Liberty moves northIt is uniquely fortunate in many ways—but Canada still holds lessons for other Western countries WHO will uphold the torch of openness in the West? Not America’s next president. Donald Trump, the grievance-mongering Republican nominee, would build a wall on Mexico’s border and rip up trade agreements. Hillary Clinton, the probable winner on November 8th, would be much better on

RONALD REAGAN, a sworn enemy of communism, and Xi Jinping, a doughty defender of Communist rule in China, ought to have little in common. Lately, though, Mr Xi has seemed to channel the late American president. He has been speaking openly for the first time of a need for “supply-side reforms”—a term echoing one made popular during Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s. It is now China’s hottest economi

IN EARLY September President Xi Jinping will take the salute at a huge military parade in Beijing. It will be his most visible assertion of authority since he came to power in 2012: his first public appearance at such a display of missiles, tanks and goose-stepping troops. Officially the event will be all about the past, commemorating the end of the second world war in 1945 and remembering the 15m

The uses of historyAsian views of Japan’s 20th-century expansionism are not all negative A 92-YEAR-OLD politician may be inured to insults, however outrageous his alleged transgression. Even so Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan’s president from 1988 to 2000, may have been taken aback by the hostility to comments he made to a Japanese magazine this month. He criticised efforts by Taiwan’s present government to

Like most of the 30 years that preceded it, 2012 will be punctuated by statistical evidence of Asia's growing share of the global economy, and by symbols of relative Western decline. The financial crisis of 2008, followed by the various excitements of 2011—the American debt-ceiling fiasco, the euro zone's interminable wrangling, riots on the streets of Western capitals—seemed to mark a tipping-poi

Into the unknownJapan is ageing faster than any country in history, with vast consequences for its economy and society. So why, asks Henry Tricks, is it doing so little to adapt? FOR a glimpse of Japan's future, a good place to visit is Yubari, a former mining town on the northern island of Hokkaido, which four years ago went spectacularly bust with debts of ¥36 billion ($315m). It is a quiet spot

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Good news, bad newsAmerican banks declare their latest, mixed, results POLITICIANS tend to tar all bankers with the same brush. The results unveiled this week by America's financial giants were, however, far from uniform. Citigroup and Bank of America (BofA) posted thumping quarterly losses. Morgan Stanley eked out a modest gain. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase made healthy profits. Goldman Sachs i

The Great StabilisationThe recession was less calamitous than many feared. Its aftermath will be more dangerous than many expect IT HAS become known as the “Great Recession”, the year in which the global economy suffered its deepest slump since the second world war. But an equally apt name would be the “Great Stabilisation”. For 2009 was extraordinary not just for how output fell, but for how a ca

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JUDGING by the shrill comments from Wall Street, Japan's biggest problem is its huge public-sector debt, which has grown to nearly twice the size of the country's GDP. But it isn't (see article). Far more pressing is deflation.

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THE Bank of Japan (BoJ) pioneered the process known as quantitative easing (QE) in 2001-06, when it massively boosted the reserves that commercial banks held at the central bank. Its verdict on how well QE worked then ought to interest policymakers today. It will also discomfort them. For all that it propped up Japan's creaking banking system, QE did not really improve the economy nor end the coun

Unpredictable tidesWorld trade is no longer collapsing and fears of rampant protectionism have not been realised. Even so, the way to revival looks far from smooth

The other-worldly philosophersAlthough the crisis has exposed bitter divisions among economists, it could still be good for economics. Our first article looks at the turmoil among macroeconomists. Our second (see article) examines the foundations of financial economics

The lessons of 1937In a guest article, Christina Romer says policymakers must learn from the errors that prolonged the Depression