Macroeconomic Clouds on the Global Horizon

Ludovic Comeau Jr. is a longtime business economics authority who has extensive experience in strategic growth policies. As DePaul University College of Applied and Professional Studies associate professor, he teaches on diverse policy issues encompassing both macro- and microeconomics.

An early 2017 Forbes article focused on long-term issues impacting global stability and economic growth, including Europe’s current unwinding process, in which Britain is separating itself from the European Union. This predictable process is a relatively minor concern compared with an increasing anti-European Union sentiment on the Continent, which could manifest in voters in Italy turning away from a unified Europe footing. This would weaken the Continent’s united policies on several fronts, including from trade, refugee policy, and environmental standards. It could also trigger recessionary trends that could harm EU citizens economically. 

Another global issue is China’s continued attempt to transition away from cheap credit, which has been a tool for financing infrastructure investments and export growth. With credit increasingly going to less productive uses, debt has soared. A recent IMF analysis points to overall credit growth of 20 percent per year, which appears unsustainable relative to the much lower rate of nominal GDP growth.

The Haitian Diaspora

An economics and business expert, Ludovic Comeau Jr. is an associate professor at DePaul University. Also an expert in the Haitian diaspora, Ludovic Comeau Jr. chaired a task force on recommendations for the Haitian Diaspora Forum and served as a research advisor to diaspora research.

A diaspora is defined as a large-scale movement of people away from their ancestral homes. Haiti has experienced a mass outflow of residents in recent years, with 329,000 living in the Dominican Republic, nearly 100,000 in Canada and France, and nearly 30,000 in the Bahamas. In addition, the Haitian population in the United States has grown from 92,000 in 1980 to nearly 670,000 in 2015.

Over the years, a wide range of economic and natural events have prompted the mass migration of Haitians. The first large numbers of migrants began in the 1980s with the destruction of Jean-Claude Duvalier’s dictatorship in Haiti. Since that time, the country has experienced further political instability, extreme poverty, and natural disasters such as a major earthquake in 2010. All of these events are thought to have encouraged the ongoing movement of Haitians to new areas.

About Ludovic Comeau Jr.

A professional with strong leadership abilities, Ludovic Comeau Jr. began his academic career at the State University of Haiti where he earned a bachelor of science in business administration in 1986. Ludovic Comeau Jr. also received his law degree from the university in 1989.

After moving to the United States, Dr. Comeau attended the University of Illinois at Chicago, where in 1993 he received a master of arts in economics and a master of business administration (MBA) with concentrations in finance, banking, and human resource management. By 1997, he had earned a Ph.D. in business economics with a concentration in economic development and international trade.

In 2001, Ludovic Comeau Jr. began working as an assistant professor at DePaul University (Chicago), and by 2006 he had assumed his present full-time job as a tenured professor at DePaul where, among other courses, he has taught micro and macroeconomic principles (Economics for Decision Making); Economics by Example; and Money, Finance, and Crises.