One projection has it that megaprojects (in excess of $1 billion) will constitute 24 percent (up from 8 percent) of global GDP by 2027, by building global infrastructure, space industries, ocean industries, bridge-tunnel projects, extreme physics challenges (terraforming, mass energy storage) or controlling extreme weather (Frey, 2017). Going forward, it is not inconceivable that many […]
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The latest report from the Census Bureau shows that the child poverty rate, measured using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), spiked from 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% in 2022. The Official Poverty rate for children (under the age of 18) saw no significant change across the two years and held steady at 15%. A key […]
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J-PAL North America and Results for America have announced 18 new partnerships with state and local governments across the country through their Leveraging Evidence and Evaluation for Equitable Recovery (LEVER) programming, which launched in April of this year. As state and local leaders leverage federal relief funding to invest in their communities, J-PAL North America […]
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Driver plugging cable at station getty The chairs of the three most powerful House committees have threatened to subpoena Ford if it does not provide documents detailing a deal with China’s CATL battery maker. Ford cannot ignore this request, and it might even force them to back out of the deal. It’s already pressed pause […]
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What if we’ve been thinking about artificial intelligence the wrong way? After all, AI is often discussed as something that could replicate human intelligence and replace human work. But there is an alternate future: one in which AI provides “machine usefulness” for human workers, augmenting but not usurping jobs, while helping to create productivity gains […]
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In early September, the BRICS group of countries with emerging economies — an informal alliance among Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — announced it would expand its ranks by six nations. Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and UAE are now set to join the BRICS group in the near future. This would […]
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Employees perform production control tasks in the clean rooms at the Globalfoundries semiconductor … [+] fabrication (fab) plant in Dresden, Germany. Photographer: Liesa Johannssen-Koppitz/Bloomberg © 2021 Bloomberg Finance LP The global technological race is heating up. And Europe doesn’t want to be left behind. This week, the much-anticipated European Chips Act has entered into force. […]
Read More Employees perform production control tasks in the clean rooms at the Globalfoundries semiconductor … [+] fabrication (fab) plant in Dresden, Germany. Photographer: Liesa Johannssen-Koppitz/Bloomberg © 2021 Bloomberg Finance LP The global technological race is heating up. And Europe doesn’t want to be left behind. This week, the much-anticipated European Chips Act has entered into force. […]
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On September 19, 2023, Ukrainian President Zelensky addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York, and among others, raised the attack against children as a method of war. As he emphasized, “various terrorist groups abduct children to put pressure on their families and societies. But never before the mass kidnapping and deportation would become a […]
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One of the Inflation Reduction Act’s key provisions is a powerful tax credit to spark the development and adoption of clean, low-carbon aviation fuels. Climate pollution from aircraft is often overlooked, but if aviation were a country, it would be among the top 10 greenhouse gas emitters. The Biden administration is about to make a […]
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North Carolina flag getty Official text of the new two-year state budget agreement reached between North Carolina House and Senate leaders was officially released Wednesday, September 20. The budget deal includes tax relief that will, if enacted, allow households and small businesses to keep more of their income, along with provisions aimed at safeguarding North […]
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Imagine if France, Germany, and Spain were completely blanketed in forests — and then all those trees were quickly chopped down. That’s nearly the amount of deforestation that occurred globally between 2001 and 2020, with profound consequences. Deforestation is a major contributor to climate change, producing between 6 and 17 percent of global greenhouse gas […]
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Encouraging immigrants to visit primary care doctors creates a striking decline in costly emergency room use, according to a new study co-authored by an MIT economist. The findings are from a New York City program that helped arrange medical appointments for undocumented immigrants with limited incomes, from May 2016 to June 2017. Those who received […]
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Certain regulatory reforms with deep bipartisan endorsement should be incorporated into contentious fiscal budget agreements, particularly when spending cuts are difficult (which is always). UNITED STATES – SEPTEMBER 12: Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., conducts a news conference with members of … [+] the House Freedom Caucus on government funding outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, […]
