Monthly Archives: October 2010

“But this time the downturn was not caused by higher interest rates, and reducing those rates did not produce a strong rebound. This recession was caused by a mispricing of risk, leading to excessive leverage and high prices for a … Continue reading →

“[T]he world’s energy problems are often framed in the wrong terms, he suggested. It’s not that we’re running out of energy sources, or running out of the money to pay for them. Rather, the real problems lie in “the economic, … Continue reading →

“With the midterm congressional elections looming next week, Volcker and the other panelists also defended the financial-overhaul Congress passed earlier this year. They said new rules make it less likely financial institutions will get to the point of failure, but … Continue reading →

“New path-breaking technologies will be needed to address climate change, and public support for private-sector or public-sector R&D will be crucial to meet this need. But, at the same time, to address the climate-change market failure itself (that is, the … Continue reading →

“Addressing governance and corruption in a failed state like Afghanistan would be enormously challenging if they were ‘just’ issues of development, but the ‘development’ of Afghanistan, of course, takes place in the midst of a fierce civil war and intense … Continue reading →

“Sudan and the rest of the modern Arab world continue to be the world’s only collectively and chronically non-democratic region in large part because of the flawed configuration of statehood. In various ways, we are still dealing with the consequences … Continue reading →

“As a young non-smoking reporter, I was struck by the omnipresent smoking in the late ’70s by those who should have known better. It was a sign of the times that at hearings on Capitol Hill for the National Cancer … Continue reading →

“[Taliban sympathizers] revived themselves slowly after 2003–04, when they realized that neither was Pakistan pursuing them with any special zeal, nor was Afghanistan a lost cause, given that the United States was diverting its resources and energies toward Iraq. The … Continue reading →

Joseph S. Nye on global power shifts Exchange Morning Post October 27 Interview with: Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University distinguished service professor and a member of the Belfer Center’s board of directors Topic: The implications of international power shifts Historian … Continue reading →

“[W]here should countries look now, in 2010, for models of economic success to emulate? Perhaps they should look to the periphery of the world economy. Many small countries have experimented with policies and institutions that could usefully be adopted by … Continue reading →