BY ABIGAIL BELLOWS As pro-democracy revolutions swept the Arab world last year, citizens in the world’s two largest democracies also rose up. In India, a massive anticorruption movement spearheaded by activist Anna Hazare started in April 2011 and boomed in August. In the United States, Occupy Wall Street and its sister movements sprung up in […]

BY SHERRY HAKIMI After the 1979 Iranian revolution and subsequent Iran hostage crisis, the United States ended its diplomatic relationship with Iran. In the period since, veiled threats and economic sanctions have become the American government’s primary mode of engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. This strategy has further entrenched the Islamic Republic and […]

BY MARK TRUMAN In early 2009, I attempted to secure a loan through a new federal program designed to help entrepreneurs improve their cash flow by consolidating outstanding debt. As a cash-poor but profitable enterprise, my tutoring business, Omniac Education, seemed to be a perfect candidate for the program. Although we sometimes had trouble making […]

BY MARKUS SCHIMMER AND SVEN KUNISCH The primordial gods—along with the world economy—must be sitting at the edge of their seats right now as they watch a very Greek drama unfold in the European Union (EU). As public debt in the EU’s most vulnerable countries has reached higher and higher levels, several now face a […]

BY NISHANT LALWANI It’s a hot Saturday morning in Ahmedabad, India—the last before the monsoons start—and Leeladhar Bhatt Hall is packed with visitors. Hundreds of people have gathered here to attend a two-day customer evaluation session by the Micro Housing Finance Company (MHFC). MHFC has partnered with a builder that is constructing apartments on the […]

BY BEN BEACHY AND JUSTIN ZORN What did the BP oil spill in 2010 mean for the U.S. economy? Progress. At least that’s the conclusion of the economy’s de facto benchmark—gross domestic product (GDP). As the massive oil slick seeped into the Gulf Shore, J.P. Morgan representatives noted that economic activity generated by cleanup efforts […]

BY SIMON ROWELL On the night of 10 February 2011, Tahrir Square in central Cairo was seething with people inspired by the prospect of unprecedented political change. Transformed from a busy, dirty transport hub, the square had become an oasis of calm and cleanliness, organized by voluntary systems for recycling, compost, lost-and-found items, and even […]

BY MELISSA SANDGREN There is a scene in The Iron Lady film where the actress who plays Margaret Thatcher is walking defiantly down a marble hall; the camera zooms in on her solitary pair of high heels amidst a sea of squeaky parliamentarian loafers. Thatcher pushes open the door to the lady’s restroom only to find a […]

BY JANE ZHU AND IAN METZLER Susan Tomkins will graduate from Harvard Medical School in May 2012 with $196,000 in loans. As a first-year student she had hoped to carry her father’s worn black medical bag into the rural Oregon community where she was born. But faced with the burden of high debt—totaling nearly $500,000 […]

If you want to learn a thing or two about business, just ask Leah Mugure Mwaura. Leah is a charming Kenyan grandmother and owner of a clothing wholesale business in Gikomba, a sprawling, dusty, crowded place on the outskirts of Nairobi that is now East Africa’s largest market. Every day, tens of thousands of Kenyans […]

By William Werkmeister This article was originally published in the 2012 edition of the Kennedy School Review. Entering 2012, the world finds itself in a precarious financial position. In January of this year, the World Bank released its new economic outlook, warning of a global, double-dip recession. “An escalation of the crisis would spare no […]

BY HANNA SIEGEL The American political system is exhibiting cracks. The approval rating for Congress has reached a record low of 13 percent, and more than 2.5 million voters have left the two major parties since the 2008 election (Washington Post-ABC News Poll 2012; Wolf 2011). Yet many Americans want change, and they are organizing […]