Richard N. Cooper

Bio: Richard N. Cooper is an academic researcher from Harvard University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Currency & World economy. The author has an hindex of 59, co-authored 230 publications receiving 22307 citations. Previous affiliations of Richard N. Cooper include Yale University.

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

Abstract: This paper is a book review of the book ‘The End of Poverty: Economic possibilities for our time’ written by Nobel Laureate Jeffrey Sacks (2005), an American renounced economist and director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University. In the book, Sachs talks about global poverty issues and their miseries in poor countries. Moreover, he provides statistics with examples of the many problems related to economic, educational, population, cultural, health and environmental issues. He narrates in detail the poverty of Malawi, Bangladesh, Kenya, India and Bolivia. The book compares and contrasts the economic histories of China, Russia and India. The book also narrates the current Chinese and Indian economic booms in the global context. The book contains economic histories of many countries; it has many suggestions for economic policy reforms and cooperation among rich and poor countries. It contains suggestions for improving donor funding plans, and strategies for ending poverty in poor countries. Jeffrey Sachs describes World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) activities and their wrong, stereotypical funding policies and strategies for different countries, particularly those in Africa. He identifies information technology (IT) flow, different technological innovations, technological change and its development (invention of the steam engine, use of coal, invention of the rail engine and railway, electrification of industry) and their contributions to world development. Poor countries are using less IT and technology; however. as a result, they get fewer benefits from them than rich countries. Hence there are needs for use of more IT in poor countries. The book suggests simultaneous trade investments in and aid to poor countries for their socio-economic development, in addition to technology and energy support to them. Moreover, at the end of the book, Jeffrey Sachs provides nine tips / actions / steps for ending poverty around the world: 1) adopt a plan of action; 2) raise the voice of the poor; 3) redeem the role of the United States in the World; 4) rescue the IMF and the World Bank (they have been misused as creditors; 5) run agencies, rather than international institutions, that represent all of the 182 member governments; 6) strengthen the United Nations; 7) harness global science; 8) promote sustainable development; 9) make a personal commitment. Author: Visiting Professor, Chittagong University, Bangladesh. Visiting Scholar, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Canada. Associate Professor, Noble International University, USA. However, to fulfill Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it is urgently necessary that rich countries donate the 0.7% Gross National per Capita (GNP) to poor countries that they committed to at the 1949 and other UN Conventions. Poverty exists in both poor and rich countries; therefore, it is necessary to challenge globalization with acts for proglobalization (good things) and initiate green social economic projects and services in rich as well as poor countries for the sake of ending their poverty.

The East Asian Financial Crisis: Diagnosis, Remedies, Prospects

Abstract: "HISTORY," JAWAHARLAL NEHRU famously observed, "is almost always written by the victors. " I Financial history, it seems, is written by the creditors. When a financial crisis arises, it is the debtors who are asked to take the blame. This is odd, since a loan agreement invariably has two parties. The failure of a loan usually represents miscalculations on both sides of the transaction or distortions in the lending process itself. The East Asian financial crisis has so far been true to form. As soon as the crisis hit in mid-1997, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which led the official international response, assigned primary responsibility to the shortcomings of East Asian capitalism, in particular, the East Asian financial markets. The IMF's principal strategy for the three countries hardest hit-Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand-was to overhaul their financial systems. The basic diagnosis was that East Asia had exposed itself to financial chaos because its financial systems were riddled by insider dealing, corruption, and weak corporate governance,

Growing World Trade: Causes and Consequences

Abstract: WHAT ASPECT OF the American economy has changed most in the twenty-five years since Brookings Papers on Economic Activity first began appearing? If you took a poll of economic journalists, businessmen, or policy intellectuals other than professional economists, globalization-the growing integration of the United States with the world economy-would probably top the list. It is now conventional wisdom in many circles that the growth of world trade and investment has transformed the ground rules for economic policy. Admittedly, many international economists regard the popular conviction that unprecedented globalization has changed everything as considerably exaggerated; Americans are still so taken with the novelty of extensive international trade that they have yet to acquire a sense of perspective about its importance. Even today the shares of imports and exports in America's GDP are only about half of what they were in the United Kingdom thirty years ago; the U.S. economy is not now, and may never be, as dependent on exports as Britain was during the reign of Queen Victoria. Nonetheless, international trade has certainly increased considerably since the 1960s. In 1960 the share of trade-measured as the average of imports and exports of goods and services-in America's GDP was 4.7 percent; in 1994 it was 11.4 percent, an increase of more than 100 percent. While the growth of trade has not been quite as dramatic in other advanced countries, it has also been considerable: the average OECD country had a trade share of 12.5 percent in 1960, 18.6 percent in 1990. And a number of developing countries have seen

A Brief History of Neoliberalism

Abstract: Introduction 1 Freedom's Just Another Word 2 The Construction of Consent 3 The Neoliberal State 4 Uneven Geographical Developments 5 Neoliberalism with 'Chinese Characteristics' 6 Neoliberalism on Trial 7 Freedom's Prospect Notes Bibliography Index

Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination

Abstract: The growing technical uncertainties and complexities of problems of global concern have made international policy coordination not only increasingly necessary but also increasingly difficult. If decision makers are unfamiliar with the technical aspects of a specific problem, how do they define state interests and develop viable solutions? What factors shape their behavior? Under conditions of uncertainty, what are the origins of international institutions? And how can we best study the processes through which international policy coordination and order emerge? While a variety of analytic approaches have been used to address the problems of international cooperation, the approaches have yielded only fragmentary insights. At its core, the study of policy coordination among states involves arguments about determinism versus free will and about the ways in which the international system is maintained and transformed. Among the overlapping topics of debate are whether national behavior is determined or broadly conditioned by system-level factors, unit-level factors, or some complex interplay between the two; whether state policymakers can identify national interests and behave independently of pressures from the social groups they nominally represent; and whether states respond consistently to opportunities to create, defend, or expand their own wealth and power, to enhance collective material benefits, or to promote nonmaterial values.' A related question of

International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

Abstract: Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

The next generation of scenarios for climate change research and assessment

Abstract: Advances in the science and observation of climate change are providing a clearer understanding of the inherent variability of Earth's climate system and its likely response to human and natural influences. The implications of climate change for the environment and society will depend not only on the response of the Earth system to changes in radiative forcings, but also on how humankind responds through changes in technology, economies, lifestyle and policy. Extensive uncertainties exist in future forcings of and responses to climate change, necessitating the use of scenarios of the future to explore the potential consequences of different response options. To date, such scenarios have not adequately examined crucial possibilities, such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, and have relied on research processes that slowed the exchange of information among physical, biological and social scientists. Here we describe a new process for creating plausible scenarios to investigate some of the most challenging and important questions about climate change confronting the global community.