In The News

Asian Countries Gear Up to Tackle Bird-Flu Threat

Nicholas Zamiska November 4, 2005
Asian governments are gradually beginning to confront the possibility of widespread bird-flu infection among humans, and it is their state of readiness, still to be determined, that may prove the most crucial in preventing a global pandemic. Western countries have been preparing themselves for months by stockpiling antiviral drugs, but despite many experts’ warning that a pandemic will most...

The Rising Risk of a Hard Landing

Stephen Roach November 4, 2005
In 2005, America’s deficit will account for 70 per cent of the total deficit positions in the global economy, By contrast, it will take ten countries to account for 70 percent of the global surplus. While Washington wants to shift the blame, this disequilibrium is largely the result of a US economy short on savings, writes Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley. And because of the...

Summit Rhetoric Soars While Economy Sinks

Jeffrey E. Garten November 3, 2005
As the fourth annual Summit of the Americas get under way in Mar Del Plata, a pressing question lingers in the background: Are regional meetings truly worth the trouble? According to Jeffrey E. Garten, Juan Trippe professor in the practice of international trade and finance at The Yale School of Management, world leaders' efforts would be better spent at home, developing and implementing...

The Doha Round and Globalization’s Missing Middle

Barry Desker November 2, 2005
The Doha Round meeting of the WTO is still weeks away but observers are already writing its epitaph. A former senior trade official of Singapore envisages an unsatisfactory conclusion to the trade negotiations in Hong Kong this December, mainly because of its likely failure to reach agreements on agricultural and services liberalization. But there may not be any clear cut “villain” responsible...

Romancing the Globe

Ibsen Martinez November 1, 2005
Approximately 2 billion people around the world tune in on a regular basis to watch Latin American soap operas known as “telenovelas.” While Hollywood and the US television industry are often seen as the defining forces of cultural globalization, the success of telenovelas is a global phenomenon that is being celebrated as “reverse cultural imperialism.” The plotlines of telenovelas usually...

Fate of the Farmers in Balance

Edward Gresser November 1, 2005
This December, the WTO is scheduled to convene in Hong Kong, in what could be its final opportunity to adopt the Doha reforms. The negotiators aim to open markets worldwide by cutting the subsidies and tariffs that heavily favor producers in Europe and the United States, but disagreements have repeatedly obstructed their goals. For the average news viewer, the familiar media coverage of loud...

International Migration: Brain Drain or Brain Gain?

Caglar Ozden October 31, 2005
The surge in globalization since the end of World War II has been fueled chiefly by an international exchange of goods and capital rather than people. There are signs, however, that international migrants are playing an increasingly important role in globalization as the world enters the twenty-first century. What are the costs and benefits of this new wave of migration? The principal cost of...