In The News

The Omnipresent Craft: Graft

Nayan Chanda February 4, 2014
The “opening up of a country to trade and investment has created opportunities for bribery and corruption on a scale greater than at any other time in the past,” writes Nayan Chanda, YaleGlobal’s editor, in his column for Businessworld. But the internet rallies citizens to protest corruption, too. Corruption in politics or business – including bribes and kickbacks, abuse of power, nepotism,...

Growth and Globalization Cannot Cure All the World’s Ills

Gideon Rachman January 30, 2014
Global leaders and elites, such as those who gathered for the World Economic Forum in Davos, regard economic growth via globalization as the prescription for difficulty or political conflict, suggests Gideon Rachman for the Financial Times. But economic growth, globalization and capitalism do not necessarily curtail inequality, instability, environmental degradation, nationalist rivalries, jihad...

How Globalization Has Left the 1 Percent Further Ahead

Tavia Grant, Janet McFarland November 28, 2013
Canada is not alone with a widening income divide – a few making great gains while the vast majority struggles with stagnant wages. Analysis from the Globe and Mail points to globalization as the reason. US competition may pressure wages, and the skilled with global appeal are paid more than those with local appeal. “The top 1 per cent of earners [has] seen growing demand for their specialized...

Snowden and Obama Slow Down Globalization

Irwin M. Stelzer November 13, 2013
Policies and individuals can influence globalization’s pace. Writing for the Weekly Standard, Irwin Stelzer blames former US National Security Agency contract worker Edward Snowden – his release of National Security Agency documents revealing methods and targets – and President Barack Obama for slowing globalization by hampering free trade, capital flows and foreign investment. “Neither [man]...

Trade: Into Uncharted Waters

Shawn Donnan October 31, 2013
The pace of global trade has slowed. “For the past three decades, trade has regularly grown at twice the rate of world gross domestic product,” writes Shawn Donnan for the Financial Times. “This year, trade is expected to grow just 2.5 per cent, compared with GDP growth of 2.9 per cent.” Economists debate whether the dip is temporary or signals structural change in global trade and supply chains...

The Gated Globe

Greg Ip October 17, 2013
After the 2008 global economic crisis, leaders vowed to avoid protectionism, but they also took steps to avoid globalization’s negatives. “After two decades in which people, capital and goods were moving ever more freely across borders, walls have been going up, albeit ones with gates,” writes Greg Ip in a series for the Economist. “Governments increasingly pick and choose whom they trade with,...

Foreign Policy Goes Local

Rodrigo Tavares October 11, 2013
Cities and states no longer wait for national leaders to forge foreign partnerships, and diplomacy moves swiftly with less formality at the subnational level. “Today, many private intelligence firms, think tanks, and NGOs have better access to quality sources than experienced diplomats do,” suggests Rodrigo Tavares, head of the São Paulo State Government’s Office of Foreign Affairs. “And the...