Applied Economics

The aid debate continues

2009-06-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

Sachs and Easterly continue their debate
Mo Ibrahim enters the discussion
A recent editorial from the FT.
...and an update here.

Intergenerational transmission of segregation?

2009-05-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

The NYT Magazine ran an article yesterday about the segregated high school prom in south-central Georgia’s Montgomery County. While all students are invited to the black prom, the white prom is just for whites. The article suggests that the segregation is driven by white parents. But as one black student said it: "Half of those girls [attending the white prom], when they get home, they’re gonna text a black boy".

Don't take the marshmallow!

2009-05-24T22:24:00.001-07:00

...and you will have a better live. A recent article in the New Yorker reviews the work of Columbia's psychology Professor Walter Mischel, where he finds that delaying gratification when young (giving up a marshmallow now for two later) predicts "success" later in life. Here is the full article.

Aid is baaack!

2009-05-24T22:11:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Dambisa Moyo book and the recent Op-Ed of Rwanda's President the debate about the role of the impact of foreign aid is now back at the headlines!....and right on time since I am covering this issue in my class about Africa. Here are some links

FT front page headline about Dambisa Moyo.
Is aid working? Also from the FT.
and today Easterly complains about a personal attack from Jeffrey Sachs.

Top 10 Books of 2008

2008-12-26T23:23:00.000-08:00

...the South African edition (from The Sunday Times). The list includes

Playing the Enemy by John Carlin, Atlantic.

If your idea of a sports book is the autobiography of Lewis Hamilton or a pic-heavy compilation of the sayings of Christian Ronaldo then you can skip Carlin’s intelligent and insightful analysis of the behind the scenes events leading up to the 1995 Rugby World Cup final. A little too enveloped in the glow of Madiba magic at times, Playing the Enemy is nonetheless the kind of sports book that anyone interested in politics, history and other non-playing field related topics can appreciate and it’s well written too.

and

The Mandela Files by Zapiro, Double Storey

He publishes an annual every year and there’s always a controversial cartoon or two included but in a year when Jonathan Shapiro caused more of a hullabaloo than usual, this belated birthday tribute to Mandela provides a fascinating look into the cartoonist’s personal history and workings. With all-new colour versions of some of his best work and detailed accounts of his working process, The Mandela Files provides not only laughs but also a thoughtful meditation by South Africa’s favourite satirist on one of his personal heroes.

Here is the full list.

Love in the time of cholera: Zim edition

2008-12-18T11:55:00.000-08:00

Poet Chief K Masimba Biriwasha writes:

Tap water in Harare started to produce black, flaky substances and foamed when brought to boil, increasing our fears of the killer pathogen.

More here.

Zim Bank notes

2008-12-18T11:24:00.000-08:00

The gallery.

Is Mugabe the Zimbawean version of Idi Amin?

2008-12-18T10:59:00.000-08:00

Ugandan Professor at Columbia University, Mahmood Mamdani, explains.

HT: Emeka Okafor.

Year in photos

2008-12-18T10:55:00.001-08:00

Year in Photographs 1 of 3. Here is one of my favorites

Fishermen try to catch fish during the Argungu fishing festival in Nigeria on March 15, 2008. Over 30,000 fishermen from different parts of Nigeria and neighbouring West Africa took part in the final of the yearly Argungu fishing festival in Kebbi, northwestern Nigeria. (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images)

HT: J

Education in the developing world

2008-12-17T15:17:00.000-08:00

UNESCO recently released a new report on education in developing countries title EFA - Global Monitoring Report 2009. Duncan Green summarizes it in his blog and calls it a "fantastic overview of the state of education provision in the developing world. " Worth exploring.

Signs of Deflation

2008-12-17T15:10:00.000-08:00

My colleague Todd Sorensen send me this photo from a nearby Sushi restaurant

(click on the picture to enlarge)

Getting ready for the spring

2008-12-16T10:50:00.000-08:00

The fall quarter is (almost) over and I need to start thinking about my Economic Development in Africa class next spring. Here are some links

New syllabus by Chris Blattman.
New book about the conflict in Congo and Rwanda (reviewed by the FT) .
A concise analysis of the problem (Op-ed by Herman Cohen in the NYT)
BBC World Service podcast about Africa: you can subscribe using iTunes or your Google Reader.
Impact of the financial crisis in African countries, a series by Africa Can...End Poverty: Malawi, Madagascar, Uganda, Angola and South Africa.

