Moreover, the advanced economies have staked their claim to leadership in these institutions. Europeans have led the IMF and Americans have controlled the World Bank since their establishment after World War II.

The behavior of currency markets has repeatedly confounded and even bankrupted sophisticated investors. With so much currently staked on the market moving in one direction, it is worth contemplating the consequences if this happens again in 2015.

The Obama administration has staked significant political capital on the wager that Myanmar s promise may finally bear fruit. And, indeed, the rate of change in Myanmar over the last two years has been nothing short of remarkable.

In a bid to broaden its core interests, China soon began to provoke territorial disputes with several of its neighbors. Last year, China formally staked a claim under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to more than 80 of the South China Sea.

The US efforts, led by Special Envoy George Mitchell, have shown clearly that the current ruling coalition in Israel is incapable of doing the minimum required for peace. The Obama administration staked its reputation on getting Israelis and Palestinians to agree at least on security and borders.

The trip the first foreign visit of his second term carries important implications for US foreign policy. Rather than providing the breakthrough for which many had hoped, it demonstrated that Obama unlike other second term US presidents, who have staked their legacies on foreign policy is interested primarily in securing a domestic legacy.

The best that they could do now would be to dump the pretense of a strategy and carry on with the other business. Unfortunately, the host of the 2000 summit was José Manuel Barroso, then Prime Minister of Portugal and current President of the European Commission, who has staked his presidency on the Lisbon Strategy.

China has staked its national prestige and its leadership s nationalist credentials on this issue, which means that Xi is likely to rebuff US demands that China cease all activities seen as militarizing its new artificial islands in disputed waters. The most that can be realistically expected is an insipid statement of the two sides agreement to disagree.

Other prominent economists including Joseph Stiglitz, Ben Bernanke, and Martin Feldstein contributed to the debate as well. But, for the most part, they have not staked out their own positions as much as sat in Schroedingerian superposition, sometimes writing as if they believed that the post war glory years had never ended, at other times making arguments that echo those of Krugman, Summers, or Rogoff.

From employing its strong trade position to exploiting its near monopoly on the global production of vital resources like rare earth minerals, China has staked out a more domineering role in Asia. In fact, the more openly China has embraced market capitalism, the more nationalist it has become, encouraged by its leaders need for an alternative to Marxist dogma as a source of political legitimacy.