How many jobs are vulnerable to automation? Plenty of people ask that question, and plenty of people try to give numerical answers. A recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said that about 46 percent of jobs have a better-than-even chance of being automated. A 2016 study by Citigroup and the University of Oxford reported that 57 percent of jobs were at high risk of automation, although a 2013 paper by two of the same researchers predicted 47 percent. A recent P

The US economy is less than one year away from breaking the record for the longest expansion in the country‘s history. Despite the length of the recovery from the Great Recession, data from the middle two quarters of 2018 suggest the economy is still growing with considerable strength. It is on track to grow around 3 percent for the year, about an entire percentage point above estimates of its maximum sustainable rate of growth.This strength is reflected in the job market, which continues to exp

Is central bank independence the next casualty of the age of populism? In the US, President Donald Trump has declared that the Federal Reserve is “going loco.” He blames Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for threatening “his” recovery and for market volatility caused in part by uncertainty over the trade war Trump himself started.In India, reports emerged this week that the government might invoke a never-before-used section of the law governing the Reserve Bank of India to force it to reverse course o

Mexico and Brazil have a long-simmering rivalry, each aspiring to lead Latin America. Now, as two strong-willed outsiders take office as president in each country, tensions that have been more or less innocuous could escalate, with negative consequences for the entire region.Consider the passive-aggressive diplomatic game Mexico and Brazil have often played. In global forums, each rarely votes in favor of the other: Brazil endorsed France’s Christine Lagarde over Mexico’s Agustin Carstens for th

“To get rich, first build a road” is one of those Chinese proverbs that tends to impress foreigners -- evoking a combination of farsightedness and concern for practicalities. As China is discovering with its globe-spanning “Belt and Road” project, though, the world doesn’t always play along. The initiative has run into trouble, and its success now depends on revisiting both the vision and the details.Five years ago Chinese President Xi Jinping began promoting a network of Chinese-financed roads,

For the last month, it looked as though President Donald Trump’s campaign of maximum pressure against Iran would include a loophole.Sanctions on Iran’s banks, oil exports, ships and ports, lifted in 2015 as part of a nuclear weapons agreement that Trump exited in May, were set to be reimposed on Monday. But it was not clear until Friday whether those banks would be allowed to participate in the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift. That is the system that allows

The global walkout by Google workers, a response to parent company Alphabet’s reported protection of executives accused of sexual misconduct, may be a harbinger of something new in employer-employee relations: empowered workers’ moral-political protests directed as much against the general culture as against management.Although the walkout is connected in a broad sense to workplace conditions, this is not the trade union strike of old. Google’s workers are mainly professionals: engineers, not la

As the US dollar hits highs for the year, the People’s Bank of China seems determined to hold the value of the yuan at 7-to-1, or stronger. This barrier holds little technical significance, but its psychological value and the central bank’s interest in holding the line are enormous.While it’s difficult to confirm, there’s strong evidence that the PBOC is managing prices in the foreign-exchange market. Renminbi forward rates are essentially unchanged from spot rates extending out as far as three

Italy’s horror show has just started -- and it’s bound to get worse.The country’s economy stagnated in the third quarter, according to figures released on Tuesday. The slowdown may be part of a wider trend: The eurozone economy expanded by a meager 0.2 percent in same three months. But it’s clear that the uncertainty which has accompanied the rise to power of Italy’s populist government has started to take its toll.The deceleration will throw a spanner in the plans of Finance Minister Giovanni T

Whatever he’s being told by his lawyers, President Donald Trump can’t use an executive order to deny birthright citizenship to US-born children of undocumented parents. The Constitution puts Congress, not the president, in charge of citizenship.Federal law says that “a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” counts as a citizen. That language on its face covers all kids born in the US.What’s more, the statute intentionally echoes the 14th Amendment, which says,

Now that voters have elected former army captain Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s new president, the country’s democracy will face a stern test. The most important question is: Can Brazilian institutions withstand the threat posed by the man’s well-documented authoritarian and illiberal streaks?Brazil transitioned to democracy more than 30 years ago, an evolution that seemed largely to have been consolidated -- witness Operation Carwash’s successful anti-corruption investigations of powerful politicia

Most people in the island nation of Sri Lanka and its Asian neighbors were stunned last week when President Maithripala Sirisena dismissed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe -- and replaced him with Mahinda Rajapaksa, the populist strongman who had ruled Sri Lanka for a decade before the scrappy alliance between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe forced him out of power in 2015. It was a shock not just because the move was almost certainly unconstitutional -- in Sri Lanka, a prime minister can only be

I have warned repeatedly against writing off Chancellor Angela Merkel as she faced challenge after challenge in recent years. I’m going to issue another such warning now, even though it might seem counterintuitive given her announcement Monday that she’d give up the leadership of her Christian Democratic Union in December and not run for a parliament seat in 2021.Those decisions make Merkel a lame duck. They also make it more obvious than ever that she risks ending her final term as chancellor b

Specific incidents can sometimes reveal much larger truths. This would seem to be the case regarding recent revelations that the Chinese have been eavesdropping on President Donald Trump’s less-than-secure phone calls and using the information gathered as part of an elaborate plot to influence the president. If true, this story -- which the president has denied -- is not only a testament to Trump’s attachment to his smartphones and his casual disregard for established security procedures. It als

US President Donald Trump has made closing America’s trade deficit with China a top priority. The problem is, it’s growing instead. For Trump, that’s probably more proof that his tariff-heavy, get-tough approach to China is the correct strategy. For economists, it’s not such a big deal. The US economy is roaring, and roaring economies tend to import more.There’s another reason, too, that the trade balance is the wrong figure to focus on. It only captures one part of the greater economic relation

Ice is thawing in China, and that’s a good thing.Fiscal and monetary measures should be deployed to give the economy a fillip when it’s most needed. The scope of tax cuts detailed over the weekend is a great first step: They boost consumers and might also, in the process, shore up Chinese demand for trade with the rest of Asia.Until now, policy seemed frozen in Beijing and hamstrung by competing goals. Choices are still constrained relative to past episodes of slackening economic life, but thank

President Donald Trump’s decision to ditch the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia has clear advantages for both Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. It is, however, a problem for countries in the middle.Columbia University professor Stephen Sestanovich, who served as senior director for policy development at the US National Security Council from 1984 to 1987, the year the INF treaty was signed, describes the deal as “the most one-sidedly good arms-control agr

What’s the most important bit of infrastructure to connect an international metropolis like China’s Pearl River Delta? A demolished border post.For all the excitement around the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge Wednesday, that’s probably the best lesson to draw from Beijing’s plan to draw Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Dongguan, Foshan and other cities into a single megalopolis. As my colleague Nisha Gopalan wrote last month, “Build it and they will come” is a lot easier said than d

Asia’s makeup brands are starting to look ugly.Shares of Japanese and South Korean cosmetics makers have been melting this month, as Beijing cracks down on daigou, Chinese travelers who buy everything from infant formula to skin care products for resale at home, often to friends and relatives. These shoppers tend to be university students looking to make a little extra cash or tourists scooping up duty-free items.　Added together, this is no mere pocket change. As my colleague David Fickling wrot

Following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, there have been many calls for re-examining the US-Saudi relationship, even for imposing sanctions. As an economist, I understand there are diplomatic fine points to this relationship that lie beyond my expertise, but still: It is worth reviewing the economic and exchange-based reasons US-Saudi relations have been so robust.First, trade between the US and Saudi Arabia is currently about $24 billion per year. You might think the US is now energy