Articles

03.04.20 Publication: La Stampa

Children often have better instincts than us supposedly experienced adults. In early March, when I was giving a talk to a group of teenage pupils at a school...

01.04.20 Publication: Japan Society of the UK

In early March, in what now feels like a distant memory, I gave a talk to sixth-formers at a state school in the English countryside, as part of the excellent...

24.03.20 Publication: Project Syndicate

With the global COVID-19 crisis quickly escalating, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has had to accept a hard truth, rightly taking the initiative...

16.03.20 Publication: Nikkei Business

It is the external economic and business shock that futurists have often warned about, but most of us never expected to actually happen: a new virus causing a...

01.03.20 Publication: Japan Society of the UK

This is the first of what will be a regular “Chairman’s Blog” for Japan Society members and supporters. I originally thought I would start the blog to...

03.02.20 Publication: La Stampa

Welcome to the great Brexit anti-climax. It was postponed twice last year, Britain went into a kind of political nervous breakdown over it, then held a...

01.02.20 Publication: La Stampa

Just over two years ago my former magazine, The Economist, put President Xi Jinping on its cover and described him as “The world’s most powerful man”....

31.01.20 Publication: The Article

The true significance of Brexit day is that it is not significant at all – it may be sad or happy, depending on your point of view, but as a moment it has...

19.01.20 Publication: Mainichi Shimbun

Every year can be said to be important in the United States of America, for what happens in the world’s most powerful country affects us all. But this...

14.12.19 Publication: La Stampa

The British public have chosen the lesser of the two evils that were offered to them in the country’s first December general election since 1923. The result...

14.12.19 Publication: Nikkei Business

Something strange is going on in our businesses and in the economy as a whole, all over the advanced, industrialised world, and Japan is at the forefront of...

30.10.19 Publication: Project Syndicate

LONDON – In another bizarre twist in the Brexit saga, the United Kingdom’s Parliament has signalled its acceptance of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s...

04.10.19 Publication: Nikkei Business

We are living in a world of seemingly permanently low inflation. It is quite a contrast, at least for Europe and North America, to the world of the 1970s,...

01.09.19 Publication: FACTA

In their ideal world, central bankers want to be thought of as boring. For them, less attention is better than more attention. They prefer to be seen as...

31.08.19 Publication: Mainichi Shimbun

In Europe, we are facing two political crises at the same time, both of which stimulate reflections on the nature of constitutions and the current populist...

30.08.19 Publication: La Stampa

What is a populist political party, what is its purpose and how worried should we be? Those questions have been buzzing around in the heads of political...

29.07.19 Publication: Nikkei Business

Women will determine the future of Japan’s economy and of many Japanese businesses. That is the proposition I have put forward in a new book which was...

21.07.19 Publication: Mainichi Shimbun

It was always inevitable, even before Britain handed back control of Hong Kong to China in 1997 after 99 years as a colony, that there would eventually be...

12.07.19 Publication: La Stampa

We will not know until July 24 whether Britain’s next prime minister will be Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt, and we may not know until after the summer...

01.06.19 Publication: Nikkei Business

This was supposed to be the year of the global economic slowdown, led by the United States and Europe. More than 10 years after those regions’ recovery from...

28.05.19 Publication: La Stampa

It can be counted as a protest vote against the previous protest vote. That is of course an over-simplification of the European Parliament elections, as any...

02.05.19

Looking back on the three decades of the Heisei era, it is tempting to conclude that although much has changed in Japan's economy and society, very little is...

01.04.19 Publication: Project Syndicate

LONDON – Is populism still on the rise? That question will be looming over elections in Israel, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Spain, and the European...

12.03.19 Publication: strategy+business

The Japanese corporation, like Japanese society itself, has long been a rather rigid affair, with conservative HR policies and overwhelmingly male in its...