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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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Credit-rating agencies were among the bogeymen of the global financial crisis, and for good reason. Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s, Fitch, and others failed to appraise the real risks of billions […]
An interesting thing happened yesterday in American politics. Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, beat Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, by just eight votes in the Iowa […]
Americans are unhappy about just one thing: the erosion of our meritocracy.
Economic growth is a tough thing to control if the tools you’re using only deal with one part of the economy. The problem is that when you push on one […]
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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.
It’s fashionable and easy to blame vast, mysterious, authoritarian China for our economic problems. It’s also not quite fair.
Markets shuddered when George Papandreou, Greece’s prime minister, said he would call a referendum on the latest bailout package being offered by Europe’s economic powers. What scared the markets most […]
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Daniel Altman explains the origins of the European Union and why it’s in so much trouble today.
While countries in North America and Europe suffer through a downturn that has people questioning the very foundations of their economies, something far more positive is happening in South America. […]
Though the Bush administration never admitted it, its tax cuts would almost certainly push the incomes of rich and poor further apart. As incomes became more widely dispersed, the gap […]
When a country’s politicians can’t get their economic policies right, what’s a central banker to do? Though central banks are supposed to control inflation, that’s not always their only job. […]
Like Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring in Tunisia began as a nonviolent protest for a more meritocratic society. The United States needs a new settlement, too. The problem now is that Americans cannot agree on what it should be.
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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 […]
This week the World Trade Organization meets to revive the Doha Development Round of talks. Economist Daniel Altman explains why little will be gained—and why that isn't such bad news.