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Begin New Search Topic Economics Political Geography America Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Aspen Institute

1. Responding to Change: The New World of Oil and Gas

Author:
Bill White(Chair) and Leonard Coburn(Rapporteur)
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Improved technology has led to enhanced oil and gas productivity at lower cost and significant production increases in the United States and Canada, dramatically changing energy perspectives. The shift from energy scarcity toward abundance is requiring new energy policies. The potential for the United States to become a net exporter of oil and gas changes American views of energy dependency. Shifts in global energy demand growth from developed to less developed countries, and especially to the Asia-Pacific region, require understanding of changing global energy trade. American energy will flow to markets where scarcity is the largest. Canada and the United States are reaping the benefits of this new world of oil and gas. Mexico will lag behind unless it addresses its chronic problems. Without reform, Mexico could become a net importer of all its hydrocarbons, a fundamental change from its current status. Responding to these changes will require knowledge, foresight, and strategies that are bold and comprehensive.
Topic:
Economics, Energy Policy, Environment, Oil, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
United States, America, Canada, and Mexico

2. Wall Street/Main Street: The Challenge of Building Financial Security in the Obama Era

Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The last 18 months have dealt a devastating blow to Americans' sense of financial security. Few have been untouched by the financial crisis. For many, wealth accumulated over years of saving and investing has disappeared almost overnight. For many more, the economic crisis has imperiled their jobs, their ability to provide for their families, and their optimism about the future.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States and America

3. China's March on the 21st Century

Author:
Kurt M. Campbell and Willow Darsie
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
After a protracted period of uncertainty concerning the nature of the foreign policy challenges that are likely to confront the nation over the course of first half of the 21st century, twin challenges are now coming into sharper relief. For the next generation or more, Americans will be confronted by two overriding (and possibly overwhelming) challenges in the conduct of American foreign policy: how to more effectively wage a long, twilight struggle against violent Islamic fundamentalists, and at the same time cope with the almost certain rise to great power status of China.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, China, America, and Asia

4. Savings in America: Building Opportunities for All

Author:
Suzanne Nora Johnson, Lisa Mensah, and C. Eugene Steuerle
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Savings policy in the United States is at a critical juncture. The U.S. personal saving rate has declined from 10.8 percent in 1984 to zero in 2005.The national saving rate, which includes government and business savings, is the lowest among the G-20 countries and has decreased significantly in recent decades. These low levels of saving generally suggest lower growth rates of income and standards of living in the future.
Topic:
Civil Society, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
United States and America

5. Opening Opportunities, Building Ownership: Fulfilling the Promise of Microenterprise in the United States

Author:
Elaine L. Edgcomb and Joyce A. Klein
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
The notion that a person can turn a dream into a small business by applying healthy doses of ingenuity, elbow grease and grit has resonated with Americans from the earliest days of this nation. Indeed, there is something so intrinsically appealing about that scenario that more than 22 million Americans are small business owners today—including some 20 million who operate "micro"—or very small—enterprises.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Environment, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States and America

6. America and the Global Energy Challenge

Author:
Hal Harvey
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Energy is at once the lifeblood and the bane of the modern world. Fossil energy has fueled tremendous economic growth over the past 150 years. The economic history of the United States is largely the history of extracting and using coal and oil. At the same time, the profligate use of these energy sources has created the world's most pressing environmental problems, and led to major national security concerns for the United States. Energy consumption is the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions, smog, acid rain, oil spills, and nuclear waste. American dependence on oil from the Middle East forces our hand on foreign policy and imposes high economic and human costs. It is becoming increasingly clear that America's—and the world's—current diet of fossil energy is not sustainable.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, Science and Technology, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Middle East