In The News

Hurrah! Oil Profits Are Up

Carl Mortished May 2, 2008
Climbing oil prices contribute to higher costs for food and anything else that requires transport. But the higher prices also spark debate over oil dependence and the need for alternative fuels. People who want greater conservation and a cleaner environment should celebrate the high prices, argues Carl Mortished, because those change behavior. It’s no surprise that fossil fuels are a limited...

Climate Change and Tourism’s Winners and Losers

Eric Heymann May 2, 2008
Tourism is a major source of revenue and employment, particularly for the developing nations of the world. Historic monuments, sandy beaches, snow-covered mountains and tropical vegetation attract millions of tourists from rich countries seeking novelty and adventure while bringing in precious revenue. Well, all that may be changing. A major challenge awaiting the growing industry is climate...

Putting Pollution on Grocery Bills

Elisabeth Rosenthal May 1, 2008
Shoppers like a steady stream of favorite fruits and vegetables year-round. “Consumers in not only the richest nations but also, increasingly, the developing world expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or geography,” writes Elisabeth Rosenthal for the International Herald Tribune. Consumers get what they want with the help of global transportation systems combined with...

Globalization’s Aftershocks

Temma Ehrenfeld April 29, 2008
The new world order born out of the fall of the Soviet Union triggered fundamental changes in the global economy, many out of the reach of government regulation. Italian economist and author Loretta Napoleoni, in an interview with Newsweek, defines this trend of trade in unregulated markets as the rise of “rogue economics” – including black market sales, poaching of fish or rare species, as well...

Games Tensions on Slippery Track

Jason Dean April 28, 2008
Criticism of China’s human-rights record and Tibet policy has provoked an active defense among Chinese people. Without government direction, a strong wave of nationalist sentiment has driven boycotts of Western multinational corporations whose shareholders support the Free Tibet movement, as well as protests outside media outlets deemed to have reported on the issue with bias. In a year that the...

China Ascendant – Part II

Pranab Bardhan April 28, 2008
Hosting the Olympics in August is an opportunity for China to display its economic and social success along with its ancient culture to the world. But there’s a fine line between the display of patriotism and nationalism, warns economist Pranab Bardhan in the second article of a YaleGlobal series on China’s rise. The Chinese Communist Party has carefully nurtured – and enforced – homogeneous...

Deadly Greed: The Role of Speculators in the Global Food Crisis

Beat Balzli April 25, 2008
Investors, sensing opportunity in climbing food prices, made record profits in the commodities markets, including wheat, corn, rice and palm oil. “Commodity speculation spread long ago from standard products like oil and gold to anything edible and available for trade on the Chicago Futures Exchange,” write Beat Balzli and Frank Hornig for Spiegel Online. The futures market allowed farmers to...