David Gitter SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS The term “innovation” has been a hot word these days in Chinese politics. It was one of the five high-frequency terms used by General Secretary Xi Jinping in his deliberations at this year’s National People’s Congress (NPC) and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (the others were reform, people’s livelihood, ecology, and work style), …

There are basically four different activities that all go by the name of macroeconomics. But they actually have relatively little to do with each other. Understanding the differences between them is helpful for understanding why debates about the business cycle tend to be so confused. The first is what I call “coffee-house macro,” and it’s what you hear in a …

WASHINGTON President Obama unintentionally damaged his legacy the other day by urging an expansion of Social Security benefits and, thereby, reminding everyone (and particularly future historians) that he failed to deal with one of the largest issues facing the country: an aging society. “It’s time we finally made Social Security more generous, and increased its benefits so that today’s retirees …