Infrastructure

If LAC wants to close its infrastructure gap and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, the region will need to significantly increase investment in infrastructure. The pre-pandemic annual investment level of 1.4% of GDP compares poorly with the 3.1% needed to close the gap. Finding innovative policies to finance them would ensure that […]

Abstract: Electric Vehicles (EVs) provide environmental benefits to society while simultaneously providing direct health and financial benefits to drivers who adopt them. While California’s progressive state policies have accelerated EV adoption, historic bias continues to be embedded in California’s “CALGreen” building code — effectively delivering the most benefits of EV driving to already-affluent single-family homeowners, […]

BY CAMERON LINDSAY Last month, 27 of the 28 national European Union ambassadors to Beijing denounced China’s “Silk Road” project as one that hampers free trade and places Chinese companies at an advantage. The sentiments, in response to China’s One Belt Initiative (OBI), strongly contrast the themes of cooperation, openness, and mutual benefits espoused by […]

BY MAX NATHANSON The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will change Pakistan. CPEC — a proposed network of highways, power plants, and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) worth a reported $62 billion — is set to bring Pakistan more than double the entire volume of foreign direct investment that the country received since 2008. But who, exactly, […]

Latin America’s economies are experiencing record growth. The continent’s middle class is expanding, and new jobs are flourishing in the global information economy. Yet, even as people are moving up from extreme poverty, 360 million citizens of Latin America and the Caribbean remain at what is known as the “bottom of the pyramid,” according to […]

How can we pursue faster, more resilient growth when economies are weighed down by structural deficiencies across the board? Infrastructure investment.

BY BENJAMIN CLAYTON I’m British, so I know what a waning superpower looks like. America, welcome to the club. In 2015, Joseph Nye, geopolitical analyst extraordinaire, published a book: “Is the American Century Over?” His answer: no. Across three dimensions of power – economic, hard, and soft – Nye concluded that only in the first […]

BY ANDREAS WESTGAARD As the 115th Congress continues to battle on issues like the Affordable Care Act, judicial nominations, and cabinet appointments, the media and partisans alike will hype the pervasive politics-as-blood-sport narrative. Diverging from that narrative, this piece focuses instead on what Republicans and Democrats could actually work on together. While bipartisan proposals will […]

The Government of the Dominican Republic (DR) recently created the Presidential Commission on Road Safety (“Comisión Presidencial para la Seguridad Vial”) as a coordination table for improving the road safety and traffic education in the country. These are two problems that need immediate public attention. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), using 2013 data, […]

BY WILL EBERLE When the water started turning brownish-black, residents of Flint, Michigan knew they had a problem. But it would take months before they learned the truth; a truth which should serve as a wake-up call to communities across America. And just this week, Flint’s newly-elected mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency […]

BY ANDREW DEYE This piece appeared in our 2015 print journal. You can order your copy here.  POLICY ISSUE OVERVIEW The United States, once a global leader in infrastructure competitiveness, now ranks 16th.1 The decline shows no signs of abating as federal, state, and local funds for infrastructure remain constrained, and government resources remain centered on […]