Experience Faculty & Research

Why it’s not as easy to see as you might think, and how you can make everyday changes to reduce your plastic use. This spring I was on a cruise off Bermuda, some 650-plus miles off the mainland United States. The sea was azure—the color of the sky on a clear blue day. The water was crystal clear other than a few golden strands of sargassum seaweed. I was on the boat with an intrepid group of major plastic producers and users (Dow Chemical, Clorox, Nestlé Waters, Coca-Cola), nonprofit organizations (Greenpeace, WWF), social entrepreneurs, investors, funders and academics like me. We were gathered by SoulBuffalo, our host, to experience the ocean plastics challenge firsthand and to use our time confined together at sea to determine what we might do about it. And there was horror lurking beneath. Read More...

The mass shootings in Texas and Ohio last weekend have rekindled the decades-old debate about gun regulation. While the role of the National Rifle Association is central to the debate, far too little attention is being paid to the gun industry itself and its relationship to the NRA. A closer look at the business model of the gun industry and the role that gun manufacturers play in thwarting meaningful restrictions on gun ownership and gun violence is long overdue. Read More...

When I was 9 years old, the New York Times published a picture of me looking at one of the moon rocks brought back by the astronauts. The year was 1969, and my father worked at the Museum of Natural History; the paper wanted a shot with a kid looking at a symbol of our future in space. So I got to see up close what everyone else had to view inside a large box (not that it looked different than an ordinary backyard rock). Fast forward 50 years, and what do we have going on in space now? In the United States, NASA has retired its space shuttles, ceding the ground to billionaires taking space exploration private—Elon Musk with SpaceX, Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin and Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic are the most well-known. Read More...

This week, the U.S. government imposed historic sanctions on Myanmar’s top military leader, General Min Aung Hlaing, and three other senior generals.These sanctions were applied in response to the military’s brutal attacks against the Rohingya Muslim population, which the United Nations has labeled a genocide. The military still wields supreme authority in Myanmar, but now the U.S. has called out its most powerful officials and held them personally accountable. The Trump administration has mostly moved backward on human rights, but the Myanmar sanctions deserve praise. Read More...

If you are like me and believe chocolate is one of the five major food groups, you also may think of it as a guilty pleasure due to its caloric content. The good news: A few pieces of dark chocolate don’t have much sugar or calories. The bad news: Depending on what company makes it, you probably should feel guilty about eating chocolate. The reality is, you and the companies that are making it may not be paying enough to the farmers who produce the cacao. Read More...

Last week, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) marked its 20th year of protecting worker rights around the world with the voluntary cooperation of major corporations. The FLA model brings major apparel and agriculture companies to the table with universities and civil society activists. Companies commit to abiding by the FLA code, which is based on international human rights standards developed by the International Labor Organization and the UN. Read More...

Western attitudes toward digital technology have soured in recent years, as once-celebrated innovations have begun to reveal their downsides. But, like all technological revolutions, the digital one is a double-edged sword, offering substantial benefits alongside daunting challenges – and certainly not only in the West. Read More...

The upcoming snap elections provide Greece with the opportunity to turn a page politically and financially. How can Greece leave the 10-year crisis behind? The only way out of the ten-year crisis is rapid growth. The Greek economy must run at a very fast pace of growth. Read More...

The nascent Sino-American cold war is the key source of uncertainty in today’s global economy. How the conflict plays out will affect consumer and asset markets of all kinds, as well as the trajectory of inflation, monetary policy, and fiscal conditions around the world. Escalation of the tensions between the world’s two largest economies could well produce a global recession and subsequent financial crisis by 2020, even if the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks pursue aggressive monetary easing. Read More...

Political activists and autocratic governments are misusing the Internet to distribute massive amounts of deliberately false information. This harmful content is undermining political discourse and encouraging extremism in the U.S. and elsewhere. The debate about this issue has focused disproportionately on the U.S. and Europe, and partly for this reason, the big Internet companies have dramatically underinvested in their operations in the global South. Read More...

Last summer, my colleague Brunello Rosa and I identifiedten potential downside risks that could trigger a US and global recession in 2020. Nine of them are still in play today. Read More...

On May 30, the State Department announced the creation of a new “Commission on Inalienable Rights,” an ill-conceived initiative that calls into question the Department’s decades-long record of support for human rights and the promotion of democracy.  Commissioners will be charged with providing “fresh thinking about human rights,” an unsubtle dig at those who already work daily on these issues within the State Department. Read More...

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again.” Every British schoolchild has been brought up on this idiom. Theresa May is clearly no exception. She tried to get her deal through the House of Commons three times, and three times she was defeated. There’s another adage, allegedly American: “If you’re in a hole, stop digging.” All that May achieved was to dig her own political grave. The tombstone will read “Brexit means Brexit” — except it didn’t. Read More...

For much of the post-World War II period, economic policy has focused on unemployment. The massive job losses of the Great Depression – reversed only when World War II, and the massive debt accumulated to finance it, kick-started economic growth – had a lasting impact on at least two generations. But employment is just one facet of welfare, and in today’s world, it is not enough. Read More...

Gender pay inequality has become a hot issue for corporate leaders. A few of the lead advocates for change have been investors, who cite studies that show significant financial benefits associated with gender pay equity. In New York State alone, the economic lost opportunity is estimated to be around US$17bn per annum. Read More...