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Why We Should Care About Human Rights: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70 - By Michael Posner
On December 10, the United Nations will mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In an era of spreading nationalism and gross violations in places like Yemen, Myanmar, South Sudan and Venezuela, it is fair to ask whether the Universal Declaration and the global human rights movement have improved the human condition. And given these contemporary challenges, there’s the further question of where we go from here.
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How PwC's Tim Ryan Learned to Talk About Race (and How You Can, Too) - By Dolly Chugh
On December 7, 2018, companies across the United States will engage in a “Day of Understanding.” The specific activities of the day will vary from company to company, with the shared goal of striving for workplaces that are “trusting places for having complex, and sometimes difficult, conversations about diversity and inclusion." The companies are all part of CEO Action, a coalition of more than 500 CEOs led by Tim Ryan, chairman of PwC United States.
—— Opinion
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FinTech in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Has Worked Well, and What Hasn’t - By David Yermack
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Growth in the Fintech sector in sub-Saharan Africa has been uneven, with some countries far outpacing others. NYU Stern Professor David Yermack investigates possible causes in a new working paper, “FinTech in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Has Worked Well, and What Hasn’t.”— Research Highlights
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May’s Brexit Deal Is a Betrayal of Britain - By Mervyn King
When Tony Blair and Boris Johnson unite in their condemnation of the “deal” under which Theresa May proposes that the U.K. should leave the EU, you know something has gone badly wrong. The withdrawal agreementis less a carefully crafted diplomatic compromise and more the result of incompetence of a high order. I have friends who are passionate Remainers and others who are passionate Leavers. None of them believe this deal makes any sense. It is time to think again, and the first step is to reject a deal that is the worst of all worlds.
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Hungary Closes a University: Lessons on the Creeping Decline of Democracy - By Michael Posner
On Monday, the Central European University was forced out of Hungary, the latest victim of Prime Minster Victor Orban’s increasingly authoritarian rule. Founded in 1991 by Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist George Soros, the CEU has become one of the leading universities in Central Europe, with world-class programs in politics and international studies. In recent years, Orban has targeted the CEU and Soros as part of his broader efforts to undermine democratic institutions in Hungary.
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Financing the Response to Climate Change - By Jeffrey Wurgler
In “Financing the Response to Climate Change: The Pricing and Ownership of U.S. Green Bonds,” Professor Wurgler, with co-authors Malcolm Baker and George Serafeim of Harvard Business School and Daniel Bergstresser of Brandeis University, analyzed pricing and ownership patterns of green bonds. They hypothesized and confirmed that they are priced at a premium compared to ordinary bonds, with higher prices at issue and therefore lower returns to bondholders.
—— Research Highlights
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What Lawmakers Need to Do to Police Online Content - By Vasant Dhar
Platforms with laudable mission statements of making the world a better place and doing no evil now find themselves dealing with the dark side of human nature associated with the connected world they have created. Their content can be malicious, aimed at covert manipulation or stirring up dark emotions that trigger violence. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter realize this danger and are scrambling to keep bad content off their platforms. They have employed armies of humans, roughly 20,000 in Facebook’s case, to police platform content.
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The Digital Key to Inclusive Growth - By A. Michael Spence
Some observers interpret the trade war that US President Donald Trump has initiated with China as a tough negotiating tactic, aimed at forcing the Chinese to comply with World Trade Organization rules and Western norms of doing business. Once China meets at least some of Trump’s demands, this view holds, mutually beneficial economic engagement will be restored. But there are many reasons to doubt such a benign scenario. The long China-US trade war is really a manifestation of a fundamental clash of systems.
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The Climate Won’t Crash the Economy - By Steven Koonin
Headlines warned of economic doom after the U.S. government released its fourth National Climate Assessment last week. Yet a close reading of the report shows that the overall economic impact of human-caused climate change is expected to be quite small.
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Government Can Do More to Support Science and Innovation - By Paul Romer
The U.S. government is divided and so are the people. But perhaps we can all agree that the economic growth of the 20th century, driven by robust markets and technological innovation, was good for everyone. The government can do more than most policy makers realize to sustain this long-term, broadly shared growth through investment in science.
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Why Central Bank Digital Currencies Will Destroy Cryptocurrencies - By Nouriel Roubini
The world’s central bankers have begun to discuss the idea of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and now even the International Monetary Fund and its managing director, Christine Lagarde, are talking openly about the pros and cons of the idea.
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Confronting Facebook's Growing Pains - By Michael Posner
On Wednesday, The New York Times published an in-depth account of Facebook’s poor corporate responses to political disinformation, hate speech and other harmful content on its platform. The Times described the company’s approach as “delay, deny and deflect.” A day later, Facebook issued a sharp rebuttal, insisting that it is making progress on these challenges, such as recent improvement in its efforts to take down hate speech.
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US Should Not Abandon Leadership on Asylum - By Michael Posner
President Trump signed a proclamation on Friday that contains draconian restrictions on the rights of refugees seeking asylum in this country. The president’s action undermines a 50-year U.S. commitment to providing safe haven for those fleeing ethnic, religious or political persecution. The proclamation invokes “national security” concerns and responds to what the president calls the “overloading of our immigration and asylum system.” Under the new rules, immigrants who do not enter the country legally through official border crossings will be ineligible to apply for asylum regardless of the merits of their cases.
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How Investors Can Drive The Shift From Shareholder Primacy to Stakeholder Capitalism - By Tensie Whelan
Imagine the United States economy as Company USA, a corporation that is publicly owned. Just 20% of the country’s citizens are shareholders in Company USA. The company is managing to short-term stock-gain metrics in response to activist investors and quarterly analyst demands, even though most of its shareholders own their stocks through large index funds (which are passive investors) and are in the investments for the long term.
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On the Board, ‘Twokenism’ Is the New Tokenism - By Dolly Chugh
California recently passed historic legislation mandating that the boards of public companies based in the state include at least one woman. With just over 20 percent of S&P 500 company board seats occupied by women, it’s no surprise that progressive legislators are putting pressure on companies to diversify their boards. This pressure is part of a larger wave of growing public scrutiny over board composition. A reasonable question, however, is whether this kind of public scrutiny is likely to move the needle meaningfully on boardroom diversity. To what extent is board composition shaped by outside pressure and inspection?
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