In The News

On the Cusp of Economic History

Katrin Bennhold January 23, 2008
Increasing inequality both among and within nations has contributed to a troubling global economic outlook. The days of easy globalization may be over, writes Katrin Bennhold for the International Herald Tribune, in reporting on concerns expressed at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Signs of a protectionist backlash are multiplying as worries about climate change, the rise of state-run...

Globalization and the Markets – Part I

David Dapice January 22, 2008
Stock-market indexes have tumbled like dominos around the globe, exposing vulnerability of intricate economic connections. A crisis in one nation – and the panic – can quickly bounce from one country to the next. A major cause behind the stock-market plunges the world over are US financial instruments designed to spread and protect risk by including all manner of home mortgages, explains...

Careful What You Wish For

January 22, 2008
Many challenges await the next US president, and all demand immediate fixes, report a team of reporters for Newsweek. Candidates make promises about 12 million illegal immigrants, with 500,000 more entering every year; a strained health care system that is unaffordable for the millions of uninsured; an overextended military in Iraq and Afghanistan; record oil prices; a battered economy; global...

China Eyes Latin American Commodities

Georg Caspary January 18, 2008
Latin America is rich in natural resources, including oil, minerals and agricultural crops, all desired in the global markets. At the same time, China has become the world's largest importer of cotton, copper and soybeans as well as the second-largest oil importer. Latin America can secure lasting advantages from its commodities sales – including poverty reduction and sustainable development...

World Rides to Wall Street's Rescue

David Enrich January 17, 2008
Nations with hefty savings accounts, including Singapore and Saudi Arabia, are devoting billions to rescuing US banks in trouble, a result of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. “After flooding the world with capital that fed both economic growth and excess, battered U.S. financial institutions now are turning to countries and companies that not so long ago were suffering through their own disasters...

Workers’ Paradise?

Kenneth Rogoff January 17, 2008
The expansion of global trade eroded the status of national and local unions. Yet as many workers in the world’s wealthiest nations worry about the status of their jobs, politicians who want to win and stay in office increasingly respond to the anxiety by pandering to unions. “After decades of vilification by economists for raising unemployment and strangling growth, the union movement is now...

Southeast Asian Democratization in the Era of Globalization

Roy Voragen January 16, 2008
Anticipating the consequences of globalization is one way of adapting to the rapid change. Increasingly, individuals acquire wealth not so much through hard work or innovation than by predicting globalization’s intricate twisting paths. Cities and citizens in the developed nations, while they complain about globalization, are better prepared for adapting to the effects than citizens in developing...