In The News

In just three decades, China has been transformed from one of the world’s poorest nations to the world’s second largest economy. But rapid growth imposes long-term environmental, health and social costs, and other nations should be wary of emulating China’s model, cautions Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. Smog choking Beijing and other cities...

Suicide, long correlated with high unemployment rates, is on the rise in the wake of government austerity. “People looking for work are about twice as likely to end their lives as those who have jobs,” note David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu in an opinion essay for the New York Times. The two conducted research on health trends in countries enduring economic crisis and found that gradual, targeted...

Europe has suffered through a debt crisis, but governments are trimming, not abandoning, social welfare programs. Such modifications could become a model for economic globalization around the globe, suggests Joergen Oerstroem Moeller, a senior research fellow with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. Europe is reducing budgets while preserving social protections for the future...