World
Friends With (Metal) Benefits
Australia’s bid for “friendshoring” in the shifting green world order
When Americans ran short on baby food last year, President Joe Biden made use of a Korean War-era authority—the Defense Production Act (DPA)—to airlift goat milk from Australia, despite protectionist howls from American formula companies. Operation Fly Formula funded the…
A New Foreign Policy
To beat China you must become China
Leaders need followers. Last month, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan delivered a speech outlining the Biden administration’s international economic policy at the Brookings Institute in Washington. The “New Washington Consensus” was not directed at citizens but at capitals abroad.…
The End of the Cold Peace
Can the Asian growth miracle survive?
Watch the Korean Peninsula. It is in South Korea that the New Cold War has most visibly upset the delicate balance between industry, security, and domestic politics. South Korea’s growth miracle has been based on deterrence and detente between China,…
The Gigantic Austerity Drive Underway
Two billion people are suffering austerity as governments follow IMF diktat
We are quietly witnessing the largest shift to austerity undertaken in this century. Debt-strained developing countries are making further cuts to already ragged budgets, in many cases as they battle to meet punishing new conditions demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which held…
Mercantilist Deals of the Great Powers
Decoupling from China is an uphill task in both the global North and the global South
This is the twelfth edition of The Polycrisis newsletter, written by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox. The maiden flight of a new cargo route between Shenzhen and São Paulo took off on…
Stranded Countries and Stranded Assets
Outsourcing the energy transition to the Gulf
This is the eleventh edition of The Polycrisis newsletter, written by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox. The US routinely flouts its international climate financing commitments, rarely delivering on its promises. Last year, for example,…
Cash, Cars, Chemicals (and Corn)
Three big decarbonization plots
This is the tenth edition of The Polycrisis newsletter, written by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox. Decarbonization—reducing the output of invisible CO2 molecules into the atmosphere—requires nothing less than remaking the chemical basis of…
March 1, 2023
AnalysisThe IMF Trap
Debt, austerity, and inequality in Sri Lanka’s historic crisis
Massive demonstrations that swept Sri Lanka last year exposed the serious challenges at the heart of the global economy. In July 2022, former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced to flee the country, only a few months after announcing a hasty…
Debt and Power in Pakistan
The subcontinent’s embattled debtor isn’t merely the passive victim of the climate crisis— it is being plundered by its elites
The subcontinent’s embattled debtor isn’t merely the passive victim of the climate crisis—it is being plundered by its elites.
The EU and the IRA
Supply and demand in the great powers’ decarbonization race
This is the eighth edition of The Polycrisis newsletter, written by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox. At Davos last month, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced Brussels’ “Green Deal Industrial…
Europe’s “Leap Into the Future”
Do exceptional crisis-fighting policies signal the arrival of an interventionist Europe?
This is the fifth edition of The Polycrisis newsletter, written by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox. In 2020, as demand for liquefied natural gas boomed in Asia, the shippable fuel was an afterthought in…
Money and the Climate Crisis
COP27 and financing the green transition
The conclusion of COP27 reflected persisting uncertainties around coordinated global action towards decarbonization. Major agreements—including the establishment of a loss and damage fund—were reached, but the burden of mounting debt among global South countries continued to limit climate ambition. The…
Development Bank Self-Sabotage
What’s stopping MDBs?
This is the fourth edition of The Polycrisis newsletter, written by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox. When the World Bank and IMF make radical noises, the US is typically the voice of restraint. So…
November 30, 2022
InterviewsBittersweet Tides
Chile, Brazil, and the future of the Latin American Left
The recent victories of left parties across Latin America—most recently the election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil—have prompted comparisons with the Pink Tide of the early 2000s. But with narrow margins of victory against far-right opponents,…
Collective Action and Climate Finance
Can the COP move markets?
This is the third edition of The Polycrisis newsletter, written by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox. At UN climate summits, the items that appear on the agenda are usually those that advocates have fought…
Domestic Politics & Planetary Change
Will a Lula victory be better for the climate than anything that happens at COP27?
Will a Lula victory be better for the climate than anything that happens at COP27?
November 2, 2022
InterviewsCyborg Trucking
An interview with Karen Levy on surveillance and automation in the trucking industry
The supply and demand whiplashes of the Covid-19 pandemic snarled global supply chains, shaking up labor markets and well-established migration patterns. In the process, existing cracks in logistics and infrastructure systems widened, making these systems newly visible. In the US…
An Introduction
An introduction to The Polycrisis
This is the first edition of The Polycrisis newsletter, written by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox. What crisis? A year ago, one might be forgiven for thinking there was a moment of relative calm…
The Geopolitics of Stuff
A discussion on supply chains, commodities, and climate
The material economy is back. Economists and commentators in recent decades had heralded (or lamented) the arrival of an automated, redundant, frictionless system of international commerce. But over the past two years, multiple global crises have exposed the fragile physical…
October 12, 2022
InterviewsWho Pays for Inflation?
A conversation on monetary policy, labor, and the definition of inflation
The inflation of the past year has reshaped the political economic landscape in the United States and around the globe. While the IMF and World Bank echo UN calls about the recession risk of globally-synchronized rate hikes, the debate over…
July 23, 2022
InterviewsResource Nationalism and Decarbonization
Revisiting “resource nationalism” in a new era of raw minerals demand
Across Latin America, a recent wave of left electoral victories has drawn comparisons to “Pink Tide” of the early 2000s. The current moment, however, coincides with a global push towards decarbonization, and much of the world’s supply of commodities essential…
July 7, 2022
InterviewsThe IMF & the Legacy of Bretton Woods
Global South debt crises and the evolution of the international monetary system
Fifty years on from the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the role of the international monetary system and international financial institutions in managing the global economy are in question.
