Where are the Development Political Scientists?
Economists dominate the development field, but politics is more important to promoting it. This contradiction explains why the policies often recommended by international institutions (such as the World Bank) do not sufficiently take into account the local political, social, and institutional context. The problem is echoed in other fields, with some blaming the inability of [...]
China’s response to the downgrade of America’s credit rating should be to diversify and not just criticize
A lot has been said by the major western news sources (WSJ, Bloomberg, FT, NY Times) about China’s reaction to the downgrade of the U.S. creditworthiness. Although there has been no official comment from Beijing since the downgrade, the Xinhua news agency (the official mouth-piece and the usual government ‘attack dog’ for criticizing the U.S.) [...]
Creating a ‘third world’ within EU periphery
From January 2010 until mid-2011, there has been a great deal of analysis and commentary from different ideological perspectives devoted to the structural weakness of the EU owing to the debtor (periphery) nations that are dragging down the stronger northern countries of the eurozone. This is not only because of how the EU handled the [...]
China’s housing market – an inflationary bubble, or a sustainable boom?
Once again, inflation increased in China last month by more than economists expected, as rising commodity costs and inflows of capital threaten to overheat economies across Asia. Chinas consumer prices rose 5.4% from a year earlier, the fastest pace since 2008, according to statistical reports coming out of China. Four interest-rate increases in China since [...]
Review of Study – China’s growing influence in international organizations
A new study by The Economic Strategy Institute (ESI), commissioned by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, called “The Evolving Role of China in International Institutions”, takes a thorough look into China’s growing influence in international organizations. The report contains two truisms, ten trends, seven recommendations, and a number of case studies on China’s [...]
