There have been several studies looking at whether aid results in economic growth, which all reach broadly similar conclusions. The most recent, and best study, is by my colleagues at the Center for Global Development. Like the other studies, it finds that aid has had a substantial positive impact on Read more…
Plucky little Denmark plans to sabotage the EU’s sinister and unwelcome plans to introduce software patents. Another reason to be thankful to the Danes.
To celebrate their tenth anniversary, Yahoo! has created a web retrospective. Enjoy.
Update: see a longer post on smallpox here. An estimated 300 million people died from smallpox in the 20th century. As a result of a global international effort, financed by foreign aid, the disease has been eradicated. In the middle of the 20th Century, there were approximately 10 to 15 Read more…
Over dinner the other night, some friends – all intelligent, well-informed, thoughtful and caring people – were expressing scepticism that foreign assistance actually works. They were concerned that aid is often syphoned off by corrupt elites, and ends up in private bank accounts in Switzerland. I suspect their views are Read more…
In my day job, I am working on how we can accelerate research and development of new vaccines for malaria, AIDS and other diseases concentrated in developing countries. Alan Beattie has an article in today’s FT on the topic (quoting me.) You can read the full FT article here. This Read more…
It is traditional for the Managing Director of the IMF to be a European; and for the President of the World Bank to be an American (the current World Bank President, an Australian called Jim Wolfensohn, took US citizenship to get the job). Of course, the job should be advertised, Read more…
The prolific Brad DeLong, an economist here at Berkeley (where I am a visiting scholar), makes a good case for the US to do everything it can to help China and India to develop. It is very important for the late-twenty first century national security of the United States that, Read more…
The Adam Smith Institute is known for its robust support for free markets. Their blog is always interesting and often well-informed; and they enjoy taking unconventional positions on topical policy issues. But every so often, the position they take is not well thought through, and not consistent with their general Read more…
Jeff Sachs, the economist who heads the United Nations’ Millennium Development Project says in "The End of Poverty": Every morning, our newspapers could report, ‘More than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty.’ The New York Times rose to that challenge with its editorial yesterday (27 February – registration required). Read more…