In The News

U.S. Urged to Monitor Global Labor Policies

David Brown January 16, 2004
More can be done by government to encourage global best practices, say leaders of both multinational corporations and academic institutions. In fact, a study group comprised of businessmen and academics recently sent the US government 18 recommendations on social responsibility, such as requiring US companies to be liable for overseas actions, encouraging socially responsible purchasing by...

Why Not Let Them Work?

Mechthild Küpper January 9, 2004
Germany's one million illegal immigrants are hard to typify, says this article in the F.A.Z. Weekly. Unlike the Turkish immigrants who are in the country legally but have not acculturated themselves to Germany, the author writes, many illegal immigrants are integrating well by learning German and seeking steady work. Workers from Poland and Eastern Europe, many of whom enter on tourist or...

Bush's Proposal for Immigration Reform Misses the Point

Andres Oppenheimer January 8, 2004
A day after US President George W. Bush announced proposed changes to US immigration policy, some are saying the changes do not go deep enough. If it meets with approval from the US Congress, Bush's proposal would grant identity cards to millions of illegal workers and allow them to continue to work legally for three years. The plans were announced just one week before Bush meets with the...

How to Reduce Poverty: Lessons from China

David Dollar January 6, 2004
Conventional economic wisdom holds that foreign investment and trade boost economic growth and help alleviate poverty in developing countries. So why is it that some countries that seem quite open to the outside world are stagnating economically? David Dollar, Director of Development Policy at the World Bank, writes that a comparison of economic conditions in several Chinese cities points to...

The Likely Surprises of 2004

Moises Naim December 29, 2003
The Iraq war may have dominated headlines, but it was not the only significant geopolitical event of 2003. Moises Naim, the editor of Foreign Policy Magazine, reminds us that while moving forward in 2004 we cannot overlook the fundamental changes that occurred in 2003 within the European Union, the global trading system, the American and Chinese economies, and Russia. As a new year begins, the...

Even Labor Unions Can Gain from Free Trade

Tamara Kay December 23, 2003
In the long negotiations before the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), pundits, politicians, and unions alike predicted that NAFTA would bring increased animosity between transnational unions. They would now be competing for the same jobs, the argument went, and so labor solidarity will obviously break down. Instead, says labor scholar Tamara Kay, North America...

The China Threat?

Nicholas D. Kristof December 20, 2003
Writing from Shanghai, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof says that what worries him isn't China’s growing military prowess, but the fervent nationalism the government has cultivated among its youth. Kristof believes Chinese attitudes towards the Japanese exemplify the destabilizing effects of “blind nationalism.” Such attitudes originated during Japan’s occupation of China before...