In The News

The New Casinos – Emerging Markets

Anthony Rowley July 1, 2014
Financial analysts tout the potential of emerging economies for growth and wealth creation. While progress cannot be denied, the physical, institutional and financial infrastructures of many nations remain relatively weak, explains author and editor Anthony Rowley. He describes how Wall Street relabeled about 70 developing nations, once known “third world” or “basket cases,” as “emerging markets...

New York Real Estate Is the New Swiss Bank Account

Andrew Rice July 1, 2014
Foreign buyers “have become an overpowering force” in the city’s real-estate market, reports Andrew Rice for New York Magazine. Despite high costs, the city is a global bargain, and buyers of new construction receive huge tax breaks. Buyers scoop up properties at a wide range of prices; units are often rented or even left vacant before quick resale. The Congressional Research Service reports that...

US Companies Head to Mexico

Damien Cave June 24, 2014
Manufactured goods from Mexico have comprised a larger share of the US imports, reaching 14 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund, while China’s share in it has declined. With labor costs rapidly increasing in China, and wages doubling every few years, US investors have looked to Mexico as a more competitive place for manufacturing their products. Damien Cave, writing for the New...

The Way Forward

Nayan Chanda June 2, 2014
India’s citizens are greeting new Prime Minister Narendra Modi with great expectations to revive a lagging economy. Modi’s decisive win was based on a pro-business, pro-development, pro-growth agenda. “Ironically, one policy measure that is all ready to be implemented and could prove a game changer for the country is also the one that the BJP election manifesto is dead set against — FDI in multi-...

Talk of an Internet Fast Lane Is Already Hurting Some Startups

David Talbot May 16, 2014
Studies of internet and computer use suggest that full potential is far from realized. The US Federal Communications Commission is proposing rules that “would allow ISPs to charge content providers like Netflix to ensure speedy service, so long as those charges are ‘commercially reasonable,’” reports David Talbot for MIT Technology Review. “History shows that some Web-based products and services...

Profitable Development Solutions: How the Private Sector Can Contribute to the Post-2015 Agenda

Laurence Chandy, Kemal Derviş, George Ingram, Homi Kharas and Steven Rocker May 1, 2014
The United Nations posed eight millennium goals, including elimination of extreme poverty. Progress has been made, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon convened a meeting in August 2013 to analyze how to achieve that goal by 2030. The Brookings Institution offers a special report on the meeting with focus on better coordination of private and public funding for development aid: “the developing...

Walgreens Urged to Leave US to Gain Tax Benefit

Ed Hammond April 15, 2014
A small group that owns shares of the largest pharmacy chain retailer in the United States wants Walgreens to relocate to Europe: “investors owning close to 5 per cent of Walgreens’ shares lobbied the company’s management to use its $16bn takeover of Swiss-based Alliance Boots to re-domicile its tax base,” reports Ed Hammond for the Financial Times. “The move, known as an inversion, would...