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3321. Does Barack Obama Support Socialized Medicine?

Author:
Michael F. Cannon
Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (IL) has proposed an ambitious plan to restructure America's health care sector. Rather than engage in a detailed critique of Obama's health care plan, many critics prefer to label it "socialized medicine." Is that a fair description of the Obama plan and similar plans? Over the past year, prominent media outlets and respectable think tanks have investigated that question and come to a unanimous answer: no.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Health, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States

3322. Letter from the Editor: Transatlantic Solidarity Starts at Home

Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
European Affairs
Institution:
The European Institute
Abstract:
America's power is waning, at least temporarily. Under the next President, the country will have a diminished ability to shape a stable international order and maintain global prosperity. Will that trend create an opening for Europe to emerge with a larger global presence? Or is it liable to cause losses all around?
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
America and Europe

3323. The Real Questions About Sovereign Wealth Funds: A Roundtable Discussion

Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
European Affairs
Institution:
The European Institute
Abstract:
Already the buzz this year in financial circles, sovereign wealth funds have been initially welcomed in the United States (and to a lesser degree in Europe) as white knights whose capital investments have helped rescue troubled financial institutions and other companies stricken by the credit-market crisis. But these funds, even as they are currently sought after by financially-bleeding companies, could easily become controversial with public opinion and regulators in the United States and European countries because of their potential political dimensions. The very fact of their emergence is a symptom of profound new shifts in the global financial order. To head off potential jingoist reactions against the proposed buy-ins by these new investors, there is a need to probe a set of questions about how these funds work and about whether rules can be reached – by mutual agreement – to ensure that the funds prove compatible with global capital movements.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

3324. A Flat Playing Field Can Spread Western Innovation

Author:
Michael C. Maibach
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
European Affairs
Institution:
The European Institute
Abstract:
The world has modernized thanks to waves of Western inventions, and the next wave must be a regulatory revolution to ensure that discoveries spread horizontally as far and fast as possible. It is an agenda for the newly formed Transatlantic Economic Council.
Topic:
Economics, Government, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and America

3325. Planet of Slums

Author:
Ron Kassimir
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Planet of Slums is relentless. Mike Davis, the prolific author and social critic, piles on evidence in the service of a passionate, despairing, and at times furious analysis of the economic, social, and environmental state of cities in the global South. Davis might have just as readily titled his book The World Is a Ghetto, after the 1972 hit by the band War. But a key goal of the book is to show how much things have changed since that time, almost all for the worse. If the book tends to oversimplify enormously complex and diverse urban worlds, it has an undeniable virtue at its core. Whereas the War tune's chorus was ''don't you know / that it's true / that for me and for you / the world is a ghetto,'' Davis never stops asking who the ''me and you'' are. The growth and transformation of slums from Cairo to Manila, from Lagos to Lima, are both a symbol and a cause of a growing gap in life chances (socioeconomic and existential) between rich and poor—local, national, and global in scale.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, and War

3326. Development as a Human Right: Legal, Political, and Economic Dimensions

Author:
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
In the foreword to this volume, a Nobel Symposium Book from the Harvard School of Public Health, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour writes: There is growing support for the idea that global poverty is an affront to human rights, and that the realization of human rights for a life of freedom and dignity is inescapably a central purpose of development. Yet the right to development remains a politically divisive issue. The concept has its roots in the political economy of the 1970 s and 1980 s, when developing countries mobilized for a New International Economic Order in which countries of the North would actively facilitate growth and development in the South through aid, trade, and investment. While the right to development is still championed by developing countries and resisted by donor countries, it (and the broader concept of a human rights-based approach to development) is also controversial among theorists and practitioners in both the human rights and the development fields. Some human rights legal scholars challenge its usefulness, arguing that it brings together rights that already exist. In the development community, little attention has been paid to the right to development per se, and economists who dominate the mainstream of development theory and practice are somewhat puzzled by the idea that human rights in general should be a concern in development at all. They often question the relevance of human rights discourse on development and see it as idealistic and utopian, since it insists on the equal value of all rights. Given that economic policymaking is about setting priorities and considering trade-offs, ''rights talk'' seems to be an obstacle rather than an aid to the task of formulating policies and strategies.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Human Rights, and United Nations

3327. The Sociology of International Economic Law: Sociological Analysis of the Regulation of Regional Agreements in the World Trading System

Author:
Moshe Hirsch
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
International economic law (IEL) is influenced by diverse theoretical approaches. This article emphasizes that international economic activity is a social phenomenon and international trade should also be conceived as a specific type of social interaction. The scarcity of sociological analysis in contemporary IEL literature does not diminish the influence of social factors that are active in the under-explored layer of the international economic arena. Sociological analysis may recast well-known dilemmas in a different manner and generate insights regarding better legal mechanisms for coping with modern challenges faced by IEL. These properties of sociological analysis are illustrated in this article, which addresses one of the most challenging dilemmas in current IEL literature: the relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and regional trade agreements (RTAs). The underlying argument of this article is that the economic dimension of RTAs is overlaid with a sociological dimension. Consequently, the global/regional debate is analysed with new conceptual tools: sociological theories, mainly the structural-functional perspective, the symbolic-interactionist approach, and the social conflict perspective. The core sociological theories lead to different conceptions of IEL and different interpretations of existing WTO legal provisions regarding RTAs. This article argues that while each of the above sociological approaches underscores certain significant aspects of the global/regional debate, the symbolic-interactionist perspective should generally serve as a point of departure for law- and policy-making in this sphere. This approach suggests that the relevant WTO legal rules should be interpreted in a liberal manner.
Topic:
Economics, International Law, and World Trade Organization

3328. Measuring the Cost of Aid Volatility

Author:
Homi Kharas
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Flows of official development assistance (ODA) to recipient countries have been highly volatile and this reduces their value. At the macro level, empirical evidence suggests that volatile ODA can negatively impact growth through several channels. At the micro level, volatility can affect fiscal planning and the level and composition of investment. This working paper develops a simple financial metric that policy makers can use to estimate (and reduce) the cost of aid volatility. Unlike other estimates, our measure does not depend on parameter estimates from cross-country regressions, nor on country-specific model simulations.
Topic:
Economics and Humanitarian Aid

3329. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank: It's Time to Separate the Conjoined Twins

Author:
Lex Rieffel
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The IMF and the World Bank were created in 1944 to be at the center of the international financial system, but they have not adapted well to the far- reaching changes in the global economy over the past twenty years. Their legitimacy has been called into question due to their antiquated governance structures, and as a consequence they are losing relevance and effectiveness.
Topic:
Economics, International Organization, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and International Monetary Fund

3330. Can America Still Lead in the Global Economy?

Author:
Lael Brainard and David Lipton
Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
From the vantage point of 2008, some of the most memorable initiatives of U.S. international economic leadership—the Paris and Louvre Accords, the support for Poland and Russia after the fall of communism, the Uruguay Round, and the Mexican Financing Loan—seem like quaint reminders of a simpler time. In the coming years, the exercise of international economic leadership will surely prove more complex than in the past. The very success of the American vision of a global spread of vibrant and competitive markets has created a huge, rapidly integrating private economy of trade and finance much less amenable to guidance, let alone control, by governments. Unlike in diplomacy and defense, where non state actors are growing in importance but still a side show, in inter- national economics, households, corporations, labor unions, and non-profits are now the dominant players in most parts of the world. While they respond to national laws and policies, their interests are varied and their operations often span borders.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Paris, Poland, Uruguay, and Mexico