In The News

Joys and Pains of a Global Paradigm Shift

Michael Casey August 27, 2010
In a world with immense wage inequality, two world views emerge, explains Michael Casey for the Wall Street Journal. Attitudes are relative, depending on whether one’s circumstances are improving or declining. Global economic power is in an ongoing shift from high-wage to low-wage nations, he argues, and if indeed deflation is underway, that represents additional hardship for the high-wage...

The Two-Tier Internet: Fighting for Control of the Web's Future

Frank Dohmen, Martin U. Müller, Hilmar Schmundt August 27, 2010
Profit margins have shrunk for internet providers. Attracted by low prices and rapid growth, consumers rely on cloud computing, which uses central servers for storage of treasured documents – yet few understand internet technology or long-term maintenance needs. A recent release from Google and Verizon recommended regulations, calling “for governments to leave it up to the market to determine...

Time to Sort Out the Long Overdue Doha Round

Hugh Corbet August 26, 2010
Expanding trade has enriched the world, and completing the Doha Round of negotiations could deliver nations – both rich and poor – from stagnation. The round of World Trade Organization negotiations began in 2001 as an effort to ease poverty by reducing trade barriers. But wealthy nations resist ending protections for their agricultural industries. “By offering to reduce agricultural subsidies...

Tax on Commodity Profits Could Postpone Scarcity

Joergen Oerstroem Moeller August 10, 2010
Few global citizens, let alone their political leaders, have yet to recognize a shifting economy underway from an era of plenty to an era of scarcity. For two centuries, resource-rich nations focused on job creation; downward pressure on commodity prices including oil, gas and minerals ensued. Emerging economies, particularly those of China and India, rapidly increase global demand. In the run-up...

The World Economy Needs Balancing, But How?

David Dapice August 3, 2010
Many nations seek economic relief by promoting exports. But a trade system built on all exports and no imports is an impossible feat to achieve. To lift economies from recession's mire, nations pursue, among other things, domestic rebalancing by curtailing unsustainable, wasteful spending and the borrowing that triggered the global downturn. On the other hand, the target markets for much of...

US Leapfrogs Sluggish EU on Financial Reform

Wolfgang Reuter July 20, 2010
The US approved a financial reform law that could nudge the rest of the world, especially Europe, into preventing another financial meltdown. In an interconnected system, fast action on regulating complex securities and speculation can set global patterns into play, as noted by Wolfgang Reuter: “Americans have established a benchmark. European banks that do business in the United States will now...

Forget India, Outsource to Arkansas

Jennifer Alsever July 8, 2010
With a national unemployment rate approaching 10 percent, relatively high for the US, biotech and IT technology firms eye low-cost labor rural communities in states like Arkansas, Missouri and Minnesota. Dubbed “rural outsourcing” by this CNN Money article, the work entails providing IT support or customizing software code. “For some companies, the thought of outsourcing work to countries with...