Economists who want to compare the living standards of countries often use GDP, but the calculation and usefulness of the measurement remains controversial.

Lorand Laskai, research assistant in the Asia studies program, and Alex Grigsby, assistant director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program, contributed to this post. Earlier this week, Chine…

Learn more about modern human trafficking—and how it affects women and girls—through six publications from the Women and Foreign Policy program.

The global economy will confront serious challenges in the months and years ahead, and looming in the background is a mountain of debt that makes markets nervous—and that thus increases the system's vulnerability to destabilizing shocks. Yet the baseline scenario seems to be one of continuity, with no obvious convulsions on the horizon.