been the envy of much of Western Europe, with consistent growth, a booming manufacturing sector, and genuine individual prosperity. However, due to various factors, since the onset of the 2020s, the German economy has seen a massive slowdown and, at times,…
Peso Preservation: Argentina’s Embrace of Stablecoins for Economic Stability
Written By Elizabeth Cohn In light of Argentina’s political and economic instability, many Argentine citizens have turned to using stablecoins as an alternative to the Argentine Peso. According to Investopedia, Stablecoins are “cryptocurrencies whose value is pegged to that of another currency, commodity or financial instrument” (Hayes, 2024). Unlike Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, stablecoins are…
Carbon Credits: A synopsis on the EU ETS and the potential for a systematic implementation in the Asian market – An introduction to Carbon Credits
Written By Schumi Chen When distilled in definition, carbon credits are simply permits granted for emitting specific amounts of greenhouse gasses – and represent the foundation of our modern efforts to mitigate and control the effects of climate change (World Bank, 2022). Carbon credits serve as the basis of carbon markets, which incentivize emission reductions…
The Economic Influence of the Chinese Government’s Sovereign Wealth Fund
Written By Julian Freyre A sovereign wealth fund (SWF) is a state-owned investment fund. Governments often use sovereign wealth funds to build public wealth, pay for government spending, stabilize markets, and invest in specific industries (Estevez, 2024). Some of the largest sovereign wealth funds belong to Norway, China, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Singapore,…
Doctors on Strike
Written By Lauren Kim On February 6th, South Korea’s government unveiled four new healthcare policies aimed at “bringing essential healthcare back from the brink of collapse”. These initiatives seek to address a projected shortage of approximately 15,000 healthcare professionals by 2035. A problem expected to be further exacerbated by the nation’s rapidly aging population, regional…
Nourishing Change (Through the Food Supply Chain) to Combat Hunger in West Africa
Written by Lakshay Sood Hunger is a severe problem around the world and nowhere is this truer than in West Africa, one of the globe’s most impoverished regions. Figures from the Food & Agriculture Organization suggest that 66.4 percent of West Africans (FAO, 2023) struggle from moderate food insecurity with 15 percent facing malnutrition – the…
What’s the Impact of the Fed Interest Rate Cut on the Chinese Investment Market?
Written by Ziyi Ling On September 18th, the Federal Reserve announced at the Federal Open Market Committee meeting that they would lower the interest rate by 50 basis points to a target of 4.75% to 5% (Morgan, 2024). Over the past 20 years, the interest rate in the United States remained high at approximately 5.3%…
Swiftonomics in Singapore
Written by Suchir Gupta In March 2024, the worldwide phenomenon that is Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour made its way to a small dot on the world map—Singapore. With Sabrina Carpenter as her opening act, Swift performed six shows between March 2 and March 9 in what was her only stop in Southeast Asia. Singapore’s National…
(Op-Ed) What do Oil Prices Suggest About the Current State of the World
Written By: Meiting Xu People often assume that conflict in the Middle East causes spikes in oil prices, not without reason. Modern conflicts in the Middle East do frequently produce some of the greatest fluctuations in oil prices, leaving consumers either scrambling for alternatives or voicing complaints to their representatives, an experience some of us…