Opinion Has It

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s successor, Yoshihide Suga, has pledged to uphold his signature economic-policy program, Abenomics. What did that program really achieve, and is it up to the task of supporting Japan’s economy through the COVID-19 crisis?Kathy Matsui is Vice Chair of Goldman Sachs Japan, and the author of a new book titled, "How to Nurture Female Employees."

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The US Federal Reserve has announced a major shift in its monetary-policy framework: it will no longer target an inflation rate of “around 2%” at all times. What does this mean for the US economy – and the workers who make it run?Claudia Sahm joins us to discuss. Claudia is the director of macroeconomic policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Previously, she was a section chief at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

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In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that the world will face worsening food crises, devastating wildfires, and coral reef die-offs unless it halves greenhouse-gas emissions within the next decade. Yet emissions actually rose in 2019, suggesting that growing public support for climate action may be too little, too late.Bill McKibben is a longtime climate activist, a regular contributor to the New Yorker, and the co-founder of 350.org.

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When COVID-19 hit the United States in March, colleges and universities around the country quickly shifted to remote learning. But, as a new semester begins, the pandemic is nowhere near under control, and many institutions are wondering how much longer they can survive with closed or restricted campuses.Robert Kelchen is a professor at Seton Hall University and studies higher education finance, accountability, and financial aid.

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Joe Biden has hinted that, if he wins November’s US presidential election, he will serve only one term. However unlikely that may be, his running mate, Kamala Harris, may well be the next Democratic presidential standard-bearer – even if Biden loses in November.Julia Azari is an associate professor and assistant chair in the Department of Political Science at Marquette University. She joins us from her home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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For the past week, we’ve been on VEEP watch – repeatedly checking our phones for any indication that Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for US president, was ready to announce his running mate. The plan was to discuss his choice – and the role of the vice president more broadly, in today’s episode.But as we refreshed our news feeds, our deadline for recording today’s episode came and went – and there was still no word on Biden’s VP.So that episode will have to wait until next time. In the meantime, we’re bringing back Outtakes – special episodes featuring parts of past conversation that were left on the cutting room floor. Today, that means more insights from Tufts University Professor Daniel Drezner, whom we interviewed last time about the resiliency of the nation-state, and how the COVID-19 pandemic might remake the international order.

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For decades, globalization has been narrowing the scope of national sovereignty. Does the COVID-19 pandemic – which has highlighted, yet again, the interconnected nature of today’s most pressing challenges – augur the end of the nation-state’s primacy?Daniel Drezner is a professor of international politics at Tufts University and the author of The Toddler in Chief: What Donald Trump Teaches Us about the Modern Presidency.

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Just 3% of US economics PhDs were awarded to black people in 2017 – a share that has been trending downward since the mid-1990s. This week, we examine the effects of this lack of black representation on economic policy and outcomes.Lisa Cook is an associate professor in the economics department at Michigan State University.

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For over a year, China has progressively tightened its grip on Hong Kong. Its latest move – the introduction of a new security law – may spell the death of the “one country, two systems,” and thus democracy and the rule of law in the city, but at what cost to the Communist Party of China?**Minxin Pei is Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He is a regular contributor to Project Syndicate.

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George Floyd’s fatal encounter with the police seems to have been a tipping point in the United States. It comes at time when the pandemic has caused unemployment to skyrocket and exposed the life-and-death stakes of longstanding inequalities.Khalil Gibran Muhammad, the former director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, is Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. This interview has been edited for length.

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