Brookings Today, 6/4/14

A roundup of some of the content published today by Brookings.

• What’s the proper scope of climate change benefits? Ted Gayer and Kip Viscusi assess the economic arguments and legal precedents of whether to consider the benefits to the rest of the world in situations in which the costs are borne entirely be Americans. 

• How to shrink America’s debt. Alice Rivlin argues that instead of trying to forge another “grand bargain,” lawmakers should think small. 

• What effect will EU elections have on Africa? Vera Songwe says that African leaders “will have to wait to see what the new members of the European Parliament hold for the future of collaboration with Africa.”

• Does the Tea Party have staying power? John Hudak introduces a new paper on the Tea Party’s political future.

• Using data to improve America’s health care system. Sarah Bleiberg and Darshak Sanghavi review a recent Merkin Initiative event on “Hacking America’s Health,” where panelists discussed what recently-released CMS medical claims can teach us about the U.S. health care system.

• Consumer protection in the Big Data era. Benjamin Wittes and Wells Bennett grapple with difficult legal questions surrounding personal privacy and “databuse,” (negligent handling, collection, or misuse of personal information) in the era of big data.