Historical perspective on global cycles

"Global Cycles: Capital Flows, Commodities, and Sovereign Defaults, 1815-2015" 
CESifo Working Paper Series No. 5737

CARMEN M. REINHART, Harvard University - Center for Business and Government
Email: carmen_reinhart@harvard.edu
VINCENT R. REINHART, American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
Email: vincent.reinhart@aei.org
CHRISTOPH TREBESCH, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)
Email: christoph.trebesch@lmu.de

Capital flow and commodity cycles have long been connected with economic crises. Sparse historical data, however, has made it difficult to connect their timing. We date turning points in global capital flows and commodity prices across two centuries and provide estimates from alternative data sources. We then document a strong overlap between the ebb and flow of financial capital, the commodity price super-cycle, and sovereign defaults since 1815. The results have implications for today, as many emerging markets are facing a double bust in capital inflows and commodity prices, making them vulnerable to crises. 

Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet

The relatively stable, 11,700-year-long Holocene epoch is the only state of the Earth System (ES) that we know for certain can support contemporary human societies. There is increasing evidence that human activities are affecting ES functioning to a degree that threatens the resilience of the ES—its ability to persist in a Holocene-like state in the face of increasing human pressures and shocks. The Planetary Boundary (PB) framework is based on critical processes that regulate ES functioning. By combining improved scientific understanding of ES functioning with the precautionary principle, the PB framework identifies levels of anthropogenic perturbations below which the risk of destabilization of the ES is likely to remain low—a “safe operating space” for global societal development. A zone of uncertainty for each PB highlights the area of increasing risk. The current level of anthropogenic impact on the ES, and thus the risk to the stability of the ES, is assessed by comparison with the proposed PB

Steffen et al Science 2015 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/1259855.short

Global recession?

http://theweek.com/speedreads/593044/whole-planet-recession

World GDP should not be falling | Current Activities | GGDC | Expertise & Academic Research | Research / FEB | FEB | Over ons | Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

World GDP should not be falling | Current Activities | GGDC | Expertise & Academic Research | Research / FEB | FEB | Over ons | Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

A new historical database on world human development | VOX, CEPR’s Policy Portal

A new historical database on world human development | VOX, CEPR’s Policy Portal

The shrinking planetary GDP | VOX, CEPR’s Policy Portal

The shrinking planetary GDP | VOX, CEPR’s Policy Portal nominal GPP decreases in the IMF world economic Outlook data base. So how can we have real growth and inflation.
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Restarting the global economy

Three areas of concerted public action — boosting global demand (with an emphasis on investment and essential services), unblocking the flow of surplus funds towards unmet investment needs, and mitigating rising inequality — are mutually reinforcing. The analytical arguments behind them are strong. Public policy solutions are possible to deal with many economic challenges if political consensus can be achieved on tackling them, both nationally and globally


Restarting the global economy: Three mismatches that need concerted public action 

Michael Spence, Danny Leipziger, James Manyika, Ravi Kanbur