Project Syndicate

Project Syndicate produces and delivers original, high-quality commentaries to a global audience. Featuring exclusive contributions by prominent political leaders, policymakers, scholars, business leaders, and civic activists from around the world, we provide news media and their readers cutting-edge analysis and insight, regardless of ability to pay.

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Saving Generation COVID

Saving Generation COVID

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During the COVID-19 crisis, lockdowns and other social-distancing rules have forced schools worldwide to shut their doors, locking out a peak of 1.6 billion children. Unless the international community acts now, the consequences for this generation – especially its poorest members – will be severe and long-lasting. Continue Reading

Training for the Pandemic Economy

Training for the Pandemic Economy

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The transition to the world being created by COVID-19 was always going to be difficult for workers in the worst-affected sectors. The main question now is whether policymakers will take the steps – including apprenticeship programs and expanded funding for community colleges and technical schools – that are most likely to make it easier. Continue Reading

A 100-day Agenda to Reunite America

A 100-day Agenda to Reunite America

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After four years of a president who has deliberately tried to divide Americans, the United States can and must find common purpose to address its many challenges. The next US president can take a range of early steps to achieve this goal. Continue Reading

Why Disaster Preparedness Cannot Wait

Why Disaster Preparedness Cannot Wait

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As countries emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic over the coming year, world leaders will face a defining moment. By ramping up investments in disaster preparedness, they can shape their legacies and set humanity on a safer course for the next decade and beyond. Continue Reading

Reviving the WTO

Reviving the WTO

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The World Trade Organization has an irreplaceable role to play in transforming countries’ economic prospects and the lives of people around the world. Although the COVID-19 crisis has brought the organization’s deteriorating health into sharp focus, its further decline is not inevitable. Continue Reading

The Pandemic Must End Our Complacency

The Pandemic Must End Our Complacency

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With an economic downturn as severe as the Great Depression and political conditions similar to those in the run-up to World War I, an international system built on globalization now hangs in the balance. The world desperately needs effective collective leadership – and not just to contain COVID-19. Continue Reading

United States of Despair

United States of Despair

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America finds itself in the grips of two epidemics, each of which has exposed deep inequalities across races and levels of educational attainment. Between rising “deaths of despair” among working-class whites and higher COVID-19 mortality rates among African-Americans, the stunning secular decline in US life expectancy will continue. Continue Reading

Redefining National Security for the Post-Pandemic World

Redefining National Security for the Post-Pandemic World

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Three decades of efforts to broaden the definition of “national security” have largely failed, and it is time to try a new approach. Thinking instead in terms of global security would expand policy discussions beyond national governments and lead to a stronger emphasis on making societies more resilient. Continue Reading

American Exceptionalism in the Age of Trump

American Exceptionalism in the Age of Trump

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As the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China are condemned to a relationship that must combine competition and cooperation. For the US, exceptionalism now includes working with the Chinese to help produce global public goods, while also defending values such as human rights. Continue Reading

Globalizing the Fight Against the Pandemic

Globalizing the Fight Against the Pandemic

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As a global problem that will remain a threat everywhere as long as it is still present anywhere, the novel coronavirus demands a collective and collaborative response. With a new COVID-19 Technology Access Pool to share data and intellectual property, all countries and companies now have a chance to become a part of the solution. Continue Reading

The Future of Global Power

The Future of Global Power

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Although the Sino-American rivalry was escalating long before the COVID-19 crisis erupted, it has since been thrown into overdrive. But while both countries are pursuing a zero-sum vision of the future, only one is doing so with a long-term strategy. Continue Reading

The Deadly Urgency of Now

The Deadly Urgency of Now

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The consequences of lapses in international cooperation in combating COVID-19 over the last few months can now be counted in lost lives. Having failed to stop the first wave of the pandemic, we must not make the same mistake again. Continue Reading

