In his quest to make his country the undisputed leader of the global economy, China’s President Xi Jinping can learn a lot from his next-door neighbor, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Not about what to do, but about what not to do. Except Xi just doesn’t seem to get it. Putin has been putting on a cram course of a clinic that you would think would be helping his nominally still-communist ne...

In 1936, human rights advocates pushed for a boycott of the “Nazi Olympics,” two years after Adolf Hitler seized power and began persecuting Jews. Some critics claimed the move was hypocritical given the ongoing discrimination against Black people in the United States. In the end, however, the games went on, with Black US track star Jesse Owens winning four gold medals. Thus, the 1936 games deal...

The 20th anniversary of China’s accession to the World Trade Organization on Dec. 11 has once again highlighted long-standing debates about how well China has lived up to its WTO obligations, and whether any deviation from its commitments boosts or slows its economic growth. This discussion affects many countries’ views on whether the current global trading system should be built up or pulled dow...

Approximately 13 percent of low-wage jobs in Germany would not be viable if workers understood just how good their outside options truly are. That is the conclusion of a recent paper by Benjamin Schoefer, my colleague here at the University of California, Berkeley, and his co-authors, Simon Jager, Christopher Roth and Nina Roussille. “When comparing workers’ subjective outside options against ob...

History repeats itself -- and it oftentimes is not kind. I have been reminded of this in the closing weeks of the past several years. As Korea approached the 21st century, hearts filled with hope and eyes rejoiced at sights unseen before. The history of an undivided Korean Peninsula seemed likely to be repeated. But a Cold War freeze rose again. On Nov. 18, 1998, a cruise ship left Donghae Port ...

There are times when a literary work or a film is powerful enough to change a person’s life or even an entire social system by altering our consciousness. It means that literature and film can play an important role in both human lives and social progress. Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” is a good example. Lee’s powerful novel and its superb movie version, starring Gregory Peck, have change...

After working on it for several months, the House of Representatives recently passed the Build Back Better Act. It’s status in the Senate is uncertain, but if enacted, it’s expected to increase government spending by $1.75 trillion over 10 years. With the legislation’s tax increases and tougher IRS enforcement, the Congressional Budget Office estimates a smaller, $250 billion increase in the def...

At last month’s COP26 climate summit, hundreds of financial institutions declared that they would put trillions of dollars to work to finance solutions to climate change. Yet a major barrier stands in the way: The world’s financial system actually impedes the flow of finance to developing countries, creating a financial death trap for many. Economic development depends on investments in three ma...

Virtually every unofficial US Supreme Court watcher has reported feeling a chill wind of political reality and pending change as it whipped through the court’s imposing chamber this past Wednesday -- and then whooshed through the Great News Funnel into the homes of all Americans. A chill wind of change: You could hear it in the questions the justices asked in the oral argument of a case challeng...