In The News

Crunchtime for Global Tax-Avoidance Push

Paul Hannon September 29, 2015
Multinational corporations earn revenues in wealthy markets but file income reports from off-shore financial hubs. The Organization of Economic Development and Cooperation is working with representatives of near 50 countries on a new set of rules to prevent multinational corporations from dodging tax payments. “If the rules work as planned, they will help ensure big companies pay tax on profits...

The Insecurity Underpinning Xi Jinping’s Repression

Jerome A. Cohen September 28, 2015
China is the world’s second largest economy and poised to surpass the United States as the largest. Economic progress brings change, and in an opinion essay for the Washington Post, law professor Jerome Cohen describes Xi Jinping as a leader who is insecure about domestic unrest whether over a financial downturn, corruption, the lack of good jobs and opportunity, or pollution and environmental...

Hazing Rituals

September 27, 2015
Palm oil farmers in Malaysia and Indonesia continue to set fires to clear land, with some getting out of control. A blanket of smog creeps over the region, drifting into Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore, a source of investment funds for the plantations, has passed laws allowing complaints about the foreign fires to be considered in its courts. “ASEAN was designed precisely to foster the kind of...

VW's Emissions Cheating Found by Curious Clean-Air Group

Jeff Plungis and Dana Hull September 25, 2015
A university lab in West Virginia, a state known for coal-mining and rejecting clean-air regulations, conducted exhaust tests that have rattled Volkswagen and a marketing strategy on “clean” diesel. Volkswagen is based in Germany, a country that promotes policies to protect the environment and stem climate change. The International Council on Clean Transportation had wanted to show European...

Time to Dump the Fear

Nayan Chanda September 25, 2015
Governments and business owners should contain alarm over devaluation of the Chinese renminbi and low-cost goods. “Such is the fear of China’s export juggernaut that the news of the yuan’s devaluation brings about a kneejerk reaction, not only in India but all over the world,” writes Nayan Chanda, YaleGlobal’s founding editor and now consulting editor, in his column for Businessworld. “But not...

Is ASEAN Losing Its Way?

Amitav Acharya September 24, 2015
The charter for the Association of Southeast Asia Nations emphasizes economic growth and principles that support cooperation, renunciation of the use of force, mutual respect for members, and rejection of external interference or coercion. ASEAN’s track record for peaceful resolution of disputes through consensus may be at risk as unity erodes, warns author and researcher Amitav Acharya. Members...

We Should Have Seen This Refugee Crisis Coming

Rana Novack September 23, 2015
Conflict combined with high rates of fertility, poverty, failed governance and lack of opportunity is behind the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Africa. The world’s developed economies should have prepared, argues Rana Novack in an opinion essay for Wired. “Predictive analytics provides the ability to extract meaningful information from vast amounts of data allowing us to identify patterns...