International trade policies and new technologies facilitate the flow of people, information, and products across national borders, in turn encouraging the integration of regional economies, societies, and cultures. RAND research has investigated how globalization affects and has been affected by policymaking throughout the world.
The authors look at four trade policy options for Japan and the United States. They evaluate each option for each country based on its impact on international relations and economic growth and its political and practical feasibility and conclude that the best option for both nations is to move forward cooperatively with the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.
Social media was used in the 2009 protests to organize and communicate under government censorship. An analysis of more than 2.5 million tweets discussing the Iran election holds promise for such policy uses as assessing public opinion and forecasting events such as large-scale protests.
Globalization, consolidation, information technology, and litigation financing are changing the way legal services are provided in the United States. This paper offers a framework for examining recent and ongoing innovations in U.S. legal services to aid policymakers in understanding the likely effects of innovations and the role of policy in promoting or deterring innovation, and to provide criteria that policymakers might use to decide…
This paper presents a theory of natural alliances in which commonalities in political culture are a strategic asset for better coordination and greater predictability among partners. It applies this theory to the case of the US-European alliance.
Summary for: The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/Nano/Materials Trends and Their Synergies with Information Technology by 2015
Summary for: The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/Nano/Materials Trends and Their Synergies with Information Technology by 2015
The United States can become more energy efficient and create more "green" jobs by adopting some of the strategies used by the European Union and Australia to rate and disclose the performance of commercial and government-owned buildings.
China is a global actor of significant and growing importance, now integrated into the international system and altering that system's dynamics. The complexity of China's ever-changing global activism raises questions about its intentions and the implications for global stability and prosperity.
Will the current global economic recession have long-term geopolitical implications? Assuming that economic recovery begins in the first half of 2010, lasting structural alterations in the international system — a substantial change in U.S.-China relations, for example — are unlikely. This is because economic performance is only one of many geopolitical elements that shape countries' strategic intent and core external…
This report discussed concerns that the future of the UK's world class research base might be threatened by the decline in modern language learning and calls for a series of measures by Universities and Government bodies to address this danger.
This study of historical experience from an economics perspective explores various crises - from the Great Depression to the stagflation and recovery of the 1970s and 1980s to our current economic woes - and suggests the tools policymakers need to address what may be the worst case scenario.
China's Tianjin Binhai New Area (TBNA) and Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA) can best spur regional development and economic growth by focusing on emerging high-technology applications, including molecular-scale drug development and green manufacturing.
As China has moved toward a stronger role for private enterprise and capitalism it has also sought to adopt more Western-style oversight mechanisms and legal standards for corporate governance - a history of which is found here with an examination of attendant problems and their policy implications.
Many of the goods and services purchased by the U.S. Department of Defense are from industries that are often better suited to larger companies rather than smaller ones, complicating efforts to meet goals that about one-fourth of prime-contract dollars be awarded to small businesses.
Education and labor market initiatives are under way in four Arab nations -- Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates -- to address the challenges of developing the human capital of their populations for the 21st century global economy, though better evaluation of the implemented reforms will be needed to determine their efficacy.
This dissertation analyzes the combination of federal and investors' class actions to enforce federal securities laws, as well as how the Sarbanes-Oxley Act disrupts joint public and private litigation to discipline self regulatory organizations like the national stock exchanges, and the effects of these attempted reforms on the market.
The August issue of Policy Insight discusses the growing use of randomized trials to determine the effectiveness of development programs in low-income countries, suggesting that similar methods should be used to assess the cost-effectiveness of education interventions in these countries.
An inflow of foreign students in the sciences -- as well as scientists and engineers from overseas -- has helped the United States build and maintain its worldwide lead in science and technology.
Post-Cold War Asia is increasingly unstable due to changes in relationships among the major countries, risks to the globalization process that underlay U.S. Cold War successes, and failure so far of U.S. strategies to adapt to the new environment.
Is the U.S. in danger of losing its competitive edge in science and technology (S&T)? At a conference convened by RAND, experts from academia, government, and the private sector reviewed evidence and provided a partial survey of the potential erosion of U.S. S&T capability.
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