The coming global testing

It’s a stark numerical conundrum: there are only so many standardized tests that boys and girls in the United States can be made to take. If only there were children in some other part of the world who could benefit from a diet rich in assessments and robust in metric… Great news, reader! The hundred of millions of children who live in developing nations, including the world’s poorest countries, represent the next great testing boondoggle frontier of measurability. Inhabiting a little known region known as the *global data gap,* we’ve never before known what they don’t know. But that’s about to change.

There will be a test

This ambitious
marketing planresponse to the global measurability crisis is the product of something called the Learning Metrics Task Force, which is itself a product of the Brookings Institute and the UNESCO Insitute for Statistics. Also somewhere high up in the mix: the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons. The full report is available here, but read carefully as you will be tested—along with all of the children in the world.

The global data gap

As with so many looming crises we don’t yet know just how large this one looms because we lack the kinds of robust measures that would allow us to measure the crisis. Got it? Learning Metrics Task Force: take it away.

Euro rises after approval of the Greek parliament

Euro rises after approval of the Greek parliament

Euro rises with the support of the approval of the Greek parliament on bailout package.

The euro rose on Friday, following the approval of the Greek parliament on a new rescue package and regained currency markets relatively calm after a week that saw a decline of the value of the Chinese yuan, including triggered unrest in the global financial markets.

The euro stood at 1.1185 dollars and tends to bring the largest weekly gains against the US currency since mid-May.

Currency rates and emerging Asian markets continued to decline destined to incur a sharp weekly losses and Malaysian ringgit fell to a new level is the lowest in his 17 years.

People’s Bank of China (central), confirmed today, the mid-point of the yuan at 6.3990 yuan to the dollar, slightly higher than Thursday’s levels.

Earlier, the government of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras got enough votes to win parliamentary approval on the rescue package, thanks to their access to support the opposition.

It came hours of the meeting of finance ministers of the euro area is expected to approve before the rescue program and pave the way for the provision of aid to Athens before the date of repayment of debt solutions in the next week.

The news was received after the publication of disappointing data for the hopes of the French and German economic growth in the second quarter of the year as growth has led to the euro area economy by 0.3 percent on a quarterly basis, compared with a forecast growth rate of 0.4 percent.

Euro gains and led to the descent of the dollar index, which tracks the US currency’s performance against a basket of major currencies 0.3 percent to 96.119. The dollar lost 0.3 percent of its value against the yen, reaching 124.11 yen.

Markets Test China’s to Ease Grip on Yuan

    Markets Test China’s  to Ease Grip on Yuan

Currency guided lower again Thursday as China’s central bank struggles to manage market  

China guided its currency lower for a third day Thursday after briefly intervening to prop it up the day before, showing how the leadership is struggling to manage the market in largely uncharted territory for Beijing.
The central bank engineered what looked like a win-win when it ceded more control of its currency to markets earlier this week, in a step toward liberalization that also gives Chinese exporters an edge. But now it also has to manage market expectations to keep the yuan from entering a free fall—a challenge for central banks world-wide but one that China has avoided by tightly controlling the value of its currency.
China intervened in the currency market Wednesday in the final moments of trading, people familiar with the matter said, after the yuan weakened nearly 2%—the daily limit—to its lowest level against the dollar in four years. On Thursday, the central bank set the yuan’s fixing only marginally lower, a
sign it wants to let the yuan depreciate but only in a measured way.

Meeting with reporters in Beijing Thursday for a rare briefing, central-bank officials stuck to their message, saying that the exchange rate will become more market driven but insisting that the central bank has the ability to keep the market in check with China’s “ample” foreign-exchange reserves.

But a controlled descent may prove elusive. “It’s going to be a period of volatility for the next few months before [the yuan] finds its equilibrium level,” said Alexandra Edstein, senior portfolio manager at The Cambridge Strategy’s Asian currency fund. 

China reduce the value of its   again against the dollar

China lowered again Wednesday Reference price of the yuan against the dollar, which led to confusion international markets, which considers it a worrying indication about the health of the global economy.

The Chinese central bank sets every day price of the yuan, or “people’s currency” that fluctuates around a margin of 2 percent in both directions.
Chinese central got lower by 1.62% of the national currency exchange rate, so that Pat 6.3306 yuan to the dollar, compared to 6.2298 Tuesday.
The central bank sought Wednesday to allay concerns about the move and said it “Given the economic and financial situation in the world and China, there is no basis for the continuous devaluation of the currency.”
Nevertheless, the Chinese currency fell in the exchange markets, where they were exchanged on Wednesday afternoon at about 6.44 yuan to the dollar, its lowest level since summer 2011.
And this led to the sudden reduction stumbled stock exchanges and raw material prices that China is one of the largest consumers.
This decision is largely a desperate attempt support from the authorities to revive China’s foreign trade after the collapse of exports in July, and fears returned to the Asian giant’s economy.
The weakening of the yuan also increases the cost of China’s imports denominated in other currencies, and may lead to the collapse of demand in the country.
But the central bank is keen not to use the word “devaluation” currency that could pave the “war of currencies” and pointed to “a new way” in the calculation of the basic price.
and its added that the reference to the yuan, which publishes the morning every day the price will reflect from now on exchanges shut down the previous day, supply and demand in the exchange rate markets and fluctuations in major currencies.
Therefore, the reduction of Tuesday was a “solo amendments” will not be repeated in order to adapt to the realities of the currency market, according to China’s central bank.
Julian Evans – Pritchard of the Office of Capital Economics said , “China’s central bank faced a dilemma. If not reduced reference pricing to reflect the decline in the yuan Tuesday in exchanges, he turned out he reneged on promises, depending on market movement.”
Analysts believe that the central bank is seeking through increased currency flexibility to enhance opportunities for inclusion in the reference basket of currencies to the International Monetary Fund, which currently includes the dollar, euro, yen and sterling.
Fund welcomed China’s central bank action, saying it “positive phase”, but stressed it would not affect the decision which will be announced in November.
The United States, which accuses China of fabricating periodically cut the price of its currency to stimulate its trade, seeming cautious in commenting on recent measures, even though it has long called for the liberalization of the yuan.
However, the long decline of the price of the yuan may speed up the flow of capital out of China by investors who fear the collapse of the value of the yuan-denominated assets.
Any decline in the Chinese currency rate automatically boosts prices of raw materials denominated in dollars of Chinese imports, which could affect demand and hurt global markets falter where gold and industrial metals today.
Evans – Pritchard Added that “authorities may intervene thus in the scenes in the coming days, probably by buying currencies” in order to emphasize the need not to expect prolonged decline of the yuan.