In The News

Project Syndicate: The Globalization Backlash Paradox

Arvind Subramanian April 26, 2018
Some forms of globalization tend to be appreciated more than others, and economist Arvind Subramanian delves into why cross-border financial exchanges are more widely accepted than trade or migration despite having “regularly wreaked havoc on rich and poor economies alike over the last 40 years.” He concludes: “When it comes to real global integration, it is easy to identify perpetrators and...

Quartz: Changing Weather Picks New Winners for Wine

Akshat Rathi & Dan Kopf April 26, 2018
Specific climate conditions influence the taste, quality and production of some crops, especially grapes for wine. Annual wine output last year was up in Argentina, Australia, and South Africa, but down in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Chile, and China,” report Akshat Rathi & Dan Kopf for Quartz. Annual wine production fell by 9 percent in 2017, and that put production at a 60-year low....

Harvard Gazette: Global Power Grid for Global Powers

Clea Simon April 20, 2018
Distributing power may be more challenging than discovering or producing power. State Grid Corporation of China is the world’s largest utility company, and its former Chairman and President, Liu Zhenya, describes how the company's work on transmitting power via ultra-high-voltage lines throughout China could be applied to a global energy grid, “effectively revolutionizing the practicality of...

CNBC: China Refuses to Be the Globe's Trash Dump

Yen Nee Lee April 19, 2018
The world’s largest importer of waste changed its mind and stopped taking in 24 types of scrap. China’s ban on waste imports went into effect this year and Europe, Japan and the United States are scrambling: Europe considers a tax on plastics, Britain looks for other export destinations, and the United States tries to convince China to reverse the ban. “China was the dumping ground for more than...

Bloomberg: US Libor Replacement

Alex Harris April 18, 2018
In April, the New York Federal Reserve Bank launched a new US benchmark rate – the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, SOFR – to compete with the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor. Libor offers a range of rates depending on currencies and loan duration, but is based on human expectations – a system deemed a problem after investigations revealed that some bankers had been rigging rates profits...

Politico: US Foreign Visas Plunge Under Trump

Nahal Toosi, Ted Hesson and Sarah Frostenson April 16, 2018
The United States is granting visitor visas at a lower rate to applicants from around the world, according to Politico’s analysis of State Department data – a trend suggesting that government officials have adopted President Donald Trump’s hardline attitude toward immigration, legal or otherwise. Due to limited information, the writers could not determine how much of the downward turn is due to...

Times of India: Can Trump Charm Kim?

Nayan Chanda April 13, 2018
US President Donald Trump relies on global crises and foreign policy disruptions to distract from an ongoing investigation into Russian meddling with the 2016 US presidential election: tariff threats, US troop withdrawal from Syria and missile threats, dispatch of US troops to the Mexican border and notably a snap decision to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. “All of these moves threaten to...