Policy Paper: Fairly Trading the World's Timber .jpg)
Reducing timber loss through responsible management of the world’s forest stock has the power to reduce poverty, conflict, and greenhouse gases. This policy paper details efforts to date and provides comprehensive proposals for much needed action.
Age of Greed
WPI Senior Fellow Jeff Madrick describes the history of how greed has bred America’s economic ills over the last forty years, and of the men most responsible for them. He recounts the single-minded pursuit of huge personal wealth that has been on the rise in the United States since the 1970s, led by a few individuals who have argued that self-interest guides society more effectively than community concerns.
Monthly President's Letter
Happy New Year!
It’s early enough in 2012 that hopefully all of your resolutions are intact. At the World Policy Institute, we’ve got a set of resolutions of our own, in the form of questions that we’ll focus on answering in the coming year.
What does it take for civil society to be civil? We cannot have democracy without free speech. Yet breakdowns in public discourse have led to failed political systems and worse: a poisonous political environment and gridlock in the United States, the rumors that catalyzed violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt, or the violent speech that has led to atrocities in Africa and elsewhere. How can we prevent these failures while protecting free speech?
How can the world manage increasingly scarce and fragile water resources? In face of rising energy, agricultural, and population pressures, what should governments, businesses, and individuals do to ensure that we are consuming this vital resource sustainably?
Are citizens better or worse off when nations crack down on non-citizens? We’ll look at countries and communities that are both opening and closing their immigration and citizenship policies and analyze the results, which we believe will challenge the conventional wisdom that improving citizens’ lives is a zero-sum game where which migrants and minorities are concerned.
How can countries work together to head off another global financial crisis? The catastrophic failures of 2008 are an example of what happens when regulation and supervision fall short, with consequences that respect no borders. What policies can harmonize nations’ efforts to improve the world financial architecture and reduce the risks inherent in global financial flows?
How do nations balance economic and military power? Economic health, access to key resources, non-state-actors, and cyber-security are just a few of the non-traditional security issues confronting the world. In an era of financial constraints and new security threats, what should be the top priorities in thinking about security budgets?
We look forward to engaging you in our efforts to address these five challenges of an interdependent world, which we believe are crucial but have not yet received the attention they need.
Regards,
Michele Wucker
President
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