The Economist

COMMENT: The economic signals are increasingly suggesting that the global economy is headed for a recession similar to that experienced in 2001: the economic fundamentals are not very positive and suggest lower…

COMMENT: Your Economist recently spent two days attending a conference on container shipping and ports in Odessa, where the popular catchphrase is “victory, freedom and peace” in that order, writes Ben Hackett.

COMMENT: We have long believed that economies of scale are the saviour of the maritime industry, for all sectors ranging from terminals and bulk, to tankers and containerships. But in the last…

Global carriers, having a hard time managing their pricing strategies, and therefore their profitability, turned to larger vessel sizes in the search for economies of scale that would lower the slot cost…

COMMENT: The life of an economist is truly challenging. We are always blamed for getting things wrong and accused of finding great excuses of why we should have been on the mark…

COMMENT: The European Commission has predicted low inflation will remain a threat to euro-area expansion for at least the next two years as it trimmed its economic-growth forecast and warned of the…

Lo and behold, the container shipping executives have discovered that they cannot control their own pricing. What an earth-shattering revelation; how much do they earn to come up with this news?

Four years after the official end of the Great Recession and we are still struggling to find sustained recovery. Have we become accustomed to high levels of unemployment, and low levels of…

Now that the US Government is back at work, the new German Government well installed and China setting off with new economic reforms, it seems that all and sundry are trying to…

The press in Europe, Asia and North America is full of reports that economic recovery has returned and that the recessionary path has been left behind.

Decisions related to money transfers may have an impact on shipping: diaspora remittances are the biggest foreign currency earner for many of the poorest nations in the world as well as for…

The concept of active government support during economic downturns (Keynesian economics) versus Milton Friedman’s Chicago School favouring monetarism - whereby government did not expand money supply nor support easy credit and tax…

The global economy has entered an interesting phase of development where there are no locomotives pulling the rest of the world into prosperity and where we have a mixed bag of economic…

The global economy is trying to recover from the Great Recession with varying medicines being applied. The United States, sequestration aside, continues with an expansionary policy supported by the Federal Reserve. Japan’s…