The American Assembly on "Reweaving the Social Tapestry: Public Policies for American Families" convened on September 21-24, 2000 in Kansas City, Missouri. Participants concluded that families can play a vital role in bringing America to greater unity. Yet even the definition of "family" can be a source of great division. The group's recommendations encouraged business and government initiatives designed to support this core societal structure.
This project sought to refocus the attention of North and Latin America and the Caribbean towards the idea of common hemispheric objectives. The first two phases dealt with U.S. interests in the region and the final two phases incorporated Latin American and Caribbean participants to discuss issues of democratization and economic integration.
In recent years American's political system has not performed as well as its economic system. While the strong economy of the past decade should provide policy makers with the opportunity to move forward on long-term social and economic goals, they seem stuck in the mindset of short-term fixes and shrill oratory common to leaner times. Focusing on three issues--productivity growth, income inequality and the aging of the baby-boom generation--this concise volume describes a "radically moderate" agenda that captures or political moment. The distinguished authors begin by acknowledging the difficult tradeoffs required for revamping programs for the aged and poor while keeping the economy growing. They then untangle the complexities of the policy debate and propose sensible ways to move American into the new century.
Drawing on the 2001 Uniting America Assembly on racial equality, this report argues that racial equality is contingent on wider progress in reforming criminal justice and increasing economic opportunity for all Americans.
Raise any number of public issues—health care, education, welfare—and religious beliefs inevitably shape Americans' viewpoints. On certain topics the introduction of religion can be explosive. This book discusses how we can and why we should hear religious voices in the public square.
This 2001 report from the Uniting America series, "Collaborating to Make Democracy Work," emphasized the role of collaboration between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors in addressing problems of accountability and good governance. Participants called for a reinvigoration, in particular, of the role of business leaders as partners in addressing challenges at the community level
Economic recovery in the region requires stable currencies and open markets. The best way to establish these two basic conditions quickly is for the countries concerned to immediately link their currencies to the euro via a currency board and join the customs union of the EU. The EU should support this radical approach financially in two ways: a) through compensation for lost tariff revenues (conditional on clean and efficient border controls), and, b) emergency loans to acquire the necessary backing for the currency board. The currency boards should graduate to full euroisation in 2002. The total cost for the EU would be modest: around 2 billion euro p.a. if all countries participate. A market-led approach that pays local hosts to house refugees would ensure that the expenditure on refugees benefits the local economies.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Migration
A model of a portfolio allocation between mature and emerging markets is simulated with heterogeneous expectations, imitation, and experimentation. Solutions produce periodic crises. The predictions of the model are compared to a representative-agent, rational expectations model with multiple equilibria.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Martin Ross, Robert Shackleton, Peter Wilcoxen, and Warwick J. McKibbin
Publication Date:
12-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
We use an econometrically estimated multi-region, multi-sector general equilibrium model of the world economy to examine the effects of the tradable emissions permit system proposed in the 1997 Kyoto protocol, under various assumptions about that extent of international permit trading. We focus, in particular, on the effects of the system on international trade and capital flows. Our results suggest that consideration of these flows significantly affects estimates of the domestic effects of the emissions mitigation policy, compared with analyses that ignore international capital flows.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, and International Trade and Finance
The economies of South East Asia and Korea have been shaken by a financial and economic crisis that has enveloped the region since mid 1997. There are competing explanations for the cause of the crisis however most commentators would agree that a major shock that impacted on the countries has been a dramatic increase in the perceived risks of investing in these economies. This paper explores the impact of a re-evaluation of the risk in the Asian economies focussing on the differential real consequences of a temporary versus more permanent rise in risk. It contributes to our understanding of the possible consequences of the Asia crisis by applying a global simulation model that captures both the flow of goods as well as international capital flows between countries. The real impacts on the Asian economies of a rise in risk perceptions in the model are large and consistent with observed adjustment. However the spillovers to the rest of the world are relatively small because the loss in export demand that accompanies the crisis in Asia is offset by a fall in long term interest rates as capital flows out of Asia into the non-Asian OECD economies. Thus strong domestic demand in economies such as the US induced by the general equilibrium effects of the reallocation of financial capital can more than offset the consequences of lower export growth. The analysis also highlights the impacts on global trade balances reflecting the movements of global capital and points to both potential problems and lesson for policymakers over the coming years.