The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a large and lasting shift to working from home among educated workers around the world, finds a new survey to be presented at the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) conference on September 9. “No other episode in modern history involves such a pronounced and widespread shift in working arrangements in such a compressed time frame,” according to Working from Home Around the World, a paper authored by Cevat Giray Aksoy of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Jose Maria Barrero of the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University, Steven J. Davis of…

The most significant deliverable from the NATO Summit is a newly adopted Strategic Concept, which has adapted NATO ambitions to the current security environment. NATO last published a Strategic Concept in 2010, and twelve years later, the security dynamic has significantly changed. For the first time, NATO members included China in the Strategic Concept as posing a “systemic challenge” to Euro-Atlantic security.1 The Strategic Concept outlines broad concerns over China’s military, economic, and political policies. Primarily, NATO members and allies are concerned with China’s “ambitious and coercive” policies that aim to increase its global power but lack transparency in strategy.   From…

A Pew Research Center poll conducted in March indicates that Americans have rather evenly divided views in regard to the government of Israel. While 48 percent of polled Americans stated they have a favorable view of the Israeli government, nearly as many — 44 percent — said they have a negative view.In contrast, among United States Congress top leadership members — both Republican and Democratic, the support for the government of Israel appears unanimous and over the top.“The United States takes great pride in our ironclad bond with Israel,” proclaimed US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in a May 4 press…

The James Webb Space Telescope has made the first clear detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a distant world, and there is also an unexpected bump in the data NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has spotted carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet 700 light years away called WASP-39b. This is the first time the compound has been found in any exoplanet, and the observations also revealed hints of a mystery within the distant world. WASP-39b is huge. It has a mass similar to Saturn’s, anda diameter 1.3 times that of Jupiter. It orbits relatively close to its…

Flying into Taiwan amidst Beijing’s unprecedented military exercises in response to U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s August 2-3 visit was notable for its normalcy. There was no panic, no run on food and home supplies. The public calm contrasted with the last Taiwan Strait crisis in 1995-96, when Taiwan’s stock market and currency dropped and people queued to apply for American visas. Now, by comparison, restaurants are packed and sidewalks are filled with people living their everyday lives. I visited Taiwan with Brookings colleagues from August 8-13. Our group met with Taiwan’s top elected and appointed officials, opposition party leaders,…