Alpha and Beto

2008-10-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Those are the names of Luis Soriano's donkeys. He uses them to carry book around rural areas in Colombia as a sort of mobile library, or as he call it, Burrolibro.

HT: New York Times

When is growth good for poverty?

2008-10-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

From J. Donaldson in the last World Development (gated):

Economic growth and liberal economic policies often help the poor, but what about the numerous cases in which they do not? This article analyzes two types of cases: those in which income growth of the poor was significantly lower than expectations (“negative exceptions”) and those in which income growth of the poor significantly exceeded expectations (“positive exceptions”). Insights from these cases inform our theoretical understanding of poverty reduction. In addition, this article contributes a typology of strategies used in these cases, including alternative pathways to economic growth and neoliberal prescriptions for poverty reduction.

Search like it is 2001

2008-10-14T16:28:00.000-07:00

Chris Blattman pointed us to Google's index from 2001 (they are celebrating their 10th anniversary.) I ran some queries and here is what I found

Randomization: search for "economics and randomization" in 2001 and the first link is for papers from Simon Fraser University Economics department. Today, it takes you to the Poverty Action Lab at MIT.
Searching for "regression discontinuity" in 2001 takes you to a site from Cornell U. that starts with: "The regression-discontinuity design. What a terrible name! In everyday language both parts of the term have connotations that are primarily negative." (but so today!)
Difference in difference: a link to web vs. gui design and nothing about economics in the first 10 links.
Freakonomics: no results.
Robert Mugabe: this article from the Daily Mail and Guardian on his peasant-to-president transformation.
iPod: back in the day that meant "Image Proof of Deposit Document Processing System."
Housing bubble: What housing bubble? The report ends with this sentence:
In the end, builders envision no dramatic changes in this housing market. "I don't see any big bumps in the road," concluded David Laffoon. "The housing market won't fall off a cliff."

Keep your priorities straight

2008-10-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

From the Washington Post

On his first day in office, according to a statement, [South Africa's new President Kgalema] Motlanthe called FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter to assure him that deadlines would be met and that "South Africa's hosting of the World Cup is testimony to the achievements of our democracy."

Links of the week

2008-10-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

What can US$700b can do in the development world? (via Chris Blattman)
Easterly on the lessons from the bailout (from Wall Street Journal).
HIV is older than expected (from NPR).
World Bank's new Human Opportunity Index (full report and website)

Needed: More Princes

2008-09-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

Rafeh Malik, prince of a Pakistani village, is trying to achieve the MDG in his own village. Here is the BBC report. HT: Dani Rodrik

Can the west save Africa?

2008-09-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

Here is an answer from Bill Easterly

In the new millennium, the Western aid effort towards Africa has surged due to writings by well-known economists, a celebrity mass advocacy campaign, and decisions by Western leaders to make Africa a major foreign policy priority. This survey contrasts the predominant "transformational" approach (West saves Africa) to occasional swings to a "marginal" approach (West takes one small step at a time to help individual Africans). Evaluation of "one step at a time" initiatives is generally easier than that of transformational ones either through controlled experiments (although these have been much oversold) or simple case studies where it is easier to attribute outcomes to actions. We see two themes emerge from the literature survey: (1) escalation. As each successive Western transformational effort has yielded disappointing results, the response has been to try an even more ambitious effort. (2) the cycle of ideas. Rather than a progressive testing and discarding of failed ideas, we see a cycle in aid ideas in many areas in Africa, with ideas going out of fashion only to come back again later after some lapse long enough to forget the previous disappointing experience. Both escalation and cyclicality of ideas are symptomatic of the lack of learning that seems to be characteristic of the "transformational" approach. In contrast, the "marginal" approach has had some successes in improving the well-being of individual Africans, such as the dramatic fall in mortality.

You can read the paper here.

Problems with MDG (education)

2008-09-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

Via Chris Blattman:

It took a century in the US to go from getting 30-40 per cent of children in primary education to 100 per cent, and yet we are expecting the likes of Burkina Faso, which has increased enrolment rapidly, to do it in seven," he says. "Kids get put in school when their parents become richer and better-educated, not when bureaucrats in the ministry of education are publicly shamed by international targets.

