During the thirty years I worked in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) of the United Nations (1989–2020), my primary responsibilities involved global economic research and policy analysis. The articles selected for this book are in three categories: papers published in academic journals or presented at academic conferences, economic commentaries published in newspapers and magazines, and speeches delivered on various occasions as well as economic essays published in other media outlets. Volume I contains eleven academic papers arranged chronologically by publication date. Although written at different stages and covering diverse topics, they are generally related to the two fields in which I specialized during my doctoral studies in economics at the University of Pennsylvania: econometrics and international economics.

Looking back on these three decades of research and policy work, I have increasingly come to realize that economics is an extraordinarily complex discipline. Although its core subject is the allocation of resources, it is also intricately intertwined with many other disciplines, social systems, and ideologies. The essays collected in this volume reflect not only my thoughts on various international economic issues at different stages of my career, but also the evolution of my own understanding of economics as a discipline.