In The News

Don’t Cry For Me, Motown

Nayan Chanda August 19, 2013
Detroit was a US auto manufacturing center a few decades ago, but now its population of 700,000, down from 2 million, cannot afford to pay off $18 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities. The city has filed for bankruptcy. “Outsourcing, automation and suburbanisation have drained its population” and “the bankruptcy of what used to be the country’s fourth-largest city does indeed signal the...

The Asian Overhang

Nayan Chanda August 8, 2013
Investors in search of high returns move quickly in selecting economic winners and losers – and they have become wary about the potential for growth in emerging markets. The International Monetary Fund has pared early projections of global growth. “China’s failure to come to grips with its debt overhang and India’s fatal attraction to populist economic policies could combine to drag the world...

The School in the Web

Nayan Chanda July 15, 2013
The curious with internet access are no longer limited to ideas fed to them within the constraints of communities or jobs with universities increasingly open free online classes to global audiences. Hundreds of thousands of students follow lectures not for a degree or credential, but for a love of learning. Yet as some course developers look to online courses for a new education model, some...

Time for India to Clean Up Its Act

Nayan Chanda July 8, 2013
Nations all over the world are keen to explore and drill for oil and gas in a melting Arctic– even though research roundly blames human reliance on fossil fuels for a rapidly warming climate. China, Japan, India, Korea and Singapore are among 12 permanent observer states on the Arctic Council, added just five days after researchers reported the level of carbon dioxide had climbed past 400 ppm for...

Chinese Checkers

Nayan Chanda June 24, 2013
China, with double-digit growth in recent years, could be on track to becoming the world’s largest economy. But rising wages, possible real estate bubble and tight credit may hamper growth. The nation’s big customers, the US and the EU, have their own debt issues, and the domestic market cannot match their spending. Foreign and even Chinese investors worry about an authoritarian system that can...

Lessons From Dhaka

Nayan Chanda June 10, 2013
More than 1100 workers lost their lives in a Dhaka building collapse, and the target for blame is widespread, suggests Nayan Chanda, YaleGlobal’s editor, in his column for Businessworld. The apparel industry has long depended on supply chains, with large corporations seeking out low-cost materials and low-wage workers – at every link, managers compete, applying pressures to reduce costs and...

Europe’s Double Jeopardy

Nayan Chanda May 24, 2013
Reliance on austerity measures could still push Europe into recession. But political leaders are responding to criticism from the International Monetary Fund and others – that austerity failed to deliver economic relief. An end to belt-tightening could improve consumer demand, increasing hiring and government revenues, but an aging population and large numbers of unemployed youth pose challenges...