In The News

Does a Growing Worker Shortage Threaten China's Low-Cost Advantage?

May 15, 2006
China’s hold on the title of low-wage manufacturing giant may be in jeopardy. This year, a job program designed to entice migrant farmer-laborers into Chinese cities fell short of expectations, as many workers chose local rural employment. This reflects a general labor shortage in regions of the country and possible fallout from governmental tax and labor policies that encouraged farming. With...

Globalization’s Grave Challenges for the West

Robert A. Levine May 12, 2006
Globalization will proceed despite protectionism, and the West would be wise to devise policies that incorporate globalization’s inevitability. Without such policies, the standard of living in both the US and Europe could diminish: In Europe, slow growth will leave the continent trailing the US and Asia, making it ultimately dependent on tourism. The US may abandon its own guiding principles of...

Request Stokes Debate Over Yale Student With a Taliban Past

Alan Finder May 8, 2006
Impoverished Afghanistan was racked by war for 10 years after the Soviet invasion in 1979. Sayed Rahmatulla Hashemi’s formal education ended with the fourth grade, and he learned English from aid workers. The brutal Taliban regime soon took control over the nation, and with minimal skills, Hashemi worked as a translator and then diplomat for the Office of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan. After...

Political Clout in the Age of Outsourcing

David Leonhardt April 21, 2006
Americans were once nonchalant about outsourcing – until reports emerged about hospitals sending radiology tests to doctors in India, who provided low-cost accurate readings. Commentators and politicians took notice and debated what such outsourcing would mean for health care. Economists from MIT decided to take a closer look and found a single company in India with three radiologists doing such...

Mothers Want Hope for Their Children

Sonia Nazario April 19, 2006
The tide of illegal immigrants to American shores has become unmanageable, with numbers far outstripping those at any other time in US history. Immigrants take jobs that are unpopular with native US workers, often at reduced wages, thus allowing US firms to compete globally. The immigrant workforce reduces US food and clothing costs and makes child-care readily available for US families,...

Indonesia’s Progressive Form of Islam Is Not Something That Thailand Needs to Fear

Don Pathan April 17, 2006
Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country and plays a leading role in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. As a result, Indonesians question how Muslims of the Middle East determine international perceptions of Islam and recognize the potential for serving as a guiding force. Indonesia could offer a stabilizing influence in Malay-speaking southern Thailand where 1200 people have...

In Khartoum, the Refrain of Arab Failure

Rami G. Khouri March 31, 2006
The Arab League summit in Khartoum, poorly attended by Arab leaders, coincided with the revolt of several hundred workers in Dubai – and the two events expose problems in the Arab world. The workers, primarily from South Asia for construction projects, protested poor working and living conditions, low and delayed pay, as well as a general lack of basic rights. The leaders in Khartoum and...