European and Global Economic Crisis Series: "Europe At The Cross Road – Ending or Finalizing the EMU"
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Jacob Funk Kirkegaard has been a research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics since 2002 and is also a senior associate at the Rhodium Group, a New York-based research firm. Before joining the Institute, he worked with the Danish Ministry of Defense, the United Nations in Iraq, and in the private financial sector. He is a graduate of the Danish Army's Special School of Intelligence and Linguistics with the rank of first lieutenant; the University of Aarhus in Aarhus, Denmark; and Columbia University in New York.
He is author of The Accelerating Decline in America's High-Skilled Workforce: Implications for Immigration Policy (2007) and coauthor of US Pension Reform: Lessons from Other Countries (2009) and Transforming the European Economy (2004) and assisted with Accelerating the Globalization of America: The Role for Information Technology (2006). His current research focuses on European economies and reform, pension systems and accounting rules, demographics, offshoring, high-skilled immigration, and the impact of information technology.
Jacob Kierkegaard interviews on the European financial crisis can be found in the following NPR articles:
"Why European Leaders are Suddenly Backing More Bank Bailouts"
"Ireland Went Down with its Banks. Why Didn't that Happen in the U.S.?"
"Is This Europe's 'Lehman Moment'? Banks Don't Think So"
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Jacob Kirkegaard
Research Fellow
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Peterson Institute for International Economics
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In War and Cold War: Edward Teller and the Other Martians of Science
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An extraordinary group of scientists in the last century included the aerodynamicist Theodore von Kármán, the physicists Leo Szilard, Eugene P. Wigner, and Edward Teller, and the mathematician John von Neumann. These Jewish-Hungarians first left Hungary for Germany, then were forced out of Europe, and in the United States they became instrumental in the defense of the Free World during World War II and the Cold War. The lessons of their lives and oeuvres will be discussed with emphasis on the most controversial one, Edward Teller, known also as “the father of the Hydrogen Bomb.”
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István Hargittai is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and the Academia Europaea (London). He is a Ph.D. of Eötvös University (Budapest), D.Sc. of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Dr.h.c. of Moscow State University, the University of North Carolina, and the Russian Academy of Sciences. His recent books include the six-volume Candid Science series (2000-2006), The Road to Stockholm (2002; 2003), Our Lives (2004), Martians of Science (2006; 2007), The DNA Doctor (2007), Judging Edward Teller (2010), and Drive and Curiosity (2011).
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István Hargittai
Professor of Chemistry, Budapest University of Technology and Economics
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Seminars
Indonesia promotes its economic and political strengths
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Indonesia is strategically positioning itself to play an even greater role in global economics and politics, particularly by promoting its stable political system and the opportunities for foreign investment there. Southeast Asia Forum director Donald K. Emmerson spoke recently with the Straits Times about the Indonesian government's strategy and about the global conditions favoring the country's growth.
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Jakarta's Stock Exchange building, July 2011.
Flickr/nSeika
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New Series: European and Global Economic Crisis
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The Europe Center has launched its series addressing the European and global economic crisis. The Europe Center is hosting research and outreach programming and podcast interviews on such key elements as the depth of sovereign and private sector debt, public sector reform, and the policies and political constraints on leadership on both sides of the Atlantic.
Programming open to the public includes the following talks by senior analysts visiting and in residence at The Europe Center at FSI:
- Josef Joffe, Senior Fellow, FSI, and publisher-editor of “Die Zeit”
- Robin Niblett, Director, Chatham House Royal Institute for International Affairs
- Jacob Kirkegaard, Peterson Institute for International Economics
Additional research and policy analysts will be added to the series throughout the year.
Details on this series, including dates of the talks are available on the European and Global Economic Crisis Series page.
Video and podcast interviews are available at the Europe Center and FSI home pages.
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A new study looks at the economics of counterinsurgency
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A new study by Joseph Felter, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Eli Berman, finds that the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, which focuses on working with local populations on small, community-based projects like digging wells or paving rural roads, has reduced violence. Researchers found no evidence, however, that larger projects had the same effect. Read the study below.
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African Agricultural Productivity Growth and R&D in a Global Setting
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This paper was prepared for Stanford University’s Global Food Policy and Food Security Symposium Series, hosted by the Center on Food Security and the Environment, and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Relative to other regions of the world, most African economies are still heavily reliant on agriculture as a source of income and employment. And with more than 70 percent of the continent’s poor residing in rural areas, the production and productivity performance of African agriculture is pivotal to overall economic growth and the well-being of the poorest people in the region. After a dismal decade of output growth in the 1970s, the rate of aggregate agricultural output growth picked up for each of the subsequent three decades, and averaged 2.83 percent per year during the 2000s. With population growing at still record rates by world standards, per capita output grew much more slowly, just 0.36 percent per year during the past decade.