What the Stock Market Is Really Saying

What the Stock Market Is Really Saying

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The seeming confidence expressed by global equity markets in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic has surprised many – including many market participants. But a closer look reveals an unambiguous message: The global economy is facing a long, deep malaise, followed by a “new normal” of reduced earnings and profitability for all but a chosen few. Continue Reading

Target R and Wait for the Vaccine

Target R and Wait for the Vaccine

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Opening up the economy means allowing more human interaction and hence greater potential for new #COVID19 infections. Two numbers matter for deciding whether this can be done safely any time soon. Continue Reading

A Global COVID-19 Exit Strategy

A Global COVID-19 Exit Strategy

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The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented threat to both public health and the global economy. Only by ditching nationalist rhetoric and policies, and embracing stronger international cooperation, can governments protect the people they claim to represent. Continue Reading

The Human-Capital Costs of the Crisis

The Human-Capital Costs of the Crisis

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Unlike a hurricane or earthquake, the coronavirus pandemic has caused no damage to physical capital stock. But firm-specific skills have no value when the firm that uses them goes out of business, which is one reason why US productivity, wages, and economic growth are likely to be affected for years to come. Continue Reading

Will COVID-19 Derail the African Century?

Will COVID-19 Derail the African Century?

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Africa’s high urban population densities, high numbers of day workers, and weak medical systems would seem to make it highly vulnerable to COVID-19. But Africa could emerge from the pandemic with less lasting damage than many fear. Continue Reading

The US Needs A Draft

The US Needs A Draft

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The United States should establish a mandatory two-year paid national service program that would bring together Americans of different backgrounds and help overcome barriers to a deeply felt and widely shared civic identity. If young Americans grow up believing that theirs is a divided country, it will remain so. Continue Reading

A COVID-19 Emergency Response Plan

A COVID-19 Emergency Response Plan

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The COVID-19 epidemic is accelerating, and as the new coronavirus approaches pandemic status, it is increasingly likely that the economic impact will be severe. Alongside intensifying public-health responses, governments must step in to mitigate the virus’s impact on growth, employment, and living standards. Continue Reading

Why Bernie?

Why Bernie?

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If US Senator Bernie Sanders is the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, he could win in November for any number of reasons. The US electorate is almost evenly divided regardless of candidate, swing voters are unpredictable, electoral math is tricky, Donald Trump has plenty of weaknesses, and a lot can happen between now and then. Continue Reading

Pandemic Panics

Pandemic Panics

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The global overreaction to the coronavirus outbreak has once again exposed a lack of preparedness to use the knowledge and tools already at our disposal. Until we provide the same funding and respect to public health and science agencies that we extend to the military, the costs of the war with pathogens will remain unnecessarily high. Continue Reading

Germany’s Crisis of the Right

Germany’s Crisis of the Right

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The resignation of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s designated successor, has plunged the party into crisis and raised fresh doubts about the survival of the country’s ruling coalition. The biggest beneficiaries of the current chaos may well be the Greens. Continue Reading

Restoring Central Banks’ Credibility

Restoring Central Banks’ Credibility

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The old central-bank playbook of slashing interest rates to spur consumption, investment, and employment has become less effective since the 2008 financial crisis. Yet without effective tools and the public’s confidence, central banks will be unable to rise to the occasion when the next recession arrives. Continue Reading

Dystopia Is Arriving in Stages

Dystopia Is Arriving in Stages

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Originally published at Project-Syndicate.org | December 31, 2019 Science fiction has a warning about developing mind-reading technology without any proper framework for how to control it. It should be heeded. Continue Reading

The US economy’s strange decade

The US economy’s strange decade

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Weak productivity growth helps to explain the continued robust rates of job creation in the United States, as well as workers’ sluggish wage gains. If left unresolved, the productivity malaise will ensure that the current expansion remains uniquely unbalanced and unhealthy. Continue Reading

We Are All Active Investors Now

We Are All Active Investors Now

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Strategic asset-allocation decisions determine most of an investment portfolio’s subsequent return. Investors need to focus more on the composition of their portfolios and worry less about whether they are actively or passively managed. Continue Reading