ET Evoke
The lack of property rights is integral to the climate crisis — emissions continue as the atmosphere is a common property resource: Larry S Karp
The adoption of green subsidies could also make fossil fuel producers rationally aware that in the future, they could face much more competition — anticipating this, it’s in their interest to sell more today. This will speed up emissions. Cumulative emissions over many years might be lowered with the green subsidy — but even so, the acceleration of emissions in the short term has detrimental consequences, which reflects the ‘green paradox’.
Economic inequality is causing social discord in the US — Ivy Leagues which power upward mobility also favour high-income applicants: John N. Friedman
Inequality is a very big issue in America and worldwide. A tenet at the core of the American dream is the notion that all children, no matter the circumstances of their birth, will have the equal opportunity to succeed through hard work — but we see several examples in the data now where many children don’t have that equality of opportunity, depending on factors which are entirely outside their control, like the neighbourhood where they are raised or their parents’ income, said John N. Friedman.
The benefits of space will keep growing for countries and companies — ISRO is the most inspiring model for space development now: Matthew C. Weinzierl
Matthew C. Weinzierl is Professor of Business Administration, Senior Associate Dean and Chair of the MBA Program at Harvard Business School. Speaking to Srijana Mitra Das, he discusses factors shaping the space sector
India is taking millions of its people out of extreme poverty now — this will help to reduce global economic inequality: Justin Wolfers
"The biggest low-income nations have moved closer to becoming middle-income — that itself helps to reduce global income inequality. Regarding inequality within countries, consider the US. Here, income inequality grew for four decades — you could put that on Reagan, globalisation, automation, etc," Wolfers said.
Far-right groups are growing in Europe and the US — from consumer decision-making to boycotts, polarisation poses corporate risks: Laura Jakli
The stability and quality of democracy affect economic growth and the business environment — increased polarisation also carries corporate risks, including that of boycotts. Behavioural experiments increasingly find partisan polarisation seeps into all sorts of consumer decision-making as well, says Laura Jakli.
From the US to Tunisia, immigration is a salient issue now — with climate change, it will only grow: Marco E. Tabellini
"Immigrants might generate congestion, especially in the short run and if migrant flows are large and sudden. However, there is no evidence in my work to show immigrants increase crime or reduce health. Moreover, my research indicates that sometimes, the impression that immigrants lead to public goods congestion is driven by the choice of natives who, because of immigration, decide to cut public or welfare spending," Tabellini.
Most of China’s economic problems now are not due to US restrictions — they reflect domestic structural distortions: Meg Rithmire
"Ironically, they did this with advice from Hong Kong real estate tycoons and other overseas Chinese businesspeople. Initially, these markets were more decentralised — that was then reversed as authorities got nervous about the instability that comes with dispersed market activity. The CCP designated municipal governments as the owner of urban land. They also recentralised tax revenue, overturning perceived inequalities among local governments but leaving almost all expenditure burdens, from infrastructure to unemployment insurance, etc., on the latter," Rithmire said.
Rising polarisation causes major shifts on US environmental policy between administrations — this worries CEOs: Vincent Pons
"This problem is very deep because democracy itself relies on the delegation of decision-making to millions of citizens — hence, remedying this situation requires studying the dynamics of electoral politics with an aim to bringing citizens back to the polls. We need a fundamental understanding of the different steps of the electoral cycle through which preferences are aggregated into an electoral outcome and then policies — if we can see at which steps there might be a failure, we can learn how to address that," Pons said.
Media impacts economies, society and democracy itself — people value social media but it also makes them less happy: Matthew Gentzkow
"Content on social media — which is an important but still relatively small part of the way people get news and information is very different. You don’t have gate-keepers here. This world is much closer to gossip. Anyone can broadcast messages which are consumed as disembodied bits of content where people aren’t very aware of the source and there isn’t the same drive to build trust with readers over time," Gentzkow.
The EU’s CBAM aims to stop carbon leakage — if EU industry moves out and emits, what is the point of the Green Deal: Virginijus Sinkevicius
"EU region countries have an ambition, a concrete plan and legislation towards this. The second pillar is our nature restoration and biodiversity legislation and strategy for 2030 — we see biodiversity loss and climate change as reinforcing each other. Even if we all reach zero emissions but ecosystems continue to degrade, with oceans unable to absorb carbon and forests not able to deliver their functionality," Sinkevicius said.
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Oil demand growth could near zero globally by 2028 — fossil fuel subsidies are a hidden problem in the green energy transition: Arthur van Benthem
"In extreme cases, they can even vote out board members, as in Exxon Mobil in 2021 when a majority of shareholders elected three new board members proposed by an activist hedge fund. They can also divest, sell or deliberately decide not to own high carbon stocks. Another option is to align with companies which are currently high carbon but have a credible commitment to reducing their emissions," Benthem said.
‘Biodiversity protection doesn’t mean millions of job losses — economic activity which encroaches on ecosystems quantifiably harms humanity’
A large part of my work tries to figure out this multifaceted puzzle by analysing what happens in a region in terms of tangible outcomes when it undergoes a significant decline in species. A complement to this work is to see how effective conservation policies are and whether these tend to have large indirect costs as impacts on land or labour markets.
Climate change will reshape global supply chains — it can reduce welfare on Earth by 20%: Ivan Rudik
We are now certainly seeing a broader range of economists trying to answer questions related to the environment which historically would be studied only by people who worked on topics like climate change and biodiversity — now, people who would call themselves macroeconomists are trying to tackle questions related to the environmental situation and how this affects the economy.
Stringent policy changes caused US manufacturing to reduce air pollution — this was achieved even as output was rising: Reed Walker
Reed Walker is the Transamerica Professor of Business Strategy at the University of California, Berkeley’s economics department. Speaking to Srijana Mitra Das, he discusses routes to equitable industrial decarbonisation:
Wildfire smoke in the US was a huge deal for a week — other countries face high air pollution daily, impacting worker and firm productivity: Eli P. Fenichel
Importantly, the US wildfire event was a huge deal for one week here but this is a massive issue everyday for other countries which face high levels of particulate matter daily — many studies have measured how this impacts cognition and worker productivity and how that translates into lost productivity for firms and lost wages for workers relative to air.
There won’t be any more crises over the US defaulting on debt soon — but crucial treasury market infrastructure needs updating: Darrell Duffie
"However, the dollar is still extremely strong as a payment currency. It remains dominant by far over any other currency by order of magnitude and as a vehicle currency in foreign exchange trading — approximately 90% of foreign exchange trades use the dollar which serves as an efficient means of payment with a very low cost of transactions," Duffie said.
