In The News

Ivy League Investors

Robert J. Shiller November 30, 2006
For more than 20 years, one man has supervised Yale University's endowment portfolio, which regularly posts high annual rates of return, averaging more than 16 percent. Surrounded by academics and holding a doctorate degree himself, David Swensen invests for the long term and defies the conventional wisdom that individual investors cannot beat the markets. Yet a track record such as Swensen’...

AIDS Threatens India’s Prosperity

Pramit Mitra November 30, 2006
December 1 marks World AIDS Day, and by some reports, the world’s second most populous nation – India – has more AIDS cases than any other country in the world. The percentage of cases in India, at 0.09 percent, is miniscule compared with rates of 30 percent in some African nations, but the size of the nation’s population – 1 billion, with two out of five people illiterate – raises concern among...

Getting Beyond Donald Rumsfeld

Joseph S. Nye November 20, 2006
While most US citizens oppose the war in Iraq, just as many still favor the war on terror. Most US citizens are too impatient for the time-consuming process of soft power – as described by Harvard professor Joseph Nye, which changes attitudes with time, education and ideas. Policies of aggression and war only create new jihadists, Nye argues. The ideas spread by education, entrepreneurship or...

Good News – The World Is Getting Richer

Robert J. Shiller November 14, 2006
Among 82 nations with data from 2004, the per capita gross domestic product increased, indicating a rising standard of living throughout the world, according to the Penn World Table, from the Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices, based at the University of Pennsylvania. However, the data also show a widening gap between rich and poor countries. The average real...

A Bigger Economy Doesn't Always Buy Happiness

Eric Weiner November 14, 2006
Economists rely on the size and growth of a nation’s gross domestic product to determine the health of any economy. But the GDP covers the sale of weapons, mindless video games, excessive packaging that ends up in landfills, prescription drugs that treat anxiety or depression, and expenditures for war. Robert Kennedy once said that GDP doesn’t measure "the beauty of our poetry or the...

Tripping on the Tightrope

Graham Usher November 13, 2006
Citizens of Muslim countries increasingly question who exactly are the targets in the US-led “war on terror.” In late October, three US-made missiles struck a madrassa in Bajaur, not far from the border of Afghanistan, killing more than 75 men under the age of 20. US and Pakistan leaders insisted the religious school was a training site for suicide bombers. Pakistani citizens suspect that the US...

Universities Move to Hide Work From US Eyes

Caroline Alphonso November 13, 2006
The internet tool RefWorks allows professors and students to organize and store research, automatically creating bibliographies. The firm RefWorks describes itself as an international company – but it is based in the US, home of the Patriot Act, which after the 9/11 attacks granted federal authorities wide powers to examine databases without warrants or notice for security risks. Concerned about...