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When companies or individuals make investments in a business in another country, experts call this “foreign direct investment.” Today, China is the fastest growing source of such investments. From the early 1990s to 2015, Chinese and Hong Kong’s foreign direct investments increased from a few hundred million to $2.5 trillion...

International law is in a rough period. Since 2016 institutions as varied as the European Court of Human Rights, the World Trade Organization, and the International Criminal Court have been harshly criticized by politicians chafing at their strictures. The reasons for growing dissatisfaction vary. Africans unhappy with human rights prosecutions...

Many citizens in Europe and the United States believe that the quality of democracy has declined over the last few decades. Political cartelization and patronage-oriented styles of governance can help explain how parties collude to survive as public debates narrow and the grassroots bases of parties wither. Global development ties...

American cities have long been unequal places – with big class and racial gaps that often overlap. Residents of particular neighborhoods often experience many severe deprivations all at once. Scholars try to understand these overlapping urban inequalities by mapping concentrations of racial and ethnic groups along with those areas that...

Minimum wage increases have become a key issue for many candidates running for local, state, and national offices. The federal minimum wage has not increased since 2009, and at the current level of $7.25 per hour, even full-time minimum wage workers often find themselves eligible for means-tested public benefits such...

When deciding who to hire, about half of U.S. employers consider credit histories. The Fair Credit Reporting Act lets employers pull credit records for applicants, but since 2007 legislators in 11 states and a handful of cities have passed laws limiting the practice – out of concern that it perpetuates...

Starting in late April of 2018, the small Central American country Nicaragua entered the media spotlight as massive street protests rocked the decade-long authoritarian regime of President Daniel Ortega. Brutal government repression has killed over 200 and led to intensified calls for Ortega to step down. Although nobody could have...

Black people and members of other minority groups are often optimistic about their economic and social prospects, even when they face real economic deprivation and social marginalization. Why is this? In my research on the topic, I find that members of marginalized groups often subscribe to dominant narratives and ideas...

Individuals and households are, on a daily basis, required to make decisions related to consumption, savings, and investments. All of these financial decisions are plagued by risk – a complex concept with negative connotations and no single, agreed upon method of measurement. When faced with financial risk, individuals exhibit varying...

The 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty attracted little attention in 2015; and the 20th anniversary of welfare reform was barely noticed the following year. Although poverty tends to be overlooked by elected officials, policy experts, and the media, it remains a large and chronic social problem. According to...