In The News

Brookings: Globalization, Technology, Inequality

Zia Qureshi February 22, 2018
People even in the world’s most advanced and wealthiest economies are unhappy and politically fractured – this despite a full recovery from the 2008 financial crisis and growing economies. “The increasingly unequal sharing of the economic pie lies at the heart of the rising social discontent,” explains Zia Qureshi for Brookings. “Income and wealth inequalities have risen practically in all major...

Reuters: Final Version of Trans-Pacific Trade Deal

Charlotte Greenfield and Colin Packham February 21, 2018
Economies in the Asia Pacific region are among the fastest growing in the world. The United States walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal for reducing tariffs, but the other 11 countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – persevered and finalized the terms of what is now called the Comprehensive and...

Quartz: At Davos, Search on How to Save Globalization

Jason Karaian January 26, 2018
Most global leaders attending the World Economic Forum that meets annually are beneficiaries and strong supporters of globalization. Many also agree that globalization and distribution of benefits could be better managed. The general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation suggests that globalization has failed working people with low pay and insecurity. The CEO of ICICI Bank in...

The Times of India: Virulent Symptoms of Global Inequality Need Concerted Global Response

Nayan Chanda January 2, 2018
The uncertainty of a topsy-turvy world has many implications for global security and the global economy. Turkey is backing away from the United States and working with Russia on Syria; Saudi Arabia has turned on neighbor Qatar; Australia, wondering about US dependability, works with China; Russia supported a social media campaign that influenced the US presidential election; and in the United...

Quartz: US Sets Bad Example on Inequality

Eshe Nelson December 15, 2017
Despite ample warnings, including the book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” by Thomas Piketty, inequality continues to rise in most parts of the world: the top 10 percent in the United States, Sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, India and the Middle East own about half the wealth. More than 100 researchers from 70 nations monitor the dangers through the World Inequality Lab, based at the Paris...

El País: Brussels Pushes for European Version of IMF

Claudi Pérez December 6, 2017
The European Union is proposing its own version of a bailout fund modeled after the International Monetary Fund. “With initial firepower of €500 billion, which could be boosted up to a further 20%, the new European Monetary Fund will bail out member states in exchange for reforms, as the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) has done in the past with Greece, Ireland and Portugal,” reports El País....

Financial Times: China’s Balancing Act on Debt Is Becoming Trickier

November 17, 2017
Some factories in China are paying workers to stay home, part of a plan to ease the nation’s serious debt levels – which has grown nearly fivefold over the past decade to $29 trillion today. “The debt, equivalent to 260 per cent of gross domestic product, has brought with it dramatic declines in credit efficiency,” explains the Financial Times. “The International Monetary Fund points out that in...