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Daniel Altman
Chief Economist, Big Think
Daniel Altman is Big Think's Chief Economist and an adjunct faculty member at New York University's Stern School of Business. Daniel wrote economic commentary for The Economist, The New York Times, and The International Herald Tribune before founding North Yard Economics, a non-profit consulting firm serving developing countries, in 2008. In between, he served as an economic advisor in the British government and wrote four books, most recently Outrageous Fortunes: The Twelve Surprising Trends That Will Reshape the Global Economy.
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Big Think's chief economist discusses the fledgling Chinese shadow banking system that national leaders want to regularize.
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Economist Daniel Altman acknowledges that the student loan industry in the United States is a disaster. The obvious solution of government intervention by way of forgiveness could make things even […]
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Economist Daniel Altman explains the decentralized virtual currency Bitcoin.
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Big Think’s resident economist Daniel Altman explains why Brazil needs to not only host the World Cup but win it too if it wants to see an economic boost from […]
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I made predictions for what the global economy would look like in the very long term, maybe 10, 20, 40 years down the road. We are seeing some of these […]
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Today there is a multiplicity of outlets now through which you can get supposed economic research and access to new economic ideas.
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The tax on corporate profits is a terrible tax. Economists to this day don’t know who pays it. And that means that we really don’t know who’s bearing the burden.
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While there is a chance that many of the scientific innovations that have been forecast will come true, even within our lifetime, we still can’t count on them. We have […]
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Daniel Altman explores the economic ideas behind Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to limit the sale of large sugary beverages.
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It’s been more than ten years since the folks at Goldman Sachs dubbed Brazil, Russia, India, and China the BRIC countries, and lately other countries have been trying to glom […]
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The old conventional wisdom was the China was manipulating its currency, causing a significant drag on the global economy. That isn’t true anymore.
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Big Think’s chief economist Daniel Altman favors a “gradual solution” to fixing the U.S. debt. Tightening our belt, Altman says, “doesn’t make sense if you can borrow at low interest […]
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The United States is faced with multi-hundred billion dollar deficits stretching year after year into the future. How did it happen and what should be done about it?
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Economist Daniel Altman on gold’s economic stability and why we shouldn’t return to the gold standard.
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Big Think Chief Economist Daniel Altman explains the benefits and the difficulties of taxing so-called “externalities,” such as carbon emissions.
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Economist and Author Daniel Altman explains why middlemen are thriving in the global economy.
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Economist and Author Daniel Altman explains why middlemen are thriving in the global economy.
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Daniel Altman explains the origins of the European Union and why it’s in so much trouble today.
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There’s a Brain Drain Race going on between the world’s economic leaders – a scramble to snap up the “best and the brightest” immigrants from poor and emerging nations. As […]