NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s April 8 address the University of Chicago this past week emphasized burden-sharing in the war in Afghanistan and the lessons learned from NATO’s involvement. His “lessons learned” are informative in getting a sense of NATO perspective.

One of the major elements of the new healthcare bill worrying conservatives and ‘limited government’ voters alike is the bill’s mandate requiring U.S citizens to purchase health insurance. Whether this mandate is constitutional or not is a matter being debated by a handful of state attorney generals nationwide. Some, including Virginia’s attorney general, Kenneth Cuccinelli, are planning to sue the federal government, arguing that Congress lacks the proper authority to require U.S. citizens to purchase health insurance under the new bill. This “primer” is not intended to discuss this debate. Instead, it is intended to introduce one of the primary economic principles underlying the compulsory health plan mandate itself. This principle is called “adverse selection”. Once the concept of adverse selection has been explained, it should become clear that the Congressional mandate is probably necessary to bring about an efficient, cost-effective healthcare system – one that does not see insurance premiums skyrocket, which closes off coverage to all but those who are wealthy enough to afford these plans.

On a recent visit to Bogotá, Colombia, I witnessed how immense this city has become. Since 1950, Bogotá has grown from 700,000 inhabitants to approximately 8.5 million (estimate is inclusive of municipalities on the city’s periphery). Looking west from a friend’s terrace in the old colonial district of La Candelaria, I could see the city spreading across the vast Bogotá Savannah – a high plateau that rises to an average of 8500 feet above sea level in the Colombian Andes. However, this seemingly picturesque image conceals a …

Braving the inquisition that passes as passport control, I told the guard for the third time, phrased differently from my previous two attempts, that I was coming to Israel to study environmental policy in an exchange program between Harris and Tel Aviv University. You know, water and stuff?
At that, he laughed skeptically and waved me through the gates. Environmental policy in Israel is relatively new; the Ministry of Environment was created only ten years earlier and in some ways, skepticism is warranted. Transparency is lacking in national level policy. …

On March 9th, I tore myself from the prep for a Political Economy final to check out a talk by Gilles Dorronsoro on the recent escalation of the War in Afghanistan, as part of UChicago’s excellent “World Beyond the Headlines” series. The video from his lecture is not up yet, but keep a lookout for it (older ones include Stiglitz and Thurrow).
Preemptory conflict of interest note here: I worked with Gilles last year at the Carnegie Endowment. Which in this case was one of the reasons I have immense respect …