Immigration and the Nordic Welfare State Model
If Nordic countries want to continue accepting immigrants, they will have to reform their welfare system to reduce large fiscal strain.
Articles By: Kaiyang Huang 
China’s Urbanization Dilemma
During the recent protests in Egypt, the Chinese government was understandably nervous. Wary of inspiring similar outbreaks in Chinese cities, its state-run media opted to keep coverage of events in Cairo to a minimum. Moreover, the search term “Egypt” was blocked on major social media websites. Though massive protests erupting in China seem unlikely, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still has ... Read More
Strategic Disengagement
Non-interventionism makes a comeback
North Korea and China: Is the Tail Wagging the Dog?
Never in recent decades have tensions in the Korean peninsula been so high. North Korea’s recent artillery barrage against a South Korean island has caused the latter to raise its state of military readiness to its highest level short of war. Assuming the North’s artillery barrage had been calculated to occur shortly after its revelation of a modern uranium enrichment ... Read More
In the Shadow of Kelo: Asking Hard Questions about Eminent Domain
In 2003, Columbia University, a private university in New York City, announced plans to build a new 17-acre campus in Manhattanville, West Harlem. This, it explained, was necessary to maintain its role as a leading educational and research hub. Moreover, the university emphasized the economic benefits that expansion would bring to the community. But, this proposed development encountered voluble resistance ... Read More
The Unbearable Lightness of Campaign Promises
Just two weeks ago, British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed regret for breaking election pledges on child benefits and university fees. The Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition had recently announced the end to universality of child benefit welfare programmes, meaning that higher- and even middle-income families will soon be excluded from these benefits. The surprising thing is not that this happened at all, ... Read More
It’s All in the Family: Political Dynasties in Democracies
The Gandhis, the Kennedys and the Bushes: these are but the most famous political dynasties in the world. The seeming persistence of political families holding the reins of power in a democratic country has always raised concerns about the imperfections in popular representation. If Hillary Clinton had won the US presidential elections in 2008, someone from either the Bush or ... Read More
Weighing In: China’s One-Child Policy: No U-Turn Ahead
This is a follow-up post on Alastair Su’s blog post “Taking a Cue From Thailand’s Mr Condom”, looking specifically at China’s one-child policy and its economic impacts. Just over a year ago, the first few Chinese babies born in 1979 turned 30 – a significant milestone by any measure, but one made all the more momentous by them being the ... Read More
Korean Reunification: Will Two Halves Make a Whole?
With the recent celebration of the 20th anniversary of German reunification, it is something of a curiosity that of the three countries that were partitioned at the onset of the Cold War – Germany, Korea and Vietnam – it is the two Koreas that still resist the compelling pull of reunification. With the recent naming of North Korean dictator Kim ... Read More
Protectionism 2.0: The All-Too-Visible Hand
While Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega’s statement that the world is the midst of an “international currency war” might be somewhat premature, there is no denying the fact countries today — Japan, Taiwan and South Korea among them — are intervening in currency markets to give their own export competitiveness a shot in the arm, and that these actions, like ... Read More
