Barbara Corcoran knows brand. As she says in this Big Think video, she owes her wealth to her success in building her brand more than anything else. And she says brand is now even more important than ever, with the barriers for entry in publicity so low...

Tim Duy sees a lot of progress in the U.S. economy, though he is surprised at how the public conversation seems to be missing it. In his most recent Fed Watch post at Economist's View , Duy warns us to look away at the annual holiday retail sales...

Japan prime minister Shinzo Abe has received a lot of kudos for his efforts to rethink and restructure economic policy. Japan's economy needed a jump-start of some sort, and "Abenomics" has been getting a lot of attention worldwide, with...

In a piece for the McKinsey Quarterly , James Manyika , Jaana Remes , and Jonathan Woetzel take a look at prospects for future growth, globally. They point to demographic data as a reason to be concerned. But they quickly shift the focus to what they...

Retail sales dipped in September, but are still well above where they were a year ago. Sales came in at $442.7 billion for the month, a 0.3 percent decrease from August sales, according to the Commerce Department . Overall sales were up 4.3% over September...

IMF researchers are projecting a "weak and uneven global recovery" to continue in the latest World Economic Outlook. The IMF is now projecting 3.3 percent global growth for 2014. Growth in advanced economies is projected to come in at 1.8 percent...

With all the talk of disruption, how come not a lot of disruption has taken place? In the latest issue of The Atlantic , Justin Fox notes that "most metrics of dynamism and upheaval in American business have actually been declining for decades."...

Global economic growth is set to "continue at a moderate pace," according to the OECD 's Interim Economic Assessment , released yesterday. The projections from OECD researchers look fairly good for most developed nations and leading emerging...

Gallup 's Economic Confidence Index started September at -17, fairly close to where it has been most summer, save for a drop to -21 in the middle of July. On the one hand, the index remains pretty steady. On the other, one now must wonder what it...

When we look at maps of the world, what do we notice? Certainly we notice land masses and the oceans. But we also notice borders. Borders between nations frame our thinking. And this may be giving us a limited--or perhaps even wrong--sense of how global...

Retail sales were stable in July, nearly matching June figures. Sales came in at $439.8 billion for the month, a 0.1 percent decrease from June sales (which had increased 0.2% over May), according to the Commerce Department . Auto sales were down 2% from...

Economic projections of the last few years remind Ashoka Mody of the movie Groundhog Day. Particularly those of the IMF, where growth seems to fall short the first half of every year, forcing a revision and explanations for slower-than-projected growth...

Yes, US manufacturing is on the decline, when looking long term. But Theodore Moran and Lindsay Oldkenski , economists at Georgetown University and fellows at the Peterson Institute , take issue with the recent coverage. They argue that manufacturing...

Gallup 's Economic Confidence Index : finished July at -17. That is down two points from the end of June, and down a bit more from the start of June (-13). At least we aren't seeing anything like the plummet of last fall, when Congress's budget...

It is hard not to notice the growth in the number of wealthy people in China over the last decade. And yet the world's second largest economy can not be termed a high income economy. In a piece for Project Syndicate , Zhang Jun , professor of Economics...

From the end of the Second World War up through the start of the Twenty-First century, global trade proved a strong wind in the sails of global economic development. So we should be excused for thinking that it will always outpace GDP, right? Well, Adair...

Americans' confidence in the economy has shifted down a bit in the last month, according to flat in February. Gallup 's Economic Confidence Index : is now at -16, after reaching a 2014 high of -13 at the start of June. Here's a look at the...

We're a little addicted to economic projections. Not because we expect economists to be soothsayers and fortune tellers. Rather, because the process of projecting can reveal interesting insight into what we should be gauging as economic indicators...

You want progress in a world full of problems to solve? Well, then you "have to fund scientists and engineers and put entrepreneurship together with capital," says David Weild , former vice chairman of NASDAQ and now CEO of IssuWorks . In this...

The New York Fed 's Rajashri Chakrabarti and Matt Mazewski have stepped into some tricky territory in their research lately: polarization. Political polarization, to be specific. First, they want us to know that political polarization, or "more...

Were you too busy watching the World Cup or exploring the great outdoors this weekend to read the World Bank global growth projection report we assigned? Fair enough. But here is a version of the report that you surely have time for. The World Bank has...

For those of you expecting the global economy to shift a couple of gears this year and leave the economic doldrums miles behind in a cloud of dust, it may be time to look away. The World Bank is adjusting its projections for global growth. Thanks in part...

Lloyd Blankfein spent an hour with Charlie Rose earlier this week, and gave as comprehensive a take we've seen him give on his approach to leading one of the world's most powerful financial institutions, Goldman Sachs. In this excerpt, he explains...

Warren Buffett has always bet on economic growth in America, and he is not stopping now. In his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Buffett comes across as being as bullish as ever, despite the impact of the Great Recession and the slow...

Patrick Messerlin , professor of economics at the Institut d' Etudes Politiques de Paris, thinks European leaders are right to look to Asia to build new trade agreements. Trade liberalization, Messerlin says, are the right prescription for Europe's...