With the national economy virtually immobilized as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it might seem like the crisis is going to mute the issue of regional economic divergence and its pattern of booming superstar cities and depressed, left-behind places. But don’t be so sure about that. In fact, the pandemic might intensify the unevenness…

Will the coronavirus change everything? While that sentiment feels true to the enormity of the crisis, it likely isn’t quite right, as scholars from the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program have been exploring since the pandemic began. Instead, the COVID-19 crisis seems poised to accelerate or intensify many economic and metropolitan trends that were already underway, with huge…

Because of the COVID-19 crisis, the US economy has nearly ground to a halt. Tens of millions of workers are now seeing their jobs and livelihoods disappear—in some cases, permanently. Many businesses will never reopen, especially those that have or had large debts to manage. State and federal lawmakers have responded by pouring trillions of…

COVID-19 has upended, along with everything else, the balance sheets of the nation’s elementary and secondary schools. As soon as school buildings closed, districts faced new costs associated with distance learning, ranging from physically distributing instructional packets and up to three meals a day, to supplying instructional programming for television and distributing Chromebooks and internet…

On the eve of President Hu Jintao's long-anticipated visit to Washington, critical economic policy issues loom large for both the U.S. and China. Over the past two decades, China has transformed into a major economic power and continues to play a growing role in the global community. Its ascension is likely to be one of…

The economic activity of the U.S. has plummeted in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and unemployment has soared—largely the result of social distancing policies designed to slow the spread of the virus. The depth and speed of the decline will rival that of the Great Depression. But will the aftermath be as painful? Or…

In this week’s episode, John Page, a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program, assesses the potential role of several economic strategies in transforming Africa’s industrial development for the global economy. “Between now and about 2030, the estimates are that as many as 85 million jobs at [the] bottom end of manufacturing will…

Robert Crandall and Clifford Winston respond to Paul Krugman's recent New York Times Magazine article which laments the current state of macroeconomics. The authors call attention to the fact that Krugman did not mention the state of microeconomics which, they argue, has not suffered any serious intellectual setbacks from the current Great Recession.

The Paris Agreement, adopted by the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015, has now been signed by 197 countries. It entered into force in 2016. The agreement established a process for moving the world toward stabilizing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations at a level that would avoid dangerous climate…

Adele Morris is a senior fellow in Economic Studies and policy director for Climate and Energy Economics at Brookings. She recently served as a discussant for a paper as part of the Spring 2019 BPEA conference.Her research informs critical decisions related to climate change, energy, and tax policy. She is a leading global expert on the design…

On January 27, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted a panel discussion on economic sanctions and their implications for advancing U.S. foreign policy objectives. Moderated by Robert Bosch Senior Visiting Fellow Jim Goldgeier, the panel included experts with a combined background on the use of sanctions in the Middle East, Latin America, and North Korea: Brookings…

On March 30, 2014, 500,000 Taiwanese, according to some observers, gathered in a rally against the hasty ratification of the contentious Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement (CSSTA). The rally marked the climax of the recently concluded 24-day student-led sit-in protest inside Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (LY). Some considered the protest’s rationale plausible and others did not; regardless, a sound resolution…

Cross-Strait relations have marked a path of reduced tension and increasing cooperation after the election of President Ma Ying-jeou of the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in 2008. Taiwan’s efforts to institutionalize its engagement with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), particularly in trade and investment activities, presents both opportunities and challenges on both sides…

On April 7, Ryan Hass spoke on a panel about China's Belt and Road Initiative and China's relations with the Middle East during a session of the "World Economic Forum on the Middle East and Africa," which was held in Amman, Jordan.