The comments come from Michael Clemens. Here is the full FT article and you can read his paper here.

New blogs to read

2008-09-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

Africa Can, by Shanta Devarajan, the Chief Economist of the Africa Region at the World Bank.
The Growth Commission, by Mike Spence, Paul Romer, Danny Leipziger and Adrian Wood
Ending World Poverty, by the Brooks World Poverty Institute in Manchester

One more from TED

2008-09-29T14:54:00.001-07:00

...I also just found this talk by Chicago economists Emily Oster about AIDS in Africa.

Four ways to help the bottom billion

2008-09-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

Paul Collier at TED

But remember, now there are more than one billion poor people in the world (see here.)

New quarter new syllabi

2008-09-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

Here you can find the syllabi for my undergraduate and graduate development courses.

The odd couple?

2008-09-27T22:32:00.000-07:00

Bono and Jeffrey Sachs are blogging from the UN Millennium Development Goals summit in NYC. Here is the link.

Oil could save Africa

2008-09-27T22:22:00.000-07:00

...says Duncan Clarke in his book Crude Continent: The Struggle for Africa's Oil Prize. The FT review is here.

Educate girls!

2008-09-27T22:17:00.000-07:00

Because it is

single highest returning social investment in the world today

That's Kofi Annan interviewed in this FT report about education and gender.

Can you do it too?

2008-08-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

Chris Jeavans, a BBC blogger, is trying to live a month without plastic. Her motto

For one month I am attempting to live my normal life with one main change - no new plastic. That means no bags, no packaging, no plastic to hang around in landfill. In this blog I'll keep you updated to let you know how I'm getting on.

Adios abuelito!

2008-08-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

Jorge Orestes Agüero Larco
(1917-2008)

Back from Africa

2008-08-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

I spent three of the last five weeks in South Africa. In the meantime I found this interesting posts/publications

2008-09 Chronic Poverty Report is out!
A new econ-blog (at least for me) Vox. As they claim, it is a "[r]esearch-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists."
I recommend Dinner with Mugabe. I am almost done with the book and it is worth reading it.
The LACEA/LAMES meetings are in Rio this year and the deadline has been extended until September 30. More info here.
Is microfinance the next subprime? Check the FT.
Controlling inflation: the South African and Venezuelan way.
No more billionaires in Zimbabwe (sorry, it was trillionaires.)

Page five hundred

2008-06-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

If you don't like self-publicity stop reading right now. Otherwise, go to page 500 of the May edition on the AER to find a paper by my favorite economist.

Becker vs Posner on conditional cash transfers

2008-05-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

You can read Posner's views here (he is against) and compared them with Becker's here (he is in favor.)

Poverty down 5 points in just one year!

2008-05-27T13:31:00.001-07:00

This is the latest result from a recent study in Peru where the poverty headcount is now down to 39.3%. Peru has experienced the highest growth rate in the region and has almost seven continuous years of economic growth. This decline in poverty rates is similar to the one experienced by China during the early 80's as documented by Ravallion and Chen.

My apologies to Chelsea's fans

2008-05-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

From The Telegraph:

Solving South Africa's high unemployment levels

2008-05-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

South Africa's recent xenophobic news seems to be rooted in the high levels of unemployment. Depending on the methods, the figure is between 30% to 40%. In a recent op-ed column James Levinsohn and Dani Rodrik propose a new policy to reduce the problem.

Implement a targeted wage subsidy to facilitate the school-to-work transition and couple that subsidy with a brief probationary period during which no-questions-asked dismissal is permitted. This ambitious policy would give every South African a magnetic card upon turning 18 years of age. The card would have an initial balance of R5 000 --about half the annual income of a new employee with a recent matric. That balance could be used to pay up to half of the cardholder's wage at any registered firm. When the balance on the card hits zero, the subsidy is used up.

This is how it could work

This policy lets firms (and workers) experiment. From the employer's perspective, young workers would be "half off". If the worker was paid R800 a month, the employer would pay R400 and the other R400 would be paid by drawing down the balance on the subsidy card.

Not bad at all!

