BRUSSELS – It is an old and never-ending contest. On one side are the moral-hazard scolds, claiming that one of the major responsibilities c…

NEW YORK – Why add to something that is not supposed to exist?The something in question is the Unites States’ prison in Guantánamo Bay, for …

CAMBRIDGE – Long-term interest rates are now unsustainably low, implying bubbles in the prices of bonds and other securities. When interest …

BEIJING – The debate is over. After six years of weighing the options, China is now firmly committed to implementing a new growth strategy. …

BERKELEY – US President Barack Obama has called for additional revenue as part of a balanced plan to reduce future budget deficits. But he i…

NEW YORK – The surest bet on the future of energy is the need for low-carbon energy supplies. Around 80% of the world’s primary energy today…

BERKELEY – In the 12 years of the Great Depression – between the stock-market crash of 1929 and America’s mobilization for World War II – pr…

NEW DELHI – One of the more remarkable (though largely unremarked) developments in recent Indian politics has been the startling shift in th…

PHUKET – Marissa Mayer, the new CEO of Yahoo!, recently created a fuss by issuing an edict that forbids anyone at the company to work from h…

NEW DELHI – Public discourse is rarely nuanced. The public’s attention span is short, and subtleties tend to confuse. Better to take a clear…

BEIJING – Despite fluctuations, China’s overall economic growth has been stable over the last three decades, owing not only to the economy’s…

ABU DHABI – In the 1949 British film The Third Man, the character Harry Lime observes that, during the Borgia family’s rule in Renaissance I…

BERLIN – Berlin’s Tegel Airport, which still greets most of the passengers arriving in the capital of Europe’s leading economic power, is ou…

PHILADELPHIA – For a parent, there is perhaps no greater fear than the prospect of losing a child to illness or accident. And it is childhoo…

MELBOURNE – There is nothing like exposure to smart and idealistic young people to make jaded and world-weary policymakers and commentators …

PRINCETON – Europe can choose its own musical accompaniment to its latest crisis. In Berlin, 50 Cent’s “All Things Fall Apart” has just had …

STANFORD – Around the world, raging debates about whether, when, how, and how much to reduce large budget deficits and high levels of sovere…

BRUSSELS – Europe is on the verge of making a historic mistake, one that would compound the growing sense of European decay and collapse. Th…

MADRID – Once again, Europe has peered into the abyss. But the tentative agreement between Cyprus and the troika (the European Commission, t…

MADRID – “How difficult it is to die!” Francisco Franco is reputed to have exclaimed on his deathbed. Death, it seems, is always particularl…

WASHINGTON, DC – When economists discuss “fiscal adjustment,” they typically frame it as an abstract and complex goal. But the issue is actu…

ANKARA – After nearly three years of political tension, diplomatic maneuvering, and back-channel negotiations, Israel has formally apologize…

WASHINGTON, DC – In 2009, US President Barack Obama pledged to seek a world without nuclear weapons. But, while he delivered on his promise …

PRINCETON – Imagine a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine in which Palestinians would have the right of return; Israelis could settle…

NEW DELHI – There is something about the number five in Sino-Indian relations. Asia’s two giants have long defined their relationship in ter…