Category Archives: international cooperation

Remembering Richard Cooper

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December 24, 2020 —     Richard N. Cooper (Dick), who passed away Wednesday evening at the age of 86, was always young for his age.  Jim Tobin once told me a story from when Dick was a senior staff economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (1961-63).  He used to bring his bicycle into his office at the Old Executive Office Building.  As I remember the story, President Kennedy remarked that apparently a high school student worked at the CEA!

As recently as a year ago, Dick was still riding his bicycle around Cambridge.  I would join his wonderful (and young!) family on weekend bike rides along the Charles River. read more

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You don’t miss international cooperation until it’s gone

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November 30, 2020 — As Joni Mitchell sang, “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”   Classroom education was often deemed boring by students and obsolete by tech visionaries.  Then the coronavirus made it difficult or impossible to meet in person.  The result:  We yearn for the irreplaceable in-class experience.

Perhaps the same is true of international economic cooperation.

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The “G-6 vs. 1” Summit

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June 8, 2018 —  I did an interview today as the G-7 Leaders Summit got underway in Canada.

In the video at BNN Bloomberg, I said I thought that if Trump’s tariffs are met with united and calibrated retaliation, he might eventually have to back down.

Here are the questions they sent me ahead of time and my responses,  

– Q:  Ideally – what do you want to see come from the Group of 7 leaders’ meeting that starts today in Canada?

– A:

  • If we were truly talking about an ideal world, one would aspire to progress on the issues that the Canadian hosts plan to talk about: environment, inclusive growth, equality, etc.
  • Closer to the real world, one would ideally see the G-7 cooperating to form a common front regarding economic issues with China (reduction of excess steel capacity & enforcement of IPRs) or geopolitical issues (esp. vis-a-vis North Korea & Iran & Russia).
  • This meeting will accomplish no such G-7 cooperation, and to the contrary will almost certainly go down in history as the “G-6 vs. 1” meeting.
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