Copenhagen Consensus

2008-05-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

My colleague Anil Deolalikar told me about the Copenhagen Consensus. Their goal is to find the best solutions to 10 of the world's biggest challenges. They are

Air pollution
Conflict
Global warming
Diseases
Malnutrition and hunger
Subsidies and trade barriers
Education
Sanitation and water
Terrorism
Women and development

Their 2008 meeting will take place next week. You can download the papers from the website.

New development economics

2008-05-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

Dani Rodrik has a new paper analyzing the two main camps of development economics: the macro and micro fields.

Macro-development economists will have to recognize more explicitly the distinct advantages of the experimental approach and a greater number among them will have to adopt the policy mindset of the randomized evaluation enthusiasts. As the Chinese example illustrates, extending the experimental mindset to the domain of economy-wide reforms is not just possible, it has already been practiced with resounding success in the most important development experience of our generation. Micro-development economists, for their part, will have to recognize that one can learn from diverse types of evidence, and that while randomized evaluations are a tremendously useful addition to the empirical toolkit, the utility of the evidence they yield is restricted by the narrow and limited scope of their application.
In the end, macro-development economists have to be humbler about what they already know, and micro-development economists humbler about what they can learn.

I think I am going to include this paper in my graduate development class next Fall.

Uproar about South Africa's land policy

2008-05-18T10:33:00.000-07:00

The Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) released last week this report about South Africa's land restitution program. Today, an article in the Sunday Times has Chief Land Claims Commissioner Blessing Mphela criticizing the report saying

The trajectory of the (CDE) report seems to be saying black people should not have anything to do with land and agriculture, and should instead leave it to the whites.

I have not read the report yet. More later.

It's the enforcement, stupid!

2008-05-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

The video below comes from Lima, Peru (and it's in Spanish). It shows cars finding exit strategies, literally, during a traffic jam. The white car at the end of the video is a police car. The TV commentators were hoping the police would block the entrance so no more cars would violate the law. Watch until the end to see the police's true action.

Twenty Chickens for a Saddle

2008-05-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

The NYT reviews Robyn Scott's Botswana memoir here.

On the food price cirsis

2008-05-06T15:39:00.000-07:00

Here are some links to understand the food price crisis

Esther Duflo's comments.
Paul Collier (from FT.)
The International Rice Research Institute.
Dani Rodrik's blog.
From the FT and also from the BBC.

Can cellphones end global poverty?

2008-04-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

Of course not. But an interesting hypothesis will be covered in the NYT this Sunday.

Better than 1,000 words

2008-04-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

This has nothing to do with development economics. But since my wife is trying to catch an AA flight tonight I was reading about it and found this great picture from the NYT that captures the frustration caused by the 900 new cancellations.

Learn Maa (Maasai)

2008-04-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

And here is part one (counting from 1 to 10)

(HT: Stood in the Congo).

What to do about rising food prices

2008-04-10T13:03:00.000-07:00

Joachim von Braun from IFPRI, suggests three main policies.

comprehensive social protection and food and nutrition initiatives to meet the short- and medium-term needs of the poor;
investment in agriculture, particularly in agricultural science and technology and in market access, at a national and global scale to address the long-term problem of boosting supply; and
trade policy reforms, in which developed countries would revise their biofuel and agricultural trade policies and developing countries would stop the new trade-distorting policies with which they are hurting each other.

Fatal Misconception

2008-04-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

Is the name of a new book by Columbia's Professor Matthew Connelly. You can read a review by Nicholas Kristof here. Kristof's punch line:

"Fatal Misconception” is to population policy what William Easterly’s “White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good” (2006) was to foreign aid: a useful, important but ultimately unbalanced corrective to smug self-satisfaction among humanitarians.

How Li Luyuan became middle-class

2008-04-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

An interesting story about a young Chinese woman's trip from working class to middle class by the FT.

Births of a nation

2008-04-05T08:41:00.000-07:00

A discussion about Africa's demographic transition from the FT.

America's most annoying coin

2008-04-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

The New Yorker has an interesting article about the US penny coin.

Microloans are to micro

2008-04-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

So it says Jam es Surowiecki (from The New Yorker's Financial Page). Here are some arguments

There’s no doubt that microfinance does a tremendous amount of good, yet there are also real limits to what it can accomplish. Microloans make poor borrowers better off. But, on their own, they often don’t do much to make poor countries richer.

and there is more

What poor countries need most, then, is not more microbusinesses. They need more small-to-medium-sized enterprises, the kind that are bigger than a fruit stand but smaller than a Fortune 1000 corporation.

