High levels of economic inequality lead to imbalances in political power, as those at the top use their economic weight to shape our politics in ways that give them more economic power.
Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight.
Behind Trump's promise to 'make America great again' lie many fallacies. The most important fallacy is that America's place in the world can be restored to the one it occupied after World War II, when Europe was still recovering from vast devastation and most developing countries were still European colonies. It can't be.
Globalization and trade liberalization were supposed to make us all better off through the mechanism of trickle-down economics. What we seemed to be seeing instead was trickle-up economics, accompanied by a destruction of democratic politics, as we moved ever closer to a system of 'one dollar, one vote' as opposed to 'one person, one vote.'
I grew up in a family in which political issues were often discussed, and debated intensely.
The U.S. basically wrote the rules and created the institutions of globalisation.
To maximise global social welfare, policymakers should strongly encourage the diffusion of knowledge from developed to developing countries.
Macroeconomic policy can never be devoid of politics: it involves fundamental trade-offs and affects different groups differently.
If Trump wants to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, the rest of the world should impose a carbon-adjustment tax on U.S. exports that do not comply with global standards.
Certainly, the poverty, the discrimination, the episodic unemployment could not but strike an inquiring youngster: why did these exist, and what could we do about them.
A lot of my book, 'The Price of Inequality,' is about why there has been an increase in rent-seeking.
When you're in government, you have a big impact in Washington, but Washington may not be doing very much.
Globally, manufacturing jobs are on the decline, simply because productivity growth has outpaced growth in demand.
An economy in which most citizens are doing worse year after year - an economy like America's - is not likely to do well over the long haul.
What separates developing countries from developed countries is as much a gap in knowledge as a gap in resources.
One can only hope that America, and other countries, will not need more natural persuasion before taking to heart the lessons of Hurricane Harvey.
After the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the shutdown of much of New York City by Sandy in 2012, and now the devastation wrought on Texas by Harvey, the U.S. can and should do better.
In debate, one randomly was assigned to one side or the other. This had at least one virtue - it made one see that there was more than one side to these complex issues.
Europe can't rely on a Trump-led U.S. for its defence. But, at the same time, it should recognise that the cold war is over - however unwilling to acknowledge it America's industrial-military complex may be.
The extra curricular activity in which I was most engaged - debating - helped shape my interests in public policy.