The productivity evidence is mixed and difficult to summarize. The rate of African crop yield growth (at least for the four crops given closer attention in this paper: corn, wheat, rice and soybean) is generally slower than elsewhere in the world, and in keeping with patterns seen elsewhere there has been a slowdown in the pace of average crop yield growth in Africa since around 1990. African land and labor productivity levels also generally lag those found elsewhere in the world, although aggregate land productivity in Africa outperformed that of Australia and New Zealand, another region of the world with challenging agricultural soils and heavy reliance on erratic (and often agriculturally marginal) weather. The reported rates of growth in multi-factor productivity (MFP) for African agriculture are also low by world standards, but the body of available evidence suggests that African MFP growth rates picked up in recent years. Unfortunately, the lack of reliable data and differences in the analytical details between the available studies makes it hard to reconcile the evidence and reach robust conclusions about MFP performance throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Productivity levels and growth rates are affected by a host of factors, not least the technologies linking inputs to outputs and, by implication, the amount, nature and effectiveness of the innovative effort that develops and deploys these technologies. Although overall investments in African public agricultural research and development (R&D) have increased during the past decade or so, the growth in spending is not especially widespread and dominated by growth in just a few countries. Nigeria and Ethiopia account for half the region’s increase in agricultural R&D spending from 2000-2005—the latest year for which data are presently available. The intensity of public investment (i.e., agricultural R&D spending relative to the value of agricultural output) has increased as well. However, during the 2000-2005 period Africa spent just $0.54 on public research for every $100 of agricultural output, almost half the corresponding rest-of-world intensity ($1.05) and one-fifth of the rich country average ($2.70). Fragmented and typically small research agencies, and unstable funding streams still bedevil African agricultural research endeavors and undermine efficiencies in agricultural research that are intrinsically long-term in nature. Turning around these research realties in a meaningful and sustained fashion will be critical to realizing the long-term growth in African agriculture productivity that will be required to grow that sector in particular and the region’s economies more generally.
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Center on Food Security and the Environment
Oil palm development in Indonesia: Demand, trade, and land use
Indonesia is currently the world’s top palm oil producer. Since the 1980s total land area planted to palm oil has increased by over 2,100 percent growing to 4.6 million hectares – the equivalent of six Yosemite National Parks. Plantation growth has predominately occurred on deforested native rainforest with major implications for global carbon emissions and biodiversity.
Who is more digital? Teenagers in China or Silicon Valley?
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High School students in Palo Alto, Calif., spend more time using digital media daily than their counterparts in Beijing, but the Chinese youths are more likely to build networks online only according to a new study from Stanford University.
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS — Who is more digitally switched on – high school students in Silicon Valley or Beijing?
A new study from Stanford University provides some clues. High schoolers in Palo Alto, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley, spend significantly more time using digital media every day than their peers at leading high schools in the Chinese capital. However, Chinese students sometimes outpace their American counterparts in embracing the latest internet technologies and building a network of online friends they have never met in person.
The Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE), part of the university's Graduate School of Business, looked into the digital lives of teens in Silicon Valley and China's capital. Seventy-one high schoolers, 44 from Palo Alto and 27 from Beijing, were surveyed online earlier this month. The students, between the ages of 16 and 18, were asked about their usage of different types of consumer electronics and communications, including how much time they spent daily on a range of online activities.
While the California teens spent significantly more time than their Beijing peers using social networking sites and blogging, Beijing students spent considerably more time watching films and videos over the internet, hardly watching television at all. The Beijing teens were much more likely to have online-only friends, and more of them (44% versus 16%) touted Apple's iPad tablets than the Palo Alto respondents.
The study suggested the emergence of a "digital tribe" of teens transcending cultures and geographic borders, especially in tech hotspots such as Silicon Valley and Beijing. "In certain urban locations, today's teens are native 'netizens'," said Marguerite Gong Hancock, associate director of SPRIE. "Most teens in our survey in both Palo Alto and Beijing have had mobile phones since the age of 12. They lead a large part of their daily lives online."
The survey and other research into patterns of entrepreneurship and venture capital investment was discussed September 30 at a Stanford conference addressing the rise of the internet in China. The gathering, China 2.0: Transforming Media and Commerce organized by SPRIE, included speakers from leading internet companies in China, entrepreneurs, and venture capital investors.
In advance of the conference, SPRIE polled the high school students with the assistance of Beijing-based Danwei.org, a Beijing research and information firm. Most of the American teens attend Palo Alto High School, while most of the Beijing students go to People's University Annex High School. Forty-one females and 30 males participated.
SPRIE researchers wanted to get a snapshot of the digital lifestyle of young urban Chinese expected to shape China's technology future. "These are the influencers and early adopters," said Hancock.
China's internet population of about 485 million has already surpassed the approximately 250 million users in the United States. "Understanding the habits of the next generation of Chinese netizens is increasingly important to investors and new media companies. The 'born after 1990' generation in China will play a role in influencing global adoption of new technologies and business models" said Duncan Clark, chairman of consulting firm BDA China, and senior advisor of the China 2.0 project at SPRIE.
There were major similarities between Palo Alto and Beijing students. On weekdays, the top online activity for both was doing schoolwork, followed by using social networking sites and downloading and listening to music. On weekends among the Beijing students, schoolwork remained the leading activity, followed by social networking and web surfing. On weekends in Silicon Valley, students spent the most time on social networking sites, followed by schoolwork and music. In both countries, the teens overwhelmingly favored texting to communicate with friends, although the Beijing teens were less likely to text their parents than the Palo Alto group.
Overall, the U.S. teens spent significantly more time than their Chinese counterparts on almost all types of internet activities. The Palo Alto students spent roughly twice as long (two hours a day) on social networking sites. By contrast, the Beijing teens were much more likely to watch videos and films online.
The study suggested that teens in China rely more heavily on the internet as an emotional and social outlet. In Beijing, more than 90% of respondents said they have friends they know only over the internet. That compared with 29% in Palo Alto. "China's post-'90s single-child generation faces limited play time and heavy academic pressures. The internet enables teens to live out a whole other life online," said Clark.
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