Can China Save Its Economic Miracle?

To improve medium-term growth, China must heed the lessons of its own history and focus on removing barriers to market entry and entrepreneurship. An economy’s growth rate comes from a combination of an increase in the average size of existing firms (intensive-margin growth) and an increase in the number of firms (extensive-margin growth). A study of the Chinese manufacturing sector that I co-authored with Xiaobo Zhang suggests that during the last few decades, extensive-margin growth accounted for about 70 percent of overall GDP expansion.
5 January 2023

Eating the Last Cannibal

For political figures like Trump and Putin, courage is redefined as a willingness to break the state’s laws if the state’s own interests – or their own – demand it. The implication is that civilisation endures only if there are brave patriots who will do the dirty work. This is a decidedly right-wing form of “heroism.” It is easy to act nobly on behalf of one’s country – short of sacrificing one’s life for it – but only the strong of heart can bring themselves to commit crimes for it.
2 January 2023

Bethlehem: When Will the Peace of Christmas Come Home?

The fact that a Palestinian Christian like me, or a Christian living in a nearby Arab country, cannot simply come to Bethlehem for Christmas should be unacceptable to everyone
24 December 2022

Climate change is making us sick

The people most affected by these climate-related health issues have often done the least to create them
24 December 2022

India's looming demographic divide

India’s population is expected to grow over the next four decades to approximately 1.7 billion, before plunging to 1.1 billion by 2100.
17 December 2022

All Pain and No Gain from Higher Interest Rates

In the name of taming inflation, central banks have set themselves on a path to cause a recession.
12 December 2022

America's Silent Progressive Majority

It is not left-wing extremism to note that the American economy has not been serving most Americans
10 December 2022

China after zero-Covid

The post-Covid era has arrived in China. What now?
8 December 2022

The Napoleons of Big Tech

Business history is full of executives going rogue with corporate funds.
5 December 2022

Elon Musk's Not-so-Hidden Agenda

Why would the world’s richest man want to undermine the legitimacy of democracy itself?
4 December 2022

The climate crisis is also a health crisis

The world’s poorest countries remain the most vulnerable to climate change.
3 December 2022

Global cooperation is not necessary to fight climate change

A global subsidy war could spur technological innovation, potentially driving down the price of renewables.
29 November 2022

Global health is the best investment we can make

The pandemic highlighted significant gaps in our global health systems.
26 November 2022

Ethics on the Rocks

Ethical progress produces a beneficial form of dogmatism.
24 November 2022

Peak Atlantic Unity?

European leaders are breathing a huge sigh of relief following the Republicans’ failure to achieve a 'red wave' in the US midterm elections.
18 November 2022

What Makes a Fascist?

While we cannot conflate today's far right and fascism, we must watch closely how the former develops.
10 November 2022

The Indian Diaspora Has Arrived

Rishi Sunak’s rise points to a broader, longer-term phenomenon: the growing prominence of the Indian diaspora across the Western world.
9 November 2022

The case for structural financial deglobalisation

The US Federal Reserve’s aggressive monetary-tightening campaign has squeezed economies worldwide, particularly in the developing world.
6 November 2022

Ruling regime's legitimacy under question in Iran?

Iran's protests have shined a new light on the seemingly limitless powers of its Supreme Leader
22 October 2022

Wars aren’t won with peacetime economies

Politically, the G7 and like-minded countries around the world have adopted a war footing to stop Russian aggression.
20 October 2022