Since November of 2012, the nations of southeast Asia, Oceania, China and India have been negotiating the RCEP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. RCEP has been described as China’s answer to the TPP, aiming to dramatically reduce trade barriers between the countries of the region. However, on November of 2019, India has decided to leave … Continue reading "Poor RCEPtion: Why Have India’s Recent Trade Negotiations Been So Difficult?"

In July of 2018, IL&FS, a massive infrastructure shadow bank that financed and operated infrastructure in India started defaulting on loans, forcing the central government to step in and bail the company out. If one analogizes the Indian economy to a human body, the collapse of IL&FS was like a sudden pain in the chest, … Continue reading "Financial Arrhythmia: Government Mismanagement, Private Sector Malfeasance, and the Indian Economy’s Trip to the Emergency Room"

Since July of 2018, Iraq has been rocked by mass protests against the corruption and malfeasance of the country’s political elites, and the ability of the state to provide basic services such as electricity and sewage. These protests have taken a violent turn in recent weeks as security forces have killed over 250 people, in … Continue reading "Return to Sender: Lebanon, Iraq and the Political Economy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Abroad"

On October 7th 2018, Cameroon held elections for the presidency of the country. The ruling CPDM party won an overwhelming victory, but few consider them anywhere near free and fair. Paul Biya, the 87 year old leader of the country will serve as president of Cameroon for another 7 years. Paul Biya has been either … Continue reading "No Country For Old Dictators: Paul Biya, the Anglophone Crisis, and the Political Economy of Cameroon"

On October of 2019, economists Abhijeet Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer were awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The award, better known as the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Banerjee, Duflo and Kremer for their pioneering advances in understanding what works on an on the ground, micro-level in … Continue reading "Experiments For Development: Duflo, Banerjee and Kremers and the Randomista Revolution"

On August 10th 2019, 50,000 people rallied in central Moscow to demand free and fair voting for elections to the local government. The immediate cause of the mass protests was the decision of electoral authorities to disallow opposition candidates from running for office by arbitrarily excluding thousands of signatures necessary to get on the ballot. … Continue reading "No Risk, No Reward: A Political Economy of Vladimir Putin’s Russia"

On September 6th 2019, Robert Mugabe died at the age of 95. Robert Mugabe was a freedom fighter, a dictator with an iron fist, first a competent manager of the country’s economy, and later the architect of its destruction. Robert Mugabe was larger than life while he lived, and continues to cast a long shadow … Continue reading "A Dead Dictator Casts a Long Shadow: Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s Current Economic Crisis"

In the Lord of the Rings series of fantasy novels, written by JRR Tolkien, the dark lord Sauron crafted 9 rings of power, that he granted to the great lords of elves, dwarves and men as gifts. Although the rings granted great powers to their bearers, they also allowed Sauron to corrupt and dominate those … Continue reading "Diamonds are Forever, Natural Resources Wealth is Not: Why Only Some Nations Effectively Manage Resource Windfalls"

The Amazon rain forest over the last two months has been set ablaze. So far this year there have been over 83,000 fires in Brazil, a 77% increase from the same time last year with a majority of the fires in the Amazon region. The upsurge in fire and deforestation could have a dramatic impact … Continue reading "Set Fire to the Rainforest: Jair Bolsonaro and the Destruction of the Amazon"

Pakistan has long had a reputation as a nation racked by violence, insurgency and terrorism, and a state fundamentally incapable of managing the centrifugal forces tearing the country apart. There is a natural tendency to pay close attention to a nation when it is in crisis, yet forget about a nation as it solves its … Continue reading "Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together: How Pakistan Has Restored Peace and Security"