Kennedy School Review

BY DOREEN HORSCHIG The total elimination of existing nuclear weapons worldwide, so-called “Global Zero,” at this point in time is neither feasible nor desirable for U.S. national security interests. A cold stability — regional and global stability provided through a threat of nuclear weapons — demonstrates the continued efficacy of existing nuclear weapons on the world […]

BY BRYNNA QUILLIN On Monday night, the world finally got to see Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off for the first presidential debate. Watching the two candidates on stage together was striking. Hillary Clinton is one of the most, if not the most, qualified presidential candidates in history, with an extensive resume: First Lady, […]

BY BEN BLINK I was disappointed last week to learn that Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson was officially excluded from the three U.S. presidential debates. The two-term New Mexico governor, who cares equally about reducing budget deficits, protecting civil liberties, and improving the justice system, will not get a podium. I was frustrated, but hardly […]

BY GRANT TUDOR September 25 marks the first anniversary of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): a list of global ambitions for improving the state of things. The first is to “end poverty.” The goal’s various targets, which intend to elaborate on what exactly is meant by ending poverty, tell us that by 2030 all […]

BY SARAH TESAR AND PITICHOKE CHULAPAMORNSRI The people of San Francisco, hoping to transform their city into a bustling economic metropolis, built the Golden Gate Bridge to connect two previously divided urban areas. During the peak of the Great Depression, the city issued forty-year municipal bonds that paid 5% interest in order to finance the […]

BY ANSHUL PACHOURI The year 2016 marks an important milestone in India’s innovation story. First, India’s rank in the global innovation index improved quite significantly from 81st position in 2015 to 66th position in 2016. Second, the country also launched its flagship program Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) to advance its national innovation ecosystem under the […]

BY NIKOLAS OTT AND HUGO ZYLBERBERG Practical yet effective digital data regulations are an enormous policy challenge. Both in the United States and in Europe, businesses, privacy-advocacy groups, and government all have competing interests, and they are struggling to find a workable solution. Meanwhile, machines are tracking their users in an ever-increasing number of ways. […]

BY JOE LEE For decades, Times Square was severely congested, prone to pedestrian accidents, and lacking spaces to rest. In 2008, New York City sought to tackle these problems by mapping the diversity and number of human activities that occurred there. It traced walking patterns to identify “pedestrians’ desire lines” in relation to sidewalks and […]

BY LAUREN VIEHBACHER In the span of three days this past March, bombs ripped through daily life in Istanbul and Brussels. Police flooded Istiklal Street in Istanbul, a famous pedestrian stretch usually humming with shoppers. Helicopters circled overhead, citizens scattered in terror, and yellow tape fluttered across the street. Five people were killed and close […]

BY BENJAMIN GOH In 2015, Business Insider magazine predicted ten million self-driving vehicles will be on US roads in the next five years.[i] While many people are eagerly awaiting the ability to read, eat, or check email as their cars themselves do the driving, this raises a whole host of critical questions. Who is at fault if […]

BY EDWARD CUIPA On 16 December 2015, the US Federal Reserve announced the first increase in the federal funds rate in almost a decade, hiking the target benchmark rate range by 0.25 percentage points to 0.25–0.50 percentage points.[i] The move impacts economic growth because the federal funds rate sets the rate at which banks can […]

BY MALINI BOSE At the World Bank Spring Meetings this year, Raghuram Rajan, the head of India’s central bank christened India a “one-eyed king in the land of the blind” when asked to comment on the rapidly-growing Indian economy in the context of flagging global growth. The country’s growth-focused government did not approve—Finance Minister Arun […]