One of the things I am proudest of having done in Washington was having the idea as chief economist of the World Bank that the bank should devote its annual World Development Report to making the case for improving both the quantity and quality of global health investment. The 1993 report, produced by a team led by Dean Jamison, proved more influential than I could have hoped, not least because it drew Bill Gates into the global health arena.

Lawrence Summers, the Harvard University professor and former Obama administration economic adviser, hasn’t been shy of late urging the Federal Reserve to refrain from raising short-term interest rates at its policy meeting this week. In a series of opinion columns and blog posts, Mr. Summers has argued that the time isn’t ripe for a move and that markets aren’t prepared.

Two weeks ago, I argued that a Federal Reserve decision to raise rates in September would be a serious mistake. As I wrote my column, the market was assigning a 50 percent chance to a rate hike. The current chance is 34 percent. Having followed the debate among economists, Fed governors andbank presidents, I believe the case against a rate increase has become somewhat more compelling than it looked even two weeks ago.

Will the Federal Reserve’s September meeting see US interest rates go up for the first time since 2006? Officials have held out the prospect that it might, and have suggested that — barring major unforeseen developments — rates will probably be increased by the end of the year. Conditions could change, and the Fed has been careful to avoid outright commitments. But a reasonable assessment of current conditions suggest that raising rates in the near future would be a serious error that would threaten all three of the Fed’s major objectives — price stability, full employment and financial stability.

There are not many wholly new areas to open up in economic policy. But in recent months there has been a wave of innovative proposals directed at improving economic performance in general, and middle-class incomes in particular — not through government actions but through mandates or incentives to change business decision-making. The goal is for companies and shareholders to operate with longer horizons and to more generously share the fruits of their corporate success with their workers, customers and other stakeholders.

There are strong grounds for interest in such approaches. After the crises of recent years, the case for relying on speculative markets to drive the real economy — to whatever extent it had validity — is surely attenuated. Instances where successful companies with strong management teams and records of investment have been forced to curtail investment plans are a cause of concern. And we would all like to see middle-class incomes do a better job of keeping up with productivity than they have in recent years.

Against a backdrop of slow and diminishing growth forecasts, recent months and especially recent weeks have seen an extraordinary level of financial drama. While not rising to the level of systemic global crisis of 2008, or the 1997 Asia-Russia-Brazil Long-Term Capital Management period of great uncertainty, markets everywhere seem to be thwarting political aspirations.

Tomorrow Greece votes. No one can know the outcome yet. Indeed, my bet is that a third of the voters are not yet sure how they will vote. If polls could not get the British election right, I doubt that they can get this one right. Anything can happen, and it would not surprise me if the vote is a landslide, one way or the other.

When, as now appears likely, Greece financially separates from Europe, it will at one level be no one’s fault. The Greek leaders will rightly explain that having imposed more austerity on themselves than any industrial country has suffered since the Depression, they could not do more without light at the end of tunnel in the form of a clear commitment to debt relief. European leaders will rightly explain that they adjusted their positions repeatedly to accommodate the Greeks. They will stress that their publics would not permit Greece to play by different rules than the rest of Europe. And the International Monetary Fund will rightly explain that it would have blessed any plan agreed to by Greece and Europe that added up.

The Senate’s rejection of President Wo odrow Wilson’s commitment of the United States to the League of Nations was the greatest setback to U.S. global leadership of the last century. While not remotely as consequential, the votes in the House last week that, unless revisited, would doom the Trans-Pacific Partnership send the same kind of negative signal regarding the willingness of the United States to take responsibility for the global system at a critical time.

The repudiation of the TPP would neuter the U.S. presidency for the next 19 months. It would reinforce global concerns that the vicissitudes of domestic politics are increasingly rendering the United States a less reliable ally. Coming on top of the American failure to either stop or join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, it would signal a lack of U.S. commitment to Asia at a time when China is flexing its muscles. It would leave the grand strategy of rebalancing U.S. foreign policy toward Asia with no meaningful nonmilitary component. And it would strengthen the hands of companies overseas at the expense of U.S. firms. Ultimately, having a world in which U.S. companies systematically lose ground to foreign rivals would not work out to the advantage of American workers.

Both the House and Senate have now delivered majorities for the trade promotion authority necessary to complete the TPP. The problem is with the complementary trade assistance measures that most Republicans do not support and that Democrats are opposing in order to bring down the TPP. It is to be fervently hoped that a way through will be found to avoid a catastrophe for U.S. economic leadership. Perhaps success can be achieved if the TPP’s advocates can acknowledge that rather than being a model for future trade agreements, this debate should lead to careful reflection on the role of trade agreements in America’s international economic strategy.

Ukraine, the international community and its creditors will soon have to reach a conclusion about how to handle the country’s debt. The case for debt reduction is as strong as any that I have encountered over the past quarter century. How the issue is resolved will say much about the extent of international commitment to Ukraine and to resisting Russian aggression. Failure to achieve debt reduction would also confirm the view of those who believe that private financial interests disproportionately influence public policy.