In The News

Wall Street Journal: China Draws More Students Back From Abroad

Te-Ping Chen March 2, 2017
More than 500,000 Chinese students studied at foreign universities in 2015 with the United States as the most popular destination followed by the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. “A rise in incomes and frustration with China’s ultracompetitive education system produced a study-abroad fervor of historic proportions,” reports Te-Ping Chen for the Wall Street Journal. “In recent years, around...

Financial Times: Vancouver Seizes Chance to Lure Silicon Valley Tech Talent

Leslie Hook February 21, 2017
Vancouver, a beautiful city with mild weather on the Pacific coast, is fast-growing technology hub in need of skilled workers. A US crackdown on immigration has made the job of recruiting skilled immigrant workers from Seattle, San Francisco and Silicon Valley much easier. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook oppose an executive order banning travelers from seven nations...

Wired: The AI Threat – End of the Middle Class

Cade Metz February 12, 2017
Researchers of artificial intelligence recognize their work is capable of disrupting the global economy. Automation and computers have already supplanted many jobs that will never return. “In the US, the number of manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979 and has steadily decreased ever since,” explains Cade Metz for Wired. “At the same time, manufacturing has steadily increased, with the US now...

We Can’t Undo Globalization, But Can Improve It

Gary Pinkus, James Manyika and Sree Ramaswamy January 10, 2017
Global flows of trade and investment add economic value, and dismantling systems that rely on globalization would reduce prosperity. “While the impulse to erect trade barriers is understandable given the pain experienced by workers in a range of industries and communities in recent years, it is not the way to create lasting growth and shared prosperity,” notes a Harvard Business Review article. “...

Rethinking Labor Mobility

Harold James January 4, 2017
Trade, automation and other facets of globalization have eliminated some careers. One solution is for government to provide an unconditional basic income, but that may not eliminate resentment. Historian Harold James examines how artisans recovered after losing work during the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries: “many displaced workers emigrated – often long distances across...

A Tale of Two Middle Classes

Nayan Chanda December 20, 2016
Worry and anger permeate the middle classes of Asia and the Americas, and in a world that is tightly interconnected, individuals perceive cross-border competition. During the US presidential campaign, President-elect Trump suggested that “unfair trade deals” had hurt US workers and communities, and he promised to tighten immigration rules and curb abuses associated with the H1-B and other visas....

Can Trump – or Anyone – Bring Back US Manufacturing?

December 8, 2016
US voters and politicians worry about the loss of manufacturing and assembly jobs, which carry a wage premium over most service jobs. Yet numerous economists and other analysis express doubt that such jobs can quickly be restored in the United States. “The biggest reason Trump — or anyone else — can’t bring back jobs is because there is nowhere to bring them back from,” notes an article from...