Update: The New York Times is also running an article on the topic.

Big change in Cuba powered by Nokia

2008-04-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

Raul Castro is establishing a new set of changes in Cuba (see here and here.) Here are some examples:

Access to hotels.
Possibility of buying computers.
and most interesting, allowing Cuban to own cellphones!

These are big changes. Even more for a country always concerned about the access of information by Cubans.

A complex situation in Nigeria

2008-04-03T13:07:00.001-07:00

...from The Onion

In The Know: Situation In Nigeria Seems Pretty Complex

Earth at night

2008-04-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

I know this is not news but I told my students I will post this picture (from NASA). Just look at Africa's lacks of electricity.

Latest Zim's election results

2008-04-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some links if you want to keep track of the post election situation in Zimbabwe. More later (Picture from the BBC).

NYT's The Lede.
BBC news here.
From All Africa.
And the FT too.

On today's Zim elections

2008-03-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

Several things have appeared in today's newspaper about Zimbabwe's elections held today. Here are some of them

There was a secret report about a poll suggestion a round-off between Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangira (here)
Bus feerying Zimbabweans living in South Africa was stopped by the police (here).
Follow the latest news from BBC here.
Jacob Zuma, South Africa's President of the main political party, ANC, says that Zim will not be the same after the elections (here)
In an unprecedented ruling, a SADC court stops land grab (here)

Game theory for Mugabe's policies

2008-03-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

This article suggests that the current problems in Zimbabwe are the results of a continuous conflict between Mugabe and the while elite.

Dinner with comrade Bob

2008-03-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

A new book by South-African born journalist Heidi Holland about Robert Mugabe. You can read (favorable) reviews here and here (I think for now is available in SA only...that means I already have my copy)

A nation of givers

2008-03-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

A recent study described here says that

on average each South African gives about R27 [US$ 3.37] a month to a charity and a little less than R7 directly to the poor on the street, and that poor people are better givers than the rich, though they give much less.

Other findings include

Over half (54%) of South Africans donate money directly to the poor or charitable organisations, compared with 31% who give goods;
Whites are far more likely to donate money than time;
Blacks are least likely to donate money (52%), but most likely to donate goods or time;
93% of respondents believe charity is vital to the success of the new South Africa;
68% give to the poor because they feel compassion, while 3% say it is “God’s command”;
Needy children and the youth are the most likely recipients of charity, and political parties the least;
People with higher levels of education are less likely to donate than people without any education; and
82% give because it makes them feel better, while only 15% donate because they have more than they need.

En Español

2008-03-18T15:13:00.000-07:00

Spanish's newspaper El Pais has two articles (here and here) about Roland Fryer's strategy to improve schools grades in NYC. I posted about this here.

How the Millennium Development Goals Are Unfair to Africa

2008-03-12T23:00:00.000-07:00

William Easterly presents his recent paper at the Center for Global Development. (HT: Chris Blattman)

STD's for young american women: 1 in 4

2008-03-11T22:54:00.000-07:00

The topic is not necessarily a development-related one but the magnitudes deserve attention. The NYT reports on a new survey conducted by the CDC where 25% of women between the ages of 14 and 19 in the US have tested positive for at least one of the main STD's.

Nearly half the African-Americans in the study of teenagers ages 14 to 19 were infected with at least one of the diseases monitored in the study — human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, genital herpes and trichomoniasis, a common parasite.

The 50 percent figure compared with 20 percent of white teenagers, health officials and researchers said at a news conference at a scientific meeting in Chicago.

The two most common sexually transmitted diseases, or S.T.D.’s, among all the participants tested were HPV, at 18 percent, and chlamydia, at 4 percent, according to the analysis, part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

One more: US Wealth and Africa

2008-03-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

Is US Wealth Hurting Africa's Feelings?

Human costs of migration

2008-03-11T11:58:00.000-07:00

Immigration: The Human Cost

Bad news for Andorra!

2008-03-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

...it is not in Africa!

Women's day

2008-03-07T22:38:00.000-08:00

Today is women's day and this reminds me of one the textbooks I will use in my course on Economic Development in Africa. The book is by Michael Kevane, you can read the introduction here.

Can Mugabe lose on March 29?

