In The News

Keeping Up With China's Olympic Shine – Part II

Alexandra Harney September 24, 2008
China has become known as factory to the world – as manufacturers invested in factories to take advantage of a labor force that accepts low wages and a government with minimal environmental standards and even less enforcement. Shoppers like low prices while the companies enjoy immense profits. China, indeed the entire world, pays a heavy price for manufacturing firms gathering in a place with...

Keeping Up With China's Olympic Shine – Part I

David Dollar September 22, 2008
Awarded the right to stage the 2008 Olympics, China set to work polishing cities and parks, designing grand architecture, and coaching citizens to be warm and welcoming hosts. No sacrifice was deemed too great for achieving a successful Olympics and sending a message worldwide about China’s can-do spirit. Perhaps more than anyone else, China’s people appreciated the end results, with the emphasis...

Beijing’s Shadowy Fund for Buying Assets

Jamil Anderlini September 19, 2008
China’s government has an immense pool of savings, which has ballooned in value over the past eight years, and decisions about how to invest or spend that cash influences other nations and industries. One fund, Chinese Investment Corp., is more open than the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which manages the world’s largest foreign-exchange reserves. The Chinese funds have gradually...

Globalization and Politics

Nayan Chanda September 17, 2008
Faced with a battered American economy and a five-year high unemployment rate, US presidential candidates tend to slip into anti-trade mode. Piling blame on foreigners is convenient and attracts votes. But the US has misidentified the source of its economic woes, suggests Nayan Chanda in his column for Businessworld. Outsourcing is just one side of the coin of globalization; on the flip side,...

Wall Street Dodges a Bullet, How About Next One?

David Dapice September 17, 2008
Low interest rates prompted many investors and homeowners to pour savings into real estate and homes. Investors, convinced that prices could not fall, purchased debt packages including mortgages based on ample credit with little down payments. Prices for homes and investments soared, with the total value of US housing going from about $12 trillion in 2000 to more than $20 trillion in 2006. Now,...

Why the Discomfort Over Free Trade

Kevin Casas-Zamora September 12, 2008
Many benefits flow from free trade, and attempts to “protect” economies from competition are doomed. Yet free trade has fallen into disrepute, as more workers, voters and politicians express skepticism, questioning why most rewards flow to a few. Costa Rica’s former vice-president, Kevin Casas-Zamora, insists that advocates for free trade, and he counts himself as one, must examine the problems...

Banking on Neo-Confician Capitalism

Ho Kwon Ping September 5, 2008
Low interest rates and easy loan terms encouraged people and businesses around the globe to live beyond their means. Those loans were based on assets that have since plummeted in value, explains Ho Kwon Ping, chairman of the board of trustees for Singapore Management University. Investment banking and speculation create instant winners and losers, increasing income inequality. He explains that “...