“India is a country that is very vulnerable to the fallout to the readjustment of global interest rates,” says Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate economist at Columbia University in New York, and a former chief economist at the World Bank.
Edward Glaeser of Harvard University, Bruce Sacerdote of Dartmouth College and José Scheinkman of Columbia University describe a “social-multiplier” effect, which boils down to the notion that spending time in a particular way is more enjoyable when others do the same. It is costly to miss work when others are there, and more fun to attend festivals when others are also free to do so. Individual flexibility in choosing working time is important; different people have different needs and preferences. But at some level, society as a whole must judge whether or not there is more to life than work.
The what-to-do-about-it is what concerns Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University in New York. The fight over how to treat the IPCC report, which is regarded as the premier science on this issue, is a massive distraction, he said. “What’s sad is how much time is wasted on those words because what’s really looming over this are the acts of the Trump administration and a few other governments to willfully put the planet at risk,” Sachs said.
Bernard Salanié discusses the protests in Paris.
Columbia University professor David Weinstein, an expert in international trade, said there’s some evidence that Chinese corporations may be reducing prices to absorb a fraction of the tariffs to stay more competitive in American markets, but he said consumers are paying most of it.
Just under 10 years ago, the international Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress issued its report, Mismeasuring Our Lives: Why GDP Doesn’t Add Up. The title summed it up: GDP is not a good measure of wellbeing. … Joseph E Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics, university professor at Columbia University.