In The News

US Leapfrogs Sluggish EU on Financial Reform

Wolfgang Reuter July 20, 2010
The US approved a financial reform law that could nudge the rest of the world, especially Europe, into preventing another financial meltdown. In an interconnected system, fast action on regulating complex securities and speculation can set global patterns into play, as noted by Wolfgang Reuter: “Americans have established a benchmark. European banks that do business in the United States will now...

Worry on the Jobs Front

Nayan Chanda July 12, 2010
Global economic recession severely curtailed hiring in the developed nations – and economists debate whether the slowdown is temporary or a “new normal,” explains Nayan Chanda, editor of YaleGlobal Online, writing for the Times of India. Some analysts blame outsourcing, low-cost labor and minimal regulations in emerging economies for high unemployment rates. Yet decisions of policymakers,...

African Migrant Workers Find Slim Pickings in Strawberry Fields of Southern Spain

Jean-Jacques Bozonnet June 28, 2010
In Spain, migrant men called “ghosts,” live in hidden plywood shacks adjoining berry fields, and wait for the next season’s harvest. But weather and laws have disrupted the plans of many who travel from Africa and Eastern Europe seeking work on berry farms. In 2008, Spain aimed to reduce immigration by reducing the number of temporary work permits for harvests. The country’s unemployment rate...

As Growth in US Slows, Wal-Mart Puts More Emphasis on Foreign Stores

Ylan Q. Mui June 10, 2010
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, pursues ambitious foreign expansion to make up for lagging sales in the United States. While no single country could replace the US in terms of consumer power, developing nations are poised for economic growth. Wal-Mart caters to newly-empowered consumers in emerging economies, a business model much like the firm’s “early strategy of building stores in a...

Unless Two Imbalances Can Be Fixed, Two New Crises Will Follow This One

Irwin Stelzer June 8, 2010
Huge trade imbalances, particularly between China and the US, Germany and the rest of Europe, ensure low interest rates and ongoing bubbles, contends Irwin Stelzer of the Hudson Institute. Ongoing lending at low rates to nations already steeped in debt dulls incentives to increase competitiveness and reduce trade deficits as well. “‘Imbalance’ is the word, and it creates multiple threats to the...

Wanted: Competent Leaders With Vision To Tackle Global Crises

Jeffrey E. Garten June 3, 2010
Markets around the globe analyze and quantify risk. But governance and politics present too much uncertainty, and investors are increasingly troubled by governments’ inability to address pressing problems and coordinate responses to problems including climate change, massive debt of any one country and other imbalances. Because of countless interconnections through labor, capital, environment,...

The Web of Globalization

Nayan Chanda May 24, 2010
Can a country withdraw from globalization, or for that matter, give up democracy in order to benefit from global capital flow? In this column, YaleGlobal editor Nayan Chanda dissects the recent argument offered by Harvard economist Dani Rodrik, who suggests that “economic globalization, political democracy, and the nation-state are mutually irreconcilable.” Crises that disrupt global capital...