Economy, Economist | featured news

The richest 1% of Americans now hold 25% of the country's wealth and more needs to be done to boost equality, says Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz in Davos.

The question is whether that’s 10 years from now, or 10 years from 2008, which means we have six more years until the world economy truly recovers from the 2008 housing and derivatives bubble that first exploded in the Manhattan offices of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. That’s the view of International Monetary Fund chief economist Oliver Blanchard.

The U.S. job market is flagging, and consumer prices are barely rising. The picture sketched by data released Thursday has made some economists predict the Federal Reserve will announce some new step next week to boost the economy.

The anti-austerity backlash - as seen at the polls in France and Greece - is already shaping a new debate in Europe... Europe's leaders will address a conundrum that divides economists: can you have austerity and growth at the same time?

The world economy will lose momentum in 2012 but it will keep moving in the right direction, according to Reuters polls of around 600 economists who said crisis-hit Europe would drag on global growth.

President Obama is getting 'mediocre' marks for his handling of the economy from a group of economists polled by the Associated Press.

U.S. economists Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims won the 2011 economics Nobel prize on Monday for work on the relationship between policy measures and how they can affect the economy.

The economy grew slightly faster in the spring than previously estimated but remained dangerously weak in the face of high unemployment and higher gas prices. Many economists foresee slightly better growth in the current July-September quarter. The annual growth rate was 1.3 percent in the April-June quarter, up from an estimate of 1 percent made a month ago, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The improvement reflected modestly more consumer spending and a bigger boost from trade.

A White House official says President Barack Obama will name labor economist Alan Krueger to a top administration post.

Another recession isn't likely over the next 12 months. Neither is any meaningful improvement in the economy.