Commentary

For the past two years, I’ve been part of an incredible interdisciplinary team—spanning economics, sociology, demography, and public health—working on a National Academies (NASEM) consensus study on women’s empowerment and socioeconomic development. The new report builds on NASEM’s influential 1986 ...

Dear Secretary Rubio: There have been few more eloquent advocates for foreign assistance than you. And I believe the case you make for US aid is backed up by considerable empirical evidence. As you have said, “millions of human beings are alive today because [of] the United States, and others in the...

Mexico and Canada have been on the frontline of the new global (dis)order, making their response a potential case study for how economies that are smaller and somewhat dependent on America navigate pressure from the US in this new era of economic coercion. After the 180 degrees reversal on the tarif...

It is urgent to restore operation of America’s life-saving assistance programs, halted under the ongoing 90-day pause of all foreign assistance. Two examples: First, PEPFAR is currently providing lifesaving HIV treatment for 20.6 million people, including 566,000 children. When people come off HIV m...

Anyone who cares about due process, US standing in the world, or global poverty should be outraged by the precipitous decision to shutter USAID.

In 1948, Congress overwhelmingly passed what would become known as the Marshall Plan. That act appropriated $13.3 billion over 1948-51 for Europe’s recovery, equivalent to about $150 billion today. It was proposed by a former general, not an economist or a politician, a man who understood well what ...

A viral claim, spread and amplified by Elon Musk, suggests that only 10 percent of USAID money reaches its intended beneficiaries. This is a wildly incorrect and misleading interpretation of a different statistic—that 10 percent of USAID payments are made directly to organizations in the developing ...