Economics & Business Archive

The Philippines’ labor export system is a potential model for other developing countries. But there are concerns about how Filipino migrants are treated abroad, as well as the potential effects of a skills drain at home. In the 1970s, in order to address an escalating unemployment rate and balance of payments crisis, the Philippine government adopted a comprehensive range of policies that, among other things, systematically encouraged the export of contract labor from throughout the country. The program, developed during the long military dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, was rationalized as a temporary measure to address the country’s immediate problems. Four […]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh earlier this month brought with it the formal ratification of a historic land border agreement that finally settles a four-decades-long dispute. Pocked with enclaves and counter-enclaves, the border between India and Bangladesh was a geographical oddity—and a headache for New Delhi and Dhaka. The land swap that Modi agreed to had been in the works for a while; it was actually signed by both governments in 1974, but never ratified. At the cost of ceding some land to Bangladesh, the deal is in keeping with Modi’s agenda to rebuild strategic trust with […]

Last week it was the Pyramids, and Wednesday, the Karnak Temple in Luxor. Twice in one week, militants attacked major tourism sites in Egypt, reviving fears of a return to the violence that marked the 1990s. Then, the low-level insurgency by Islamic radicals against former President Hosni Mubarak culminated in the horrific 1997 attack on the Temple of Hatsepshut, across the Nile from Luxor, when gunmen killed 58 tourists and six Egyptians. On Wednesday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a parking lot just outside the sprawling, Pharaonic-era Karnak Temple along the Nile. Two gunmen then engaged in a […]

Tourism and travel are usually seen as what people do when taking time off from real life. An industry built on beach resorts and ski chalets, bus tours of the Eiffel Tower and African safaris doesn’t seem to rise to the same level of concern as burst oil pipelines or illegal logging in the Amazon. Yet considered as an industry, global travel and tourism is the world’s largest employer; would rank as the fifth-largest carbon emitter if it were a country; is second only to energy as the favored strategy for developing nations trying to rise out of poverty; is […]

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto hosted his Brazilian counterpart, Dilma Rousseff, in Mexico City late last month, where the two leaders signed an economic accord aimed at doubling trade volumes by 2025. They also talked about Brazil’s scandal-ridden state-owned oil giant Petrobras partnering with the Mexican oil company Pemex, as Mexico’s liberalized energy market opens up to joint ventures. Pena Nieto and Rousseff, who have a history of cool personal ties, finally seemed to be coming together. But when it came to speaking about the state of relations between their two countries, they were not on the same page. Pena […]

Late last month, Japan hosted the 7th Pacific Islanders Leaders Meeting (PALM) in Fukushima prefecture. The PALM meeting represents the foundation of Japan’s engagement with states from the South Pacific, and has traditionally been a forum dominated by Tokyo’s provision of overseas development assistance to the region. But Japan’s relationship with many of those island states is deepening, as Tokyo looks to incorporate more political and security cooperation amid growing regional competition from China. This year’s PALM meeting was attended by the Forum Island Countries (FIC)—Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the South China Sea territorial disputes and the various claimant countries’ approaches to addressing them. U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was in Hanoi today, where he and Vietnamese Defense Secretary Phung Quang Thanh signed a “joint vision statement” that outlines expanded military ties and increased maritime security cooperation. Carter also announced plans to give Vietnam $18 million for the purchase of coast guard vessels from the United States. Carter’s visit comes as tensions in the South China Sea are on the rise, given China’s aggressive island-building campaign. […]