INTERNATIONAL FINANCE
May 11, 2009
"Central banks need to avoid fighting the last war"
Op-Ed, Financial Times (London)
By Sir John Gieve, Former Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
No one favours bringing the full range of fiscal, monetary and regulatory functions back together under political control. I don't know of any major economy that manages with fewer than three institutions, and most have more. So we need a structure that gives each body a clear remit, but recognises their interdependence and ensures effective co-operation.
April 4, 2009
"China’s Recovery and Global Growth"
Op-Ed, The Korea Herald
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
China is likely to be the first of the major economies to recover from the current global downturn. Its pace of expansion may not reach the double-digit rates of recent years, but China in 2010 will probably grow more rapidly than any country in Europe or in the western hemisphere.
April 4, 2009
"Geithner's Bank Plan Is a Good Start"
Op-Ed, Wall Street Journal
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
The Treasury's primary plan is to induce private investors to buy pools of such high-risk mortgages from the banks. Individual banks will offer pools of mortgages for sale. Private investors -- including pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds -- will bid for each mortgage pool in an auction. The total purchase price for each pool will be financed by a combination of the private investor's equity, an equal amount of Treasury equity, and private loans guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
March 4, 2009
"Adults Acting Like Children"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
"Throwing large amounts of money into Palestinian reconstruction while reinforcing a political context that only perpetuates Israel's regular destruction of Palestinian institutions is wasteful folly at best, and complicity in criminality at worst."
February 3, 2009
"The case for fiscal stimulus in U.S."
Op-Ed, The Korea Herald
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
"Now, however, increased government spending and the resulting rise in the fiscal deficit are being justified as necessary to deal with the economic downturn - a sharp change from the reliance on monetary policy that was used to deal with previous recessions."
Winter 2008/09
"Linkage Diplomacy: Economic and Security Bargaining in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–23"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 3, volume 33
The Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902–23 illustrates the importance of economic side payments as a method for forming and maintaining alliances. It also shows, however, the influence of domestic factors on constraining these types of payments. Security concerns often lead a nation to offer side payments to a potential ally, but domestic political constraints, partisanship, and changing strategic needs account for the variation in the economic-security linkage.
December 22, 2008
"Arab Sovereignty and Sovereign Wealth Funds"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
"This is a moment when some Arabs should be thinking more in terms of enhancing the wealth of their sovereignty, rather than merely bemoaning the erratic performance of their sovereign wealth."
November 26, 2008
"Will euro survive the current turmoil?"
Op-Ed, The Korea Herald
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
"Even if officials do not want to abandon the euro, they may come to do so as a result of a strategy of trying to get other countries to agree to a policy change. A country that believes that monetary or fiscal policy is too tight may threaten to leave if policy is not changed."
October 2008
"Policies for Developing Country Engagement"
Discussion Paper
By Daniel S. Hall, Michael A. Levi, William A. Pizer and Takahiro Ueno
A successful global effort to mitigate global climate change will require substantial cooperation between developed and developing countries. Even as the bulk of the developed world is at some stage of enacting significant domestic regulations to meet global stabilization goals, growth in developing country emissions will easily thwart those goals unless a cooperative solution is found. We argue that there is a wide range of options that should be pursued, including domestic policy reforms in developing countries, expanded financing mechanisms to address incremental costs, and diplomatic efforts in a variety of forums, all aimed at increasing developing country mitgation efforts over time.
October 14, 2008
"Economic Realities Must Guide Africa's Constitutional Reform Efforts"
News
By Beth Maclin, Communications Assistant
"African countries need new constitutional orders to cope with modern economic challenges, Calestous Juma said at a recent lecture....A major challenge is based in the constitutions and laws left behind for the newly liberated countries. 'What was being negotiated as independence was really an exercise in constitutional continuity from the colonial period through independence,' Juma said....While there is enormous pressure on African countries to focus on economic programs, they are unable to because the governmental framework left behind did not integrate the economic role of the colonizer into the new role of president."
