By Özlem Ömer On Tuesday, March 1, the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center hosted a webinar to discuss its new report analyzing the policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and lessons for the global trade and investment regime, focusing on six countries— USA, Germany, France, China, India and South Africa. The discussion centered […]
The current narrative on debt sustainability often ignores the issue of what a government owns (assets) versus what a government owes (liabilities). While conventional approaches largely focus on the liability side, the kinds of assets a country is trying to build are vital to development and debt sustainability. A new working paper by Yan Wang and […]
By Emanne Khan The global COVID-19 pandemic, now entering its second year, has upended nearly every aspect of daily life. Large sectors of the labor force transitioned to partially or fully remote work, and other sectors have been hollowed out by layoffs. Women were differentially affected by the economic dynamics and new social demands which […]
By Rachel Thrasher Scientists from the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Baylor College of Medicine have developed a new COVID-19 vaccine based on well-known, easy-to-use technology, cheap to produce and relatively easy to store. Drawing from just $7 million in investor funds over the past two years, Peter J. Hotez and Maria […]
As 2021 comes to a close and the world faces another year battling COVID-19, experts from our Global Economic Governance Initiative look back on the policy progress – and shortcomings – for the year, and highlight what to keep an eye on for 2022. Below, read key takeaways on vaccine equity, sovereign debt, global financial […]
By Emanne Khan For scholars engaged in long-term research, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has complicated everything from data collection to travel. As the pandemic has stretched on for nearly two years, it has become part of daily life and researchers are learning to work within the constraints of the pandemic and when able, cautiously resume […]
By Samantha Igo As of late 2021, nearly 60 percent of the United States has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with similar levels of inoculation across the European Union and other wealthy nations. In stark contrast, just 5 percent of people across all low-income countries have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. […]
By Rachel Thrasher As COVID-19 has taken millions of lives, governments around the globe have attempted to quickly mobilize and mitigate the health, social and economic impacts of the pandemic. Pandemic-responsive policy interventions ranging from subsidies to trade restrictions, and investment measures to government procurement initiatives, have taken precedence over traditional policy preferences that would […]
As COVID-19 has taken millions of lives around the globe, governments everywhere have attempted to quickly mobilize to mitigate the health, social and economic impacts of the pandemic. COVID-responsive policy interventions ranging from subsidies to trade restrictions, and investment measures to government procurement initiatives, have taken precedence over traditional policy preferences that would favor market-oriented […]
By Samantha Igo In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and growing climate crisis, it is becoming increasingly apparent that there is an unresolved tension between the network of rules that make up the global trading system, and the needs of that system’s individual countries. The new book by Rachel Thrasher, Constraining Development: the Shrinking Policy […]