News

Big Government Is Turbo-Charging the U.S. Economy. Can It Transform Europe?

June 11, 2021

The Atlas of Economic Complexity in the Wall Street Journal

Now that the West fears losing its economic lead, it is slowly shifting gears. On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed a $250 billion bill designed to help American companies face off against China, which includes building up domestic semiconductor capacity. The EU is granting antitrust exemptions to climate-focused industrial policy.

Yet Northern Europe seems more predisposed to identify favored sectors. Italian and Spanish officials remain reluctant, even though the Harvard Kennedy School of...

New Metroverse tool helps municipal planners, policymakers, and businesses identify opportunities for economic development

June 4, 2021

Metroverse in HKS News

Policymakers, urban planners, and businesspeople now have unprecedented access to key economic data for more than 1,000 urban areas in 79 countries, thanks to the launch of the new Metroverse analysis tool from the Growth Lab at Harvard’s Center for International Development.

The new project is an outgrowth of the Atlas of Economic Complexity, which examines countries’ technological capabilities and...

Personal Touch Lost By Travel Bans Is Costing Businesses Dearly

March 1, 2021

Growth Lab research in Bloomberg

A full reboot of global commerce is counting on business travelers being allowed to cross borders again. But even as vaccine rollouts gather pace, a return to a pre-pandemic ...

Why Rich Countries Should Subsidize Vaccination Around the World

January 30, 2021

Muhammed Yildirim in The New Yorker

More than half of all available COVID-19 vaccine doses have been ordered by wealthier nations; meanwhile, many of the world’s...

HKS faculty reimagine the world of work

January 28, 2021

Ljubica Nedelkoska in HKS Magazine

THIS PAST YEAR HAS ILLUMINATED the fragility and failures of work in new ways. The coronavirus pandemic resulted in layoffs and furloughs for millions around the world. Some have lost their jobs in struggling or shifting industries and don’t have the skills to explore other fields. Many essential workers—from health aides to grocery clerks—have been forced to make grim trade-offs between personal health and financial security. Unpredictable and stressful schedules, discriminatory and unfair organizational practices and procedures,...

The pandemic dealt a blow to global trade and revived an old dream: Self-reliance

December 23, 2020

The Atlas of Economic Complexity in The Washington Post

When the pandemic hit, Ghana called on companies to change gears. Shirtmakers switched to cotton masks. A cosmetics lab churned out hand sanitizer. Dress sewers crafted face shields.

Those goods normally came from Chinese factories, but China had largely closed for business. Beijing’s shipments to Ghana plunged by nearly 50 percent in March, sending the West African nation of 31 million scrambling for backups.

Venezuelan oil could become world’s biggest stranded asset, say experts

November 18, 2020

Financial Times

Once a wealthy oil exporter, Venezuela’s hopes of reviving its shattered economy are pinned on huge investment in extracting one of the world’s most carbon-heavy blends of crude.

But concerns about climate change are upending energy markets worldwide, and some experts believe much of the country’s most valuable asset will remain stranded in the ground.

Some insist that Venezuela’s oil has not yet lost its allure. Ricardo Hausmann, a former Venezuelan planning minister in the 1990s now at Harvard University’s Centre for...

Zoom and Gloom

October 8, 2020

The Economist

...Recent research by Michele Coscia of the University of Copenhagen, and Frank Neffke and Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard University, finds that a permanent shutdown of international business travel would shrink global gross product by an astonishing 17% by hindering flows of knowledge across borders. The shift in favour of remote work also looks curiously like an anglosphere phenomenon; workers in mainland Europe have been swifter to return to the office than those in Britain and America.

Nonetheless, the shift will lead to significant...

When should we hit the road again?

September 7, 2020

Financial Times

...That business travel was necessary for business success appeared clear before the Covid crisis. The Growth Lab, a research unit at Harvard’s Center for International Development, looked at international travel spending by holders of corporate credit and debit cards between 2011 and 2016. It found that where there was business travel, there were measurable benefits in growth and employment, both in the countries the travellers came from, but particularly in the countries they travelled to.

The transfer of knowledge was vital to business...

How should world channel aid to Lebanon in wake of blast?

August 13, 2020

Ricardo Hausmann in Anadolu Agency News

How should the world channel aid to Lebanon in wake of blast? Given the huge humanitarian and economic fallout from the deadly blast, one thing is clear: Lebanon will have to get a large injection of international aid. But with its government in tatters, how, and through whom?

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Ricardo Hausmann, founder and director of the Growth Lab at Harvard's Center for International Development, said there is no easy solution for doing this without effective government.