Read all posts from ‘Global Issues’

  No one knows what the term “music industry” means in Ecuador.  We did have one a long time ago, I think, but it just disappeared because local music couldn’t compete with foreign imports. Nowadays local music can’t compete with them either, even though worldwide record sales are poor and the […]

When economic growth is not a given anymore, how can democratically elected governments trigger growth, maintain the welfare state and keep public spending down all at the same time? The answer is easy: they simply can’t. European welfare states have come to a crossroads. On the one hand, private investors […]

Protests, Poverty and Prosperity in Perspective 2012 started with a bang in Bucharest. The usually sedate Romanian capital erupted with protests the likes of which had not been seen for at least a decade. At first glance it seemed that people were angry with new healthcare legislation and the ousting of a […]

Call it a coup, or a revolution, or even a coup-volution, but whatever you call it the truth is that on June 30th millions of Egyptians went onto the streets demonstrating against Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood rule. And that two days later the army could easily remove him from […]

Like many other structural policies, free trade agreements are a tool used by governments to achieve their objectives. Now tools can be used or misused, and in this case the tool is not being used to its fullest potential. Free Trade Agreements need to be handled with due care if they […]