In The News

NewsChina: Stopping the Pollution Pipeline

May 30, 2018
Pollution, destroying quality of life for many communities in China, is the source of numerous public complaints. In response, China has started environmental inspections nationwide and cracks down on violators. After two rounds of inspections since 2016, about 29,000 companies were fined with more than 1,500 people charged. Inspection results are included in job-performance reviews, and more...

The Economist: Netanyahu Fights for Political Survival

February 27, 2018
Police officers informed Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in February that impending charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust would come his way. Netanyahu addressed the nation the same day, recounting his 50 years of service, including experience with the Special Forces and as ambassador to the United Nations. Israel’s police chief, Robi Alsheikh had been selected by Netanyahu out...

Brookings: Globalization, Technology, Inequality

Zia Qureshi February 22, 2018
People even in the world’s most advanced and wealthiest economies are unhappy and politically fractured – this despite a full recovery from the 2008 financial crisis and growing economies. “The increasingly unequal sharing of the economic pie lies at the heart of the rising social discontent,” explains Zia Qureshi for Brookings. “Income and wealth inequalities have risen practically in all major...

The Economist: America’s Federal Government Shuts Down Over Immigration

January 22, 2018
Immigration policy is the point of contention for US Congress struggling to pass a spending bill: specifically, ending temporary status for young immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and invested in education, careers, homes and community based on a shield us provided by the Obama administration. That status ends in March. That quarrel led to a shutdown of the US federal...

The New York Times: When Climate Change Becomes a Credit Problem

Jeff Nesbit December 13, 2017
This year has shown that disasters linked with climate change carry enormous economic costs, and communities that ignore the risks of climate change can expect increased upfront borrowing costs. “In a welcome but long overdue development, one of the world’s leading credit-rating agencies, Moody’s Investors Service, announced recently that it would give more weight to climate change risks in...

Reuters: Globalization's Castaways Haunt Central Bankers

Jonathan Spicer and Howard Schneider August 24, 2017
Central bankers insist that open borders and free trade contribute to national and individual prosperity. Yet at the US Federal Reserve research conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, bankers and economists acknowledge a challenge for the elderly, the poor, the uneducated, and the workers who lose their jobs due to technological advances and competition within their own country or beyond – anyone...

Politico: Trump Administration to Allow for 15,000 More Foreign Workers

Louis Nelson July 21, 2017
The US departments of Homeland Security and Labor have announced that they will issue up to 15,000 additional H-2B visas for temporary, non-agricultural workers this year. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly explained the decision to increase the Congressionally-approved cap of 66,000 H-2B visas per year as a supply-and-demand problem: “there are not enough qualified and willing US workers...