2008-03-06T20:15:00.001-08:00

The NYT attempts an answer here.

Cartoon: Zapiro

Year of the Potato

2008-03-03T20:33:00.000-08:00

Yes, 2008 is the international year of the potato. As Peruvian national I have to post about it. The Economist run an article about it. There you can read about the policies the Peruvian government is creating to make sure my fellow Peruvians eat more of this root. Here is a recipe for causa de cangrejo. Enjoy!

Africa reading list

2008-02-26T11:04:00.001-08:00

Next Spring -in 5 five weeks that is- I will be teaching my undergraduate course on Africa's economic development. You can find good reading lists here and here. (HT: Chris Blattman)

If you find 1,000 dollars on the floor

2008-02-26T10:54:00.000-08:00

...you should pick them up!. This 1,000 Zimbabwean dollar bill might buy you nothing now. But few years down the road its value will be higher (alas, only for collectors.)

You wish you were gluten free

2008-02-26T10:51:00.000-08:00

...with wheat prices rising 25% in just one day! Check the FT multimedia explanation for the rise in food prices here.

Bread and butter

2007-10-24T14:30:00.001-07:00

In my development economics class we are discussing the role of agriculture on development and what are the price-related policies a government can adopt. This relates to an article published by the FT today about the possible shortage of food. There is also the fear that some of price increments are reflecting a permanent change affecting the inflation expectations in some countries (see graph below.)

NBER Summer meeting

2007-10-04T16:13:00.000-07:00

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Summer InstituteWorkshop on Environmental Policy will be held in Cambridge,Massachusetts, on July 21–22, 2008. The NBER providescontinental breakfast and lunch each day, as well as limitedsupport services. Economists at the assistant professor levelor above who are interested in participating in the 2008 SummerInstitute should submit a curriculum vitae and a one-page abstractof any paper they would like to present to: Summer Institute,National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue,Cambridge, MA 02138. Submissions can also be sent via emailto confer@nber.org in either PDF, Word, or WordPerfect format.The deadline for receipt of submissions is March 19, 2008.

Economic growth

2007-10-04T10:56:00.000-07:00

Daron Acemoglu posted a draft of his new book on Economic Growth. You can find some comments about it here and here.

Moving out of poverty

2007-10-04T10:51:00.000-07:00

A new multidisciplinary book about poverty from the World Bank (following the steps of Voices of Poor project). Here is what the Bank describes the book:

This book brings together the latest thinking about poverty dynamics from diverse analytic traditions. While covering a vast body of conceptual and empirical knowledge about economic and social mobility, it takes the reader on compelling journeys of multigenerational accounts of three villages in Kanartaka, India, twelve years in the life of a street child in Burkina Faso, and much more. Leading development practitioners and scholars from the fields of anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology critically examine the literature from their disciplines and contribute new frameworks and evidence from their own works.

World Bank joins Youtube

2007-09-26T12:05:00.001-07:00

...and Flickr too. This is the bank's page on Youtube. Here is a sample video

and here's a picture

Fall 2007 courses

2007-09-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

I just finished the syllabi for the courses I am teaching this Fall quarter: one graduate economic development and an introduction to economic development for undergraduates.

Burkina Faso

2007-09-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

Here is a link for today's FT report on Burkina Faso

Mali: a good place for biofuels?

2007-09-12T20:41:00.000-07:00

According to this article, jatropha, the name of the plant can

...grow on virtually baren land with relatively little rainfall, so it can be planted in places where food does not grow well. It can also be planted beside other crops farmers grow here, like millet, peanuts and beans, without substantially reducing the yield of the fields; it may even help improve output of food crops by, among other things, preventing erosion and keeping animals out.

Other biofuels like ethanol from corn and sugar cane require large amounts of water and fertilizer, and factory farming in some cases consumes substantial amounts of petroleum, making the environmental benefits limited, critics say. But jatropha requires no pesticides, Mr. Samaké said, little water other than rain and no fertilizer beyond the nutrient-rich seed cake left after oil is pressed from its nuts.

and here is a picture of the seeds (or is it a fruit?).

Child mortality: all time low!

2007-09-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

Major improvements in India and China account for most of the drop. You can read more here. These are some of the highlights:

Measles deaths have dropped 60 percent since 1999, thanks to vaccination drives.
More women are breast-feeding rather than mixing formula or cereal with dirty water.
More babies are sleeping under mosquito nets.
More are getting Vitamin A drops.

