In the early twenty-first century the Native American populations of the United States continued to live with the legacy of colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and cultural destruction. Although other minority groups had increasingly been able to make their voices heard, Native Americans struggled to bring attention to the continuing consequences of this history. Native Americans were the most economically challenged group in the United States and were disproportionately victims of police violence and mass incarceration. This note provides background for these challenges.
The Great Depression was, by far, the worst economic contraction of the twentieth century, and some of the most important ideas about both fiscal and monetary policy in the second half of the century were developed in response to it. The economic collapse, which started with a sudden stock market crash in the United States, had quickly assumed worldwide proportions. A combination of deflation, massive unemployment, dramatic declines in industrial production, numerous banking panics, and catastrophic increases in poverty and homelessness led many to doubt the system of capitalism itself. Old remedies and new cures had been applied with varying degrees of success in different countries, but ongoing diatribes over World War I reparations and debts obstructed any form of meaningful cooperation in the international arena. Nations turned inward, and while world trade collapsed, more than one sought salvation at the extremes of the political spectrum.
The birth of "Modern Economic Growth" constituted a watershed in human history, allowing societies to escape the Malthusian impasse and permanently raise living standards. While the new growth regime had lifted billions of people out of extreme poverty over the last two centuries, the total distribution of economic gains-both between and within countries-had been far from equitable. Why had Europe diverged from the baseline of human history, and how did this success relate to the deeper history of Western imperialism, exploitation, and the mass commodification of human beings? Would modern economic growth have occurred absent the transatlantic slave trade? And could the horrors of slavery-and its continuing, long-term consequences-be remedied? Growing numbers of people around the world called for reparations for historical wrongs in 2020, and nowhere more intensely than in the United States. A reckoning with the past was at hand, and much depended on the response of newly elected President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Brazilian factions so fiercely opposed one another that for a century and a half they had contested not just state policies but the rules and structure of the state itself. Was this politics, so unlike the Western political ideal, sign of an immature or failing democracy? Or was it a viable approach to governance, given the fact of fierce and unsettled social dispute?
A young social entrepreneur must decide whether to stick with her struggling start-up--a tomato paste company based entirely in Nigeria--or go to work for an investment group that funds small businesses in Africa. Where would she have the most impact? This fictional case study by Sophus A. Reinert features expert commentary by Acha Leke and Mira Mehta.
A young social entrepreneur must decide whether to stick with her struggling start-up--a tomato paste company based entirely in Nigeria--or go to work for an investment group that funds small businesses in Africa. Where would she have the most impact? This fictional case study by Sophus A. Reinert features expert commentary by Acha Leke and Mira Mehta.
A young social entrepreneur must decide whether to stick with her struggling start-up--a tomato paste company based entirely in Nigeria--or go to work for an investment group that funds small businesses in Africa. Where would she have the most impact? This fictional case study by Sophus A. Reinert features expert commentary by Acha Leke and Mira Mehta.
This note provides general information about climate change and its implications for business. Included is an overview of climate change science and a number of its impacts, including rising sea levels, changing weather patterns and extreme weather, pressure on water and food, political and security risks, human health risks, and impact on wildlife and ecosystems. Next, responses to climate change are outlined, including improvements in energy efficiency, moving away from fossil fuels, changes in land use and agriculture practices, and geoengineering. The note concludes with the debate over how much should be spent to mitigate and adapt to climate change, who should pay, and the implications for the private sector.
In the fall of 2018, Serbia found itself at a crossroads yet again. Following the Balkan Wars of the 1990s and the collapse of Yugoslavia, the country had embarked on a slow and arduous process of accession to the European Union (EU). This had been further hampered by the country's tortuous relations to its breakaway province of Kosovo, one of several regions fighting for political independence at a time when the continent itself was seeking greater economic and political integration in the form of the EU. Support for the EU accession was falling in Serbia, however, also in light of the increasing presence in the country of Russian and Chinese interests and investments. But would the country eventually have to pick a side amidst the rapidly changing geopolitics of the early twenty-first century?