"Many analysts believe that the financial system represents a major vulnerability for China's economic development, whereas others, equally respected, think that the financial system is adapting effectively to China's more developed status and will continue to provide the necessary fuel for the rest of the economy."

Steven A. Tananbaum Senior Fellow for International Economics Robert Kahn analyzes policy implications of lessons learned from the IMF's involvement in the Greek crisis.

Jeremy Stein discusses current monetary policy developments.

Joshua Kurlantzick assesses China's economy.

Jeremy Stein discusses current monetary policy developments.

Although there is no formal institutional connection between India and NATO, India and the NATO allies, most importantly the United States, informally share an interest in maintaining maritime security in the Indian Ocean and have spent significant resources to combat piracy in this vast area.

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As more college-educated workers fill low-skilled jobs, Peter Orszag explains that declining demand for highly skilled labor and falling wages are to blame.

Tensions between China and Japan are rising, but an economic version of mutual deterrence is preserving the uneasy status quo. Put simply, China needs to buy Japanese products as much as Japan needs to sell them.

Given that Chinese counterfeiting has benefits as well as costs, and considering China's historical resistance to Western pressure, trying to push China to change its approach to intellectual property law is not worth the political and diplomatic capital the United States is spending on it.

Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Gulf of Guinea Commission (GGC) created a code of conduct, modeled after the Djibouti Code of Conduct, to increase regional cooperation in combatting piracy. The code of conduct was signed on June 25, 2013, after a conference on maritime safety and security in Yaounde, Cameroon and is also known as the Yaounde Declaration.

No matter what one thinks should be done about global warming, the fact is, it's happening. And its effects are not all bad. In the Arctic, it is turning an impassible region into an emerging epicenter of industry and trade.

Cuba has entered a new era of economic reform that defies easy comparison to post-Communist transitions elsewhere. Washington should take the initiative and establish a new diplomatic and economic modus vivendi with Havana.

The global economic downturn is hardly over, and without a more dramatic set of actions, the United States is likely to suffer another major crisis in the years ahead. A new book by Alan Blinder may be the best general volume on the recession to date, but it paints an overly optimistic portrait of the current situation.

Central bankers have always carried a mystique far beyond justification, whether they are cast as malicious, incomprehensible, or all-powerful. Neil Irwin's new book on monetary policy during the financial crisis should dispel these myths once and for all.

President Obama's weeklong visit to three African countries should reinforce trade and political ties and address some sentiments that the continent has been overlooked by the White House, writes CFR's John Campbell.

"Austerity has failed. It turned a nascent recovery into stagnation. That imposes huge and unnecessary costs, not just in the short run, but also in the long term: the costs of investments unmade, of businesses not started, of skills atrophied, and of hopes destroyed."

Peter Orzag and John Bridgeland suspect that scarcity will increasingly impact Washington's fiscal policy.

Neil Irwin, economic columnist for the Washington Post, discusses his take on the 2008 financial crisis.

The newly elected moderate Iranian president may lead the United States to loosen economic sanctions on the country, according to Carla Robbins.

The G8 leaders met in the U.K. during June 17–18, 2013, for their thirty-nineth summit. They released a joint communique, an Open Data Charter, and the Lough Erne Declaration, a ten-point agreement addressing issues in tax evasion and trade protectionism.