The roller-coaster ride of Chinese commodity markets

The “middle income trap” may well characterize the experience of Brazil and most of Latin America since the 1980s. Conversely, South Korea maintained its pace of evolution, reaching a high-income status. Such divergence of economic growth can be related to their distinctive performances of domestic accumulation of technological and organizational capabilities. Their different approaches to global value chains and trade globalization reinforced such discrepancy in domestic accumulati ...

“A WAKE UP CALL FOR THE WORLD” For Simon Elin, chief executive of the British Recycling Association, it’s “a tough time” his industry and country are facing just now. He does not think about Brexit, Britain trying to leave the E.U., dreaming to return to glorious times as a world power, one day soon. His colleague Arnaud Brunet, head of the Bureau of International Recycling, predicted “catastrophic environmental problems.” An assessment the London Times shared: “The world is drowni ...

Historians often offer different interpretations of the events that have shaped our destiny, yet, with respect to World War 2, the bloodiest conflict in history, they seem to concur on two points. First, that those yearning for peace underestimated the National Socialists’ determination to wage a war of conquest until it was far too late to deter them, and, second, that Nazi Germany failed to anticipate that Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union – each of which it provok ...

The launch of an oil futures contract on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) cannot be merely seen as a “technical” or secondary event, as it foreshadows what global commodities markets will become in a few years. The Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) and the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) have, indeed, seen their trading volumes increase significantly over the past decade thanks to steel and iron ore, which could suggest that the move is, in fact, not that unprecedente ...

Le lancement d’un contrat à terme pétrolier sur le Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) ne saurait être vu comme un évènement « technique » ou secondaire tant il préfigure ce que seront dans quelques années les marchés mondiaux de matières premières. Le Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) et le Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) ont certes vu leurs volumes de trading augmenter considérablement sur la dernière décennie grâce à l’acier et au minerai de fer, ce qui pourrait laisser à ...

The Chinese stock markets have been recently affected by plummeting indexes and high volatility. The substantial level of “mom and pop” speculators has been identified as one of the reason for these dynamics. Although there is no speculative bubble at the moment, we may question the impact of potential excessive trading on the promising future of Chinese commodity exchanges. ...

“In my view, China’s very high rates of saving and of investment in infrastructure, plant and equipment, Rand D, and human capital should be seen more as a source of strength, than of weakness. There has, of course, been overinvestment in some sectors, such as heavy industry and housing in some regions, but China’s GDP and infrastructure stock per capita is still just a fraction of that of the most advanced countries, and the country’s potential to catch-up remains largely unexploit ...