Global Crises Global Solutions

In a world fraught with problems and challenges, we need to gauge how to achieve the greatest good with our money. In this volume each problem is introduced by a world expert defining the scale of the problem and describing the costs and benefits of a range of policy options to improve the situation.

The first edition of Global Crises, Global Solutions was nominated as one of the books of the year by The Economist in 2004. This second edition asks: if we had more money to spend to help the world's poorest people, where could we spend it most effectively? Using a common framework of cost-benefit analysis a team of leading economists, including five Nobel prize winners, assess the attractiveness of a wide range of policy options for combating ten of the world's biggest problems: Air pollution, Conflicts, Diseases, Education, Global Warming, Malnutrition and Hunger, Sanitation and Clean Water, Subsidies and Trade Barriers, Terrorism, Women and Development. The arguments are clearly presented and fully referenced so that readers are encouraged to make their own evaluation of the menu of policy options on offer. Whether you agree or disagree with the economists' conclusions, there is a wealth of data and ideas to discuss and debate!

Out of the debate over the effectiveness of the policy responses to the 2008 global financial crisis as well as over the innovativeness of global governance comes this collection by leading academics and practitioners who explore the dynamics of economic crisis and impact. Edited by Paolo Savona, John J. Kirton, and Chiara Oldani Global Financial Crisis: Global Impact and Solutions examines the nature of the recent crisis, its consequences in major regions and countries, the innovations in the ideas, instruments and institutions that constitute national and regional policy responses, building on the G8's response at its L'Aquila Summit. Experts from Africa, North America, Asia and Europe examine the implications of those responses for international cooperation, coordination and institutional change in global economic governance, and identify ways to reform and even replace the architecture created in the mid 20th century in order to meet the global challenges of the 21st.

Publisher Description

In conversations with people all over the world, from government officials and business leaders to taxi drivers and schoolteachers, Blair Sheppard, global leader for strategy and leadership at PricewaterhouseCoopers, discovered they all had surprisingly similar concerns. In this prescient and pragmatic book, he and his team sum up these concerns in what they call the ADAPT framework: Asymmetry of wealth; Disruption wrought by the unexpected and often problematic consequences of technology; Age disparities—stresses caused by very young or very old populations in developed and emerging countries; Populism as a symptom of the breakdown in global and national consensus; and loss of Trust in the institutions that underpin and stabilize society. These concerns are in turn precipitating four crises: a crisis of prosperity, a crisis of technology, a crisis of institutional legitimacy, and a crisis of leadership. Sheppard and his team analyze the complex roots of these crises—but they also offer solutions, albeit often seemingly counterintuitive ones. For example, in an era of globalization, we need to place a much greater emphasis on developing self-sustaining local economies. And as technology permeates our lives, we need computer scientists and engineers conversant with sociology and psychology and poets who can code. The authors argue persuasively that we have only a decade to make headway on these problems. But if we tackle them now, thoughtfully, imaginatively, creatively, and energetically, in ten years we could be looking at a dawn instead of darkness.

There is just no reason for millions to die, or for hundreds of millions more to suffer needlessly, when the solutions are at our fingertips. While we now have more technology on this planet than ever in history, we have an equally incredible measure of affliction, and it just doesn't add up. Today we number seven billion souls. We are not only more numerous, but in addition we each require a steady supply of food and water for many more years than our predecessors did. With more than three-quarters of our planet living on less than $5 US per day, we need a lot more than just aid, we need dramatic increases in the availability of education and efficient models based on free markets that can be easily implemented anywhere in the world. Radical Response confronts the problem of human survival through a bold new perspective. Authors Richard Lackey and Thom Garlock carefully survey the landscape of disaster relief, agriculture, aid and philanthropy, weigh the pros and cons of traditional approaches, and take stock of new technologies that are available to us for the first time in our history. When considered together, these factors have led the authors to an exciting new possibility for bringing aid to suffering populations. Moreover, they share the successes of several others that stimulate a new paradigm of thought. Through the implementation of new ideas we humans have survived on our fragile spinning rock, and that is how we can expect to create a bright future for generations to come.