June 10, 2022
AnalysisLeapfrog Logistics
Digital platforms, infrastructure, and labor in Brazil and China
In Spring 2018, two significant labor disputes broke out at opposite ends of the earth. The first, in Brazil, was a two-week-long mass strike of 400,000 truckers in response to successive price increases unleashed by the state oil company, Petrobras,…
April 15, 2022
AnalysisEconomic War and the Commodity Shock
A discussion on sanctions and global commodity markets
The war in Ukraine has unleashed both geopolitical and economic strife, and nowhere is the latter clearer than in the volatile commodities market. Commodities prices have fluctuated wildly since the Russian invasion began and the US-led coalition retaliated with extraordinary…
November 6, 2021
AnalysisTitans
Tracing the rise and the politics of asset manager capitalism
In mid October 2021, when BlackRock revealed its third quarter results, the asset management behemoth announced it was just shy of $10 trillion in assets under management. It’s a vast sum, “roughly equivalent to the entire global hedge fund, private…
June 18, 2021
InterviewsInvestment and Decarbonization
A conversation on investment strategies for the green transition
In late March, the Biden administration announced the $2 trillion American Jobs Plan, with approximately half of the sum dedicated to fighting the climate crisis. While the legislation would mark a sea change in federal action to avert climate catastrophe,…
May 13, 2021
AnalysisInvestment and Decarbonization: Rating Green Finance
A proposal for a public ratings agency for green finance
The Biden administration has committed the United States to cutting its carbon emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
March 19, 2021
InterviewsParty Politics and Social Policy
A conversation between Lena Lavinas, André Singer, and Barbara Weinstein on three decades of party politics and social policy in Brazil.
In The Takeover of Social Policy by Financialization, Lena Lavinas names the “Brazilian Paradox”: the model of social inclusion implemented by the Workers’ Party under President Lula and President Rousseff promotes a logic of financial inclusion and market incorporation, and…
Feminism in the Union
An interview with feminist activist and trade unionist Begoña San José.
Begoña San José is a feminist activist and trade union leader.
New System, New Society
An interview with former Prime Minister of Spain Felipe González.
Felipe González was Prime Minister of Spain from 1982-1996.
Revolution in the Long Run
An interview with Hector Maravall on the Communist Party of Spain, the decline of unions, and Felipe González's modernization program.
Hector Maravall is a long time member of the PCE, a labor lawyer, and a leader of the Comisiones Obreras, the largest trade union in Spain.
Party of the Future?
An interview with Giuliano Amato
Giuliano Amato was a member of the Italian Socialist Party and Italian Prime Minister from 1992–93 and 2000–2001, Treasury Minister in 1999–2000, and Minister of the Interior, 2006–2008.
October 1, 2020
AnalysisA Popular History of the Fed
n Populist programs and democratic central banking.
Since Lehman collapsed in 2008, central banks have broken free of historical norms, channelling trillions into the banking system to prop up global finance and the savings of depositors from Germany to Hong Kong. The corona crash has only accelerated…
August 8, 2020
InterviewsEconomics, Bosses, and Interest
An interview with Stephen Marglin.
Stephen Marglin is Walter S. Barker Professor Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since he received tenure in 1968.
July 27, 2020
AnalysisEssential Infrastructures
The case for sovereign investment in telecommunications infrastructure
How should the fabric of social life, especially as it is rewoven by the pandemic, relate to the private ownership of telecommunications?
May 1, 2020
AnalysisThe Class Politics of the Dollar System
Managing an international public good
The global dollar system has few national winners. The typical frame for understanding the US dollar is that of “exorbitant privilege.”
April 24, 2020
InterviewsThe Weight of Movements
An interview with Frances Fox Piven
Few theorists of social movements have shaped the events that they analyze. Frances Fox Piven, Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the City University of New York and one of these few, has studied and agitated within American social…
February 13, 2020
InterviewsAusterity and Ideology
An interview with Kim Phillips-Fein
Kim Phillips-Fein is an associate professor of history at New York University and the author of the books "Invisible Hands: the Businessmen’s Crusade Against the New Deal" and "Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics",…
November 7, 2019
AnalysisCollective Ownership in the Green New Deal
What rural electrification can teach us about a just transition
This year, we once again shattered the record for atmospheric carbon concentration, and witnessed a series of devastating setbacks in US climate policy—from attempts to waive state protections against pipelines to wholesale attacks on climate science.
October 24, 2019
InterviewsExploitation, Cooperation, and Distributive Justice
An interview with John Roemer
Throughout his career, John Roemer's work has been uniquely situated between the fields of microeconomics, game theory, philosophy, and political science. His research makes use of the tools of classical economics to analyze dynamics typically thought to be outside the…
September 26, 2019
InterviewsOptimizing the Crisis
An interview with Seda Gürses and Bekah Overdorf
Software that structures increasingly detailed aspects of contemporary life is built for optimization. These programs require a mapping of the world in a way that is computationally legible, and translating the messy world into one that makes sense to a…
August 8, 2019
InterviewsNetworks, Weak Ties, and Thresholds
An Interview with Mark Granovetter
Few living scholars have had the influence of Mark Granovetter. In a career spanning almost 50 years, his seminal contributions to his own field of sociology have spread to shape research in economics, computer science, and even epidemiology.
February 4, 2019
ReviewsCash and Income Studies: A Literature Review of Theory and Evidence
A broad review of cash transfer programs.
What happens when you give people cash? How do they use the money, and how does it change their lives? Every cash study on this list is different: the studies vary in intervention type, research design, location, size, disbursement amount,…
December 14, 2018
InterviewsCash Transfer, Knowledge Transfer
An interview with Johannes Haushofer
Johannes Haushofer is assistant professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. His work includes development economics, behavioral economics, psychology, and neurobiology.