In The News

Why This Might Be the Model T of Workplace Robots

Tom Simonite October 31, 2013
New applications, innovation, competition and mass production drive down prices of most tech products over time while improving capability – and that is true of robots. A new startup company, Unbounded Robotics, is selling 3-foot robots for $35,000 to academic and industry researchers who currently would pay $100,000 plus for similar technology or build themselves. Now researchers can purchase...

Bad Policies Caused the Lampedusa Tragedy

Hans-Jürgen Schlamp October 10, 2013
A boat carrying 500 refugees sank just within sight of the Italian island of Lampedusa. More than 250 died and more are missing. The refugees from Somalia, Eritrea and other hopeless states took off from African coast just 160 kilometers away. Europe has failed to offer a political solution to the refugee crisis. More than 200,000 refugees have landed in Lampedusa since 1999 with up to 20,000...

Labor Pains

Nayan Chanda September 30, 2013
Good intentions can go awry if they don’t tackle a problem’s roots and long-term conditions. India has launched an ambitious program to feed its poorest citizens, but the costly program will require tax revenue from working citizens, explains Nayan Chanda, YaleGlobal’s editor, in his column for Businessworld. Instead of developing intricate subsidy programs, he urges that India tackle inequality...

Singapore Foreigner Curbs Target Professionals

Sharon Chen September 27, 2013
Singapore’s unemployment rate is 2.1 percent, near full employment, according to economists, but that’s too high for some. The nation will set up a job bank and require companies to advertise jobs to Singaporeans before pursuing work visas for foreign professionals. Exempt are businesses with fewer than 25 employees and jobs that pay less than US$30,000 or more than $140,000. The move reflects...

US Textile Plants Return, With Floors Largely Empty of People

Stephanie Clifford September 23, 2013
Low-cost labor, first in the southern region of the United States and later in developing nations, lured textile mills away from manufacturing centers of New England. Globalization makes the industry turn full circle. Textile mills are up and running once again in the United States, but with fewer jobs because of automation. Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times writes about the return of the...

Russia Offers Fukushima Cleanup Help as Tepco Reaches Out

Yuriy Humber, Jacob Adelman September 5, 2013
More than two years after the earthquake-tsunami disaster in Japan that destroyed the Fukushima nuclear power station, the power company and government still do not have radiation under control. Russia has repeated an offer to assist in the cleanup. In the globalized nuclear industry, all accidents are international, points out Vladimir Asmolov, of Rosenergoatom, Russia’s nuclear utility. “As...

Many Wall St. Banks Woo Children of Chinese Leaders

David Barboza August 22, 2013
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating a Wall Street bank practice of hiring children of senior Chinese government officials. One motivation is “open[ing] doors and secur[ing] deals in the world’s fastest-growing major economy,” reports David Barboza in DealBook, a New York Times blog, and banks were said to compete on “who could hire the most politically connected recent college...