Economics & Global Affairs

29 Items

A History of the Energy We Have Consumed

Rahm Emanuael/Wikimedia Commons

Analysis & Opinions - The New York Times

A History of the Energy We Have Consumed

| June 18, 2018

Early in Richard Rhodes’s new book, “Energy: A Human History,” we hear of a prominent citizen using colorful language to lament the state of his polluted city and urge his government to shut down industry or move it elsewhere: “If there be a resemblance of hell upon earth, it is in this volcano [on] a foggy day.” Though this could easily apply to modern-day Beijing, the speaker here is John Evelyn, a wealthy horticulturalist and one of the founders of the scientific Royal Society of London — and he’s complaining about London in 1659.

The Anderson Memorial Bridge in 2009, three years before rehabilitation began.

Flickr

Analysis & Opinions - The Boston Globe

A lesson on infrastructure from the Anderson Bridge fiasco

| May 25, 2016

SOMETIMES SMALL stories capture large truths. So it is with the fiasco that is the repair of the Anderson Memorial Bridge, connecting Boston and Harvard Square. Rehabilitation of the 232-foot bridge began in 2012, at an estimated cost of about $20 million; four years later, there is no end date in sight and the cost of the project is mushrooming, to $26.5 million at last count.

This glacial pace of implementation does not reflect the intrinsic technical difficulty of the task. For comparison, the Anderson Bridge itself was originally completed in just 11 months in 1912. General George Patton constructed nearly 40 times as much bridging in six months as American soldiers crossed the Rhine to win World War II. And even modern-day examples abound; for instance, in 2011, 14 bridges in Medford were fixed in just 10 weekends. In contrast, the lapses exposed by the Anderson Bridge project hold key lessons for America’s broader inability to solve its infrastructure problems.

3D printing is among technologies like personalized medicine and big data that could make North America the next great market.

Jonathan Juursema

Analysis & Opinions - CNN

An agenda of prosperity for America

| June 25, 2015

Fracking. 3D printing. Personalized medicine. Big data.

Each is a compelling technological trend. And taken together, advances in energy production, manufacturing, life sciences and IT amount to four interlocking revolutions that could make North America the next great emerging market -- as long as policymakers in this country don't impede their potential.

A 2014 meeting between President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Netherlands

US Embassy, The Hague

Analysis & Opinions

Shunning Beijing's infrastructure bank was a mistake for the US

| June 7, 2015

The Obama administration’s negative response to China’s proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was a strategic mistake. Though some Chinese moves might be destabilising and require US resistance, this initiative should have been welcomed.

The US should be careful about opposing ventures that are popular and likely to proceed. Losing fights does not build confidence. Moreover, the new bank’s purpose — to develop infrastructure in Asia — is a good goal. The world economy needs more growth. Many emerging markets are eager to boost productivity and growth by lowering costs of transportation, improving energy availability, enhancing communications networks, and distributing clean water.

The AIIB offers an opportunity to strengthen the very international economic system that the US created and sustained. The AIIB’s designated leader, Jin Liqun, a former vice-president of the Asian Development Bank, sought advice in Washington. He engaged an American lawyer who was the World Bank’s leading specialist on governance. He also reached out to another American who had served as World Bank country director for China and then worked with the US embassy.

If the AIIB was indeed threatening the American-led multilateral economic order, as its opponents seemed to believe, then its Chinese founders chose a curiously open and co-operative way of doing so.

Analysis & Opinions - The Wall Street Journal

Shale Gas Is America's Geopolitical Trump Card

| June 8, 2014

"For some time, many people at home and abroad have bought into the myth of American decline. Increasing dependence on energy imports was often cited as evidence. The shale revolution changes that dependence and demonstrates the combination of entrepreneurship, property rights and capital markets that are this country's underlying strength."

Announcement - Science, Technology, and Globalization Project, Belfer Center

Rebooting African Economies: Science and Engineering for Rapid Economic Transformation

| April 10, 2013

A lecture by Calestous Juma from 3:00–5:30 PM, April 18, 2013, at the Golf Course Hotel in Kampala, Uganda. Organized by the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA). Africa's identity has historically been associated with its vast natural resources which have shaped not only its political culture but also defined its place in the global family of nations. In recent years, however, a new picture of Africa has started to emerge. African economies are increasingly being view as rapid adopters of emerging technologies. The aim of this lecture is to identify approaches for leveraging the world's fund of scientific, technological, and engineering knowledge for rapid economic transformation.