Democracy under stress

Freedom House recently demoted the United States from top rank among the world´s democracies. The reasons given include ‘the cumulative […]

Spineless social democracy

Double diversification

There is a cross-country relationship between economic performance and both economic and political diversification. This column presents global evidence that […]

Economic performance in two dimensions: How Europe beats the US

One-dimensional indicators such as GNI per capita are known to be flawed measures of wellbeing. The Human Development Index (HDI) […]

Misnomers

There is a lot in a name. This column looks at the ideas that are wrongly attributed to Irving Fisher […]

Iceland´s seven meager years

Seven years after its crisis, Iceland has staged an economic recovery. This column suggests that despite its overall success, the […]

From constitutional reform to fortified democracy

Whereas some argue there is no need to revise the US constitution, others believe that its inherent flaws are in […]

A way out of the Ukrainian quagmire

The Ukraine saw EU soft power met by Russian hard power. This column argues that the EU should counter this […]

Meeting Russia’s challenge to EU’s Eastern Partnership

With Per Wijkman. The EU’s Eastern Partnership is currently in turmoil. Armenia and Ukraine – two of the four partner […]

Democracy in Africa

Based on statistical measures of different degrees of democracy vs. autocracy, this article briefly reviews the progress of democracy around […]