In The News

US Economic Folly Should Worry Us All

Joseph Stiglitz September 17, 2003
US President Bush's recent request for global financial support to pay for the war in Iraq has met with little sympathy and more than a little gloating from countries who argue the US should never have entered Iraq. Compounding the world's amusement at Washington's financial problems are the Bush tax cuts that have decimated the budget surplus that existed when he came into office...

Only a Miracle Can Save China

Moisés Naím September 14, 2003
China may be growing too strong too fast for its own good. Rapid urbanization, an upwardly mobile middle class, and strained utilities and resources make an economic or political "accident" within the next decade inevitable, argues Moisés Naím. No state thus far has managed to expand so quickly in so many different directions without experiencing some sort of collapse—and China's...

Protests Greet Yet Another WTO Meeting

Pranab Bardhan September 8, 2003
As the World Trade Organization prepares to meet in Cancun, Mexico, backers and detractors of globalization are clashing again, with each side claiming to represent the interests of the world's poor. Those opposed to globalization in its current form point to an increase in inequality and poverty in countries that have opened up to international capital and corporations, while supporters...

Crumbling Stability

Anke Bryson September 5, 2003
In 2003 Germany will violate the Maastricht "Stability and Growth Pact" for the third consecutive year, but this time the government isn't even sending an apology. Originally championed by Germany itself to check fiscal irresponsibility of smaller members, the pact stipulates that budget deficits may not exceed 3% per year in any of the Euro-Area countries. Now, however, the...

Is America's Economy Really Too Big to Go Down the Drain?

Stephen King September 1, 2003
To most people, the prospect of an American collapse is almost unimaginable. But to Stephen King, managing director of economics at HSBC, it is a very real possibility. In this article, King traces the economic success of the US in the 90s, arguing that this growth was due in large part to other countries which were willing to prop up the US economy. America frequently spent more than it...

Germany and California: Parallel Crises in Need of Parallel Remedies

Robert Levine July 10, 2003
Although Germany and California represent different levels of government, both are facing similar severe economic and political crises. The economic problems for both stem from the collapse of the booming information technology sector. Global trade and investment opportunities connected the information technology sectors in Germany and California, and the collapse of the IT sector in California...

A Rich Nation, a Poor Continent

Jeffrey D. Sachs July 9, 2003
The cure for Africa’s ills is the one thing the continent lacks: money. According to Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Africa’s health care problems could be effectively combated with an annual infusion of $25 billion dollars from the developed world, including $8 billion from the US. By bolstering the continent’s nearly non-existent health care programs,...