...and I am back!

2007-09-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

After 2 weeks in Cape Town (including a 3-day trip to Harare, yes, I went to Zimbabwe) and four weeks in Ecuador this blog is back. To start with a good spirit let me post two good news I just read in the NYT. It's good to be back.

Choosing economic policies

2007-07-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

Why is Robert Mugabe still in power? Why don't Zimbabwean ministers change the current economic policies? Here is an answer provided by one of Mugabe’s ministers

Look where the cabinet came from – 80% or 90% were nobodies before. They’ve made everything because of him, got rich, got farms . . . They don’t consider this a failure – to them it’s an incredible success.

Emtpy shelves

2007-07-09T14:36:00.001-07:00

Source: The Sunday Times

A silent genocide?

2007-07-09T13:39:00.000-07:00

The London Times calls Zimbabwe's current crisis a "silent genocide". There is plenty of evidence suggesting how child (and adult) mortality increases during economic crisis (here is an example) but I am not sure if genocide is the right word. Certainly, it is not the right word according to this definition.

A thousand words (or numbers)

2007-07-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

This picture was taken in a supermarket in Harare. Notice the cost of a regular coke and then look at the balance! Source.

Zimbabwe's crisis

2007-07-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

Here are three examples on how the economic crisis is affecting its people.

A loaf of bread that cost Z$8,000 in May was Z$50,000 by June 1st.
The salary of a college-educated teacher buys the "two large bricks of notes is one bottle of cooking oil, one packet of salt, one laundry soap, one pack of powdered soup, some milk powder and a pack of sugar".

And here is how the few can make money:

“Imagine the money you can make,” a merchant bank director explained. “Say you buy US$100 at the official rate – that costs you Z$25,000. Then you sell that US$100 on the streets and get Z$30m. With that Z$30m, at the official rate you can buy more than US$100,000 – all for your initial outlay of about eight cents.

Desmond Tutu

2007-07-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

..and South Africa's inequality.

A lesson from Ancient Rome

2007-07-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

Today's editorial in the FT relates Mugabe's anti-inflation policy with a similar from Rome in AD301.

Sao Tome and Principe

2007-07-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

Is attracting oil-related businesses...without oil. Read more here.

Easterly on Development

2007-07-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

You can read his article published in Foreign Policy.

Update: follow up on the interesting debate between Dani Rodrick and Easterly here.

The Bottom Billion

2007-07-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

Paul Collier's new book was reviewed this weekend in the NYT. Here is a previous review by the FT.

Schools in South Africa

2007-06-25T17:15:00.001-07:00

...not a good story.

Migration and remittances

2007-06-25T09:03:00.000-07:00

The NYT published an interesting report about migration and remittances around the world but with emphasis on Cape Verde. Don't forget to check their interactive map.

Poverty, inequality and growth

2007-06-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

Larry Summers discusses some new stylized facts here.

Project Pyramid

2007-06-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

Creating business plans to reduce poverty. Read more here.

I hope my brother doesn't read this (with update)

2007-06-22T09:47:00.000-07:00

...because according to this report the eldest children have higher I.Q.s!

Update: Sandra Black et al just released a working paper using the same data.

Bribe the children, the New York way

2007-06-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

If you want your kids to perform well in school bribe them. That is what Roland Fryer is suggesting here.

Greg Mankiw has more on the alternative -bribing the teachers that is- here.

Two for the road

2007-06-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

NYT's Nicholas Kristof and two winners of his Win-A-Trip-to-Africa are reporting from Burundi, Rwanda and Congo (I think they mean DRC, not the "other" Congo.) You can read their blog here.

The income gap (by the NYT)

2007-06-22T09:20:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago the NYT had these list of articles about inequality. Here are two examples. One on labor and globalization (link) and another about Larry Summers and globalization (link)

Two on Africa

2007-06-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

...from the NYT. First, what does Africa need: aid or technology? Second, a vision for Africa (it's about Jeff Sachs.)

Tales of my father

2007-06-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

...and from Zimbabwe. You can read the a review of Peter Godwin's "When a Crocodile Eats the Sun. A Memoir of Africa" here. The FT ran another review here.