An economic analysis of a sample of neighborhoods in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area using walkability measures finds that: More walkable places perform better economically. For neighborhoods within metropolitan Washington, as the number of environmental features that facilitate walkability and attract pedestrians increase, so do office, residential, and retail rents, retail revenues, and for-sale…

You might be getting whiplash from the latest takes: millennials, a driving force behind the revival of cities, are now fleeing for the suburbs? While the latest census data do show this geographic phenomenon, we should be careful about using an old framing–city versus suburb–to understand a new trend: the growing market for walkable urban…

In 2012, the Chinese government announced two centennial goals. The first was to double the 2010 GDP and per capita income for both urban and rural residents by 2021. The second was to build China into a fully developed country by 2049, the year when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrates its centenary. Indeed,…

If the intended aim of the new round of U.S. sanctions were to change Iran’s behavior, it already has. Just not the behavior the Trump team had in mind—Iran abandoning its pursuit of pro-market economic reforms. President Hassan Rouhani, who was elected twice, in 2013 and 2017, on a platform of liberal economic reforms, has…

There are many benefits to offering an updated version of home economics at school.

Environmental sustainability doesn’t have to come at the expense of economic development.

It would be hell if the Covid-19 breaks out in Nigeria on the scale presently being witnessed in Europe and the US. Apart from the dire state of the healthcare system, 69 million Nigerians have no access to clean water. This invariably leads to water-borne diseases like cholera, which continue to break out as regular epidemics. Social distancing and self-isolation presuppose that people have enough space. In Lagos where we have over 100 slum areas, about 80 people can be found sharing a 10-room building with only two toilets and a bathroom being shared by all with no pipe-borne or treated water readily available.

Photo courtesy of Next Nature American Climate Values Survey Views on global warming may be more strongly politically and economically influenced than many may have hoped. The recently released results of the American Climate Values Survey, conducted

Another report on another geoengineering method that is likely too risky to try and utterly not cost-effective: Injecting aerosols into the atmosphere to slow warming (which would do absolutely nothing about ocean acidification, by the way).

Turns out, environmental issues are not about awareness. People get it.

Turkish cities have been the stage for culture clashes in recent years, as residents of rural areas moved to urban areas in large numbers, bringing what many urbanites see as

It could of been a great prototype for affordable efficient housing across Britain.

According to the research of author David Simon, the externalized cost of our animal food system totals about $414 billion per year, which is carried by all of us.

Anti-greens often try to make economic arguments against the big spring-cleaning that our civilization is going through.

Summary of the 2014 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum

Recommendations from Astana Economic Forum 2015

Researchers at Cambridge University and the U.S. Federal Reserve Board found that imposing no lockdown measures in the face of Covid-19 was "extremely risky" for developed economies.

The U.S. services sector contracted for the first time in about a decade last month as the coronavirus pandemic brought economic activity in the country to a near-screeching halt.

Markets are unlikely to react to bad economic data in the second quarter, says Brian Belski of BMO Capital Markets, adding that any volatility seen near-term will be from a resurgence in U.S.-China trade tensions.

Bankrate's Mark Hamrick discusses the findings of a new survey on how Americans are feeling about their financial health, more than a month into coronavirus stay-at-home measures.

Steven Wieting of Citi Private Bank discusses whether the equity markets may be running ahead of themselves, given the many still-unknowns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sylvia Jablonski of Direxion discusses the disconnect between real economic conditions on the ground and how the markets are reacting amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Julian Emanuel of BTIG discusses whether health data related to the virus pandemic has become the market's new economic data.

Sen. Ted Cruz said a group of nine senators recently ripped into the Saudi ambassador to the United States in a conference call over its oil price war with Russia.

Strategists debate how long it will take to contain the coronavirus outbreak as it hits the United States and roils markets.

EU Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni discusses the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic across the euro zone.

Fabrice Montagne, chief U.K. economist at Barclays, discusses the U.K. economy.

HSBC's first-quarter earnings were not surprising given the global economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, says Filippo Alloatti, senior credit analyst at Federated Hermes. He also discusses the bank's decision to suspend share buybacks and dividend payouts for now.

Miguel Azevedo of Citi discusses the coronavirus pandemic's impact on Middle Eastern nations, mergers and acquisitions, and economic activity in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

A new survey finds nearly 9 in 10 Americans say the COVID-19 crisis is causing stress on their personal finances, highlighting the importance of financial literacy.

Covid-19 has forced epidemiology and economics to become intertwined as never before.

As small businesses across the country grapple with economic reopening, one of their biggest fears is that new regulations will be a net negative for post-Covid-19 Main Street.