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“More and more firms are responding to rising costs by ditching conventional health insurance and … [+] assuming direct financial responsibility for their companies’ health plans,” writes Pipes getty It’s growing more expensive for employers to offer health insurance. Employer insurance costs are expected to climb 6.5% in 2024, according to a new survey from […]
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For quite some time readers have been fed a steady diet of commentary signaling economic decline in China. To use but one example, Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell recently wrote that the Chinese economy has hit a “rough patch.” Rampell is not alone. Around the time of her column, the Post gathered together a number […]
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1. Reengineer Electric Motors To replace a gas engine car, you have to match or exceed it in power. The key to that, today, is motors built with rare-earth metals. With exotic names like neodymium, dysprosium, terbium, and praseodymium, rare earth elements go into so-called permanent magnets. They have persistent magnetic fields and are considered […]
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Fast forward to 2030, and the way we work has been irrevocably transformed. Automation, driven by AI, has freed humans from routine tasks, allowing them to focus on creativity and problem-solving. The gig economy will become a dominant economic force, offering individuals flexibility and career choices. A workforce where humans and AI collaborate harmoniously has […]
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Investments in new technologies and infrastucture that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions — everything from electric vehicles to heat pumps — are growing rapidly in the United States. Now, a new database enables these investments to be comprehensively monitored in real-time, thereby helping to assess the efficacy of policies designed to spur clean investments and […]
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Central Bank Digital Currency – the digital form of a national currency that tracks transactions within a government digital ledger – is an idea that seems to be losing whatever modicum of support it had among the general public in countries across the world. As Ari Patinkin and I write in RealClearMarkets, “from the U.S. […]
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Gov. Newsom should seize this opportunity to help protect investors, consumers, employees, … [+] communities, and the entire state economy from the clear risks of climate change Canva For generations, investors have demanded and received information from companies about the financial risks and opportunities they face. This kind of disclosure is a basic tenet of […]
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That markets are incredibly stupid is pretty much implied in all the Federal Reserve commentary from the various economic religions. Think about it. Members of the Austrian School imagine that central banks have unchecked power to “flood the system” with money. Except that they don’t. And they don’t simply because markets aren’t stupid. And since […]
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1. Even clean energy involves environmental harm. Midwestern residents may find land-based wind turbines (a prime green power source) to be a terrible eyesore. Native Americans are fighting plans for a vast lithium mine on sacred land. The conversion to more (ultimately cleaner) electric cars and households requires building more transmission lines through neighborhoods. Should these […]
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One of the many provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act is new statutory authority for the federal government to essentially impose price controls on a number of pharmaceuticals in high demand. Late last month the Biden administration announced the first ten drugs that would be subject to these price controls, and the affected companies quickly […]
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For businesses, the carrots are even more significant. “This legislation can catalyze an entirely new set of climate-friendly industries,” says tech and climate journalist and Techonomy founder David Kirkpatrick. The Brookings Institution calculates that, by 2030, the IRA will help reduce U.S. CO2 emissions about 40 percent below 2005 levels. “This is a business-first approach to government climate action,” […]
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July 2023 was the hottest month globally since humans began keeping records. People all over the U.S. experienced punishingly high temperatures this summer. In Phoenix, there were a record-setting 31 consecutive days with a high temperature of 110 degrees Fahrenheit or more. July was the hottest month on record in Miami. A scan of high […]
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MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is launching the Clean Air and Water Labs, with support from Community Jameel, to generate evidence-based solutions aimed at increasing access to clean air and water. Led by J-PAL’s Africa, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and South Asia regional offices, the labs will partner with government […]
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Growing up in the Tidewater region of Virginia, Dyanna Jaye had a front row seat to the climate crisis. She recalls beach stabilization efforts that pumped sand from the bottom of the ocean to the shore in response to rising sea levels. And every hurricane season, the streets would flood. “I was thinking at a […]
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