Great conversations on development economics along with methods for proving efficacy (with great connections to TOK).
He’s a pioneer of using randomized control experiments in economics — studying the long-term benefits of a $1 health intervention in Africa. Steve asks Edward, a Berkeley professor, about Africa’s long-term economic prospects, and how a parking-ticket-scandal in New York City led to a major finding on corruption around the world.
Developing Countries Need a New Growth Model—Before It’s Too Late
Citizens of the world’s least developed countries have the same aspirations for economic prosperity as citizens of China, Germany, or the United States do. Those who argue that the only way to combat climate change is to reduce economic growth miss the fundamental unfairness of global economic development, which has left a third of the world’s population behind. Yet if developing countries follow the “grow first and clean up later” pattern established by the United States, western Europe, and East Asian countries, the consequences for the climate will be catastrophic.
Maybe because what countries think of as a “tech industry” isn’t always the same
In other words, the crackdown on China’s internet industry seems to be part of the country’s emerging national industrial policy. Instead of simply letting local governments throw resources at whatever they think will produce rapid growth (the strategy in the 90s and early 00s), China’s top leaders are now trying to direct the country’s industrial mix toward what they think will serve the nation as a whole.
Here is a series of four 9 minute podcasts exploring different aspects of water security, scarcity, access, and other related issues. This topic provides great connections to HLX concepts like Health, Environment, Borders, and Security along with issues related to economic development.
DRIVERS, INCENTIVES AND THE TIPPING POINT FOR RECRUITMENT
The Journey to Extremism in Africa: Drivers, Incentives and the Tipping Point for Recruitment presents the results of a two-year UNDP Africa study aimed to generate improved understanding about the incentives and drivers of violent extremism, as expressed by recruits to the continent’s deadliest groups themselves.
Venezuela was long one of the most prosperous countries in the region, with sophisticated manufacturing, vibrant agriculture and strong businesses, making it hard for many residents to accept such widespread scarcities. But amid the prosperity, the gap between rich and poor was extreme, a problem that Mr. Chávez and his ministers say they are trying to eliminate.
Podcast: Food Shortages At The Heart Of Venezuelan Economic And Political Crisis
Protesters blame the president for the country’s economic collapse and also for his tactics to hold on to power, suspending local elections, refusing to allow a recall referendum to go forward, attempting to rewrite the constitution and crackdowns on protesters.
Planet Money Podcast Episode 731: How Venezuela Imploded
Today on the show, we have an economic horror story about a country that made all the wrong decisions with its oil money. It’s a window into the fundamental way that money works and how when you try to control it, you can lose everything.
From Toms Shoes to international adoptions, from solar panels to U.S. agricultural subsidies, drawing from over 200 interviews filmed in 20 countries, Poverty, Inc. unearths an uncomfortable side of charity we can no longer ignore.
Hosannas are being sung to the rocker Bono and G-8 leaders in praise of the recently announced agreement to relieve developing countries — mostly African — of more than $40 billion in debt.
The Christian Science Monitor calls it “a victory for the world’s poorest continent.” World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz declares it to be “a very important, successful outcome.” U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow boasts that it’s “an achievement of historic proportions.” And according to Larry Elliott of The Guardian, it’s “a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
What we measure affects what we do. If we focus only on material wellbeing – on, say, the production of goods, rather than on health, education, and the environment – we become distorted in the same way that these measures are distorted; we become more materialistic.
An IB Global Politics Site 