Many of the world's development success stories in recent decades followed a broadly similar pattern. The countries became more involved with the world economy, often by exporting manufactured goods produced by low-wage workers. The rise in exports brought economic growth and income to their economics, but perhaps just as important, it also helped to foster a range of managerial, financial and technological skills. In this way, exporting was a fundamental step on the path to economic development.
Perhaps the best-known provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 is that it set a federal minimum wage for the first time. In addition, this is the law that established the overtime rule that if you are a "nonexempt" work--which basically means a worker paid by the hour rather than on a salary--then if you work more than 40 hours/week you must be paid time-and-a-half for the additional hours.
Imagine, just for the sake of argument, that you are open-minded about the question of whether the weed-killer Roundup (long produced by Monsanto, which was recently acquired by Bayer AG) causes cancer. You want to make a decision based on scientific evidence. However, you aren't a scientist yourself, and you don't feel competent at trying to read scientific studies.
India’s decision to stay out of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has been lauded by Indian media, while some declaring India as the winner for the time being. Paradoxically, South-Eastern media found to be critical on India’s move, some have gone to the extent of declaring China as the ultimate winner. Most of the analysts view RCEP as a pseudo battle between China and India, therefore they artificially declare a winner. Classical trade theories advocate free trade based on the basic principle –‘trade a positive sum-game’. So, declaring a winner goes against the fundamental principle of global trade.
World debt at $250 trillion is 3x global GDP – an all-time record. If we include unfunded liabilities and derivatives, total debts and liabilities would amount to over 25x global GDP.
"Populism" is remarkably slippery to define, but many people claim to know it when they see it--and to worry about its resurgence. Here, I'll offer some thoughts about the current populist moment. I've spent some time thinking about this lately because the Journal of Economic Perspectives, where I work as Managing Editor, published a four-paper "Symposium on Modern Populism" in the Fall 2019 issue. The papers are:
Catherine L. Kling and Fran Sussman have "A Conversation with Maureen Cropper" in the Annual Review of Resource Economics (October 2019, 11, pp. 1-18). As they write in the introduction: Maureen has made important contributions to several areas of environmental economics, including non-market valuation and the evaluation of environmental programs. She has also conducted pioneering studies on household transportation use and associated externalities." There also is a short (~ a dozen paragraphs) overview of some of Cropper's best-known work, I had not know that Cropper identified as a monetary economist when she was headed for graduate school. Here is her description of her early path to environmental economics: