In The News

India’s Economy, Now With Muscle

Mark Sappenfield November 16, 2006
India’s rise as the premier destination for information-technology outsourcing has continued apace, since the government’s decision to privatize education ten years ago, marking the beginning of the Indian labor force’s scaling up. However, service-sector advances do not tell the entire Indian success story. Increasingly, manufacturing has become a rapidly growing sector of the economy....

Can Asia Count on Russian Oil?

Michael Richardson November 16, 2006
Nations rich in oil can wield great influence throughout the world, and the nations who must buy oil look for low prices and reliability. As the world’s largest exporter of natural gas and the second largest exporter of oil after Saudi Arabia, Russia is a major power broker when it comes to energy. Constructing pipelines across Asia, the Russian government is not clear about whether its earliest...

Vietnam Plays Wary Host to APEC

Thomas Abraham November 16, 2006
Vietnam’s surging economy and increasing attractiveness as a place to do business have raised its profile in Southeast Asia. Its turn at hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leadership summit now offers the country the opportunity to further burnish its image. But that opening has also come with risk. Having a relapse of the avian flu outbreak that hammered the country in 2003 would not...

Competitiveness, Not Offshoring, Is EU Weakness

Natascha Gewaltig November 15, 2006
Inexpensive cheap global labor poses fewer problems for the EU than accelerating technological change and the inability to adapt, according to a study from the European Commission. The global outsourcing market grew over the previous decade, from 8 percent of the world GDP in 1990 to 11 percent in 2003. The EU outsourcing market represented almost 15 percent of its GDP in 2003. “Technical...

Last Chance for Bush to Repair Relations With Islamic World

Imam Cahyono November 15, 2006
A trip to Asia leads US President George Bush’s travel agenda after the mid-term election – and gives him a chance to renew US ties with Asia. The invasion of Iraq and the war on terror have distracted US leaders from Asia Pacific affairs and the growing influence of China. US influence in the Asia Pacific region has declined to such a point that many label Bush as a greater threat than tyrant...

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...