News and Analysis: 22 Nov-3 Dec 10 | EmergingFrontierMarkets.com

Based in: Manila, Philippines

Posted on Fri, 3 Dec 10:

Scandinavian nations rated best among rich nations for policies benefiting developing world: The world's richest nations have made modest progress in improving policies that support development but still have a long way to go, acc to the 2010 Commitment to Dev't Index. Sweden again led the index, with its neighbors, Denmark and Norway, and the Netherlands, with New Zealand completing the top 5. The annual index ranks 22 of the richest nations based on their dedication to dev't policies that benefit poor nations. It goes beyond standard comparisons of aid flows and measures efforts in 7 policy areas: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security and tech, Ctr Global Dev't, 4 Nov 10 (Brief | More info) [PDF]

Verandah: U Calif professor emeritus resigns from American Physical Society (APS)--When I first joined the APS 67 years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat vs which Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society, Telegraph, 9 Oct 10 (Fmr UC Santa Barbara prof resigns from APS on global warming, Examiner | APS comments on resignation from membership | Deconstructing the APS response to the resignation | Initial petition to the APS | Another letter from fmr UC prof to the APS, 6 Nov)

Posted on Wed, 1 Dec 10:

Jeffrey Sachs: The G20's new thinking for the global economy--The new G20 development agenda offers an excellent way to merge concerns about global imbalances with the need to accelerate the pace of development in the poorer nations. The US has been pushing China, Germany, Japan, and others to raise consumption in order to boost demand. But there is a better way to put these surplus nations’ high saving rates to use. Rather than pushing their households to consume more, the G20 should work harder to channel these savings to the poorest nations in order to finance urgently needed investments in infrastructure, says Columbia U Earth Inst director, Proj Syndicate (courtesy Korea Herald), 1 Dec 10

Understanding India’s microcredit crisis: India's microcredit industry has pitched into what appears to be a replay of the US subprime debacle. I just spent a week in India, talking to nearly everyone. I learned there were so many complexities - history, politics, institutional rivalries. The industry indeed appears to have grown irresponsibly fast, partly out of pursuit of profit. Until last month, India was home to the fastest microcredit expansion the world has seen. But this is not a simple morality play. The state govt's response is draconian, tantamount to banning mortgages after a mortgage crisis. Why such a crackdown? The rise of private microcredit threatened a big World Bank-financed govt program that provides credit, by David Roodman, NY Univ (Weblog), 29 Nov 10

Verandah: Richard Lindzen--Global warming - How to approach the science: Perhaps we should stop accepting the term 'skeptic'. Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. 20 years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. In the meantime, while I avoid making forecasts of tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years, we may return to an ice age, says MIT meteorology prof, Testimony-US House Subcmte Sci/ Tech, 17 Nov 10 [Slides in PDF, 1.4MB] (Subcmte chair makes science focus of climate change debate | Subcmte hearing | The aerosols conundrum, MIT News, July '10)

Posted on Mon, 29 Nov 10:

Mouse & wo/man: China's Tianhe-1A crowned supercomputer king--China's supercomputer has been confirmed as the most powerful in the world. In late Oct, unconfirmed reports emerged that Tianhe-1A would take the top spot. Confirmation came with the publication of the latest list of the Top 500 supercomputers on the planet. It has a peak speed of 2.57 petaflops, far higher than the US XT5 Jaguar that can manage 1.76 petaflops. Located at China's Nat'l Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, much of the machine's processing power comes from chips more typically found in graphics cards. It is expected to be doing simulations to help weather forecasts and the search for undersea oil fields, BBC News, 16 Nov 10 (How China may spur US supercomputing, Computerworld)

Verandah: Answering claims of the climate skeptics--An introduction: Skepticism is broadly defined as 'an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity'. This inclination to question widely held beliefs plays a critical role in the evolution of scientific knowledge. Discussions in the current climate debate are hindered by the complexity of climate science, as well as by misinformation that have together led to an atmosphere of general confusion. In the spirit of traditional scientific skepticism, we will use this series to examine the science behind climate change and to address some of the most common sources of disagreement, Columbia U Earth Inst (Weblog), 12 Nov 10 (UN climate conference in Cancun)

Is this the 'BRICs Decade'?--The last decade saw the 'arrival' of the BRICs story. Here, we look at the next chapter - at how the BRICs and their relationships with the rest of the world will change in their 2nd decade. Our projections envisage the BRICs, as a group, overtaking the US by '18. And the most striking story will be the rise of the new BRICs middle class. Their equity markets in the past decade outperformed significantly because their strong econ growth surprised many, and the BRICs came into focus. Now that their story is better known, the same degree of outperformance seems much less likely, even if the BRICs deliver solid returns, Goldman Sachs, May '10 [PDF]

Posted on Fri, 26 Nov 10:

Concerns mount before Haiti's election: Haitians heeding int'l calls to chart a new course in Sun.'s pres'l and legislative elections are being confronted with old concerns from violence to possible voter fraud. With the elections just days away, concerns are mounting over incidents of violence, the timely distribution of voter identification cards for an est. 385,000 newly registered Haitians and the recruitment and training of voting bureau supervisors and poll workers. There are 19 pres'l candidates on the ballot, and more than 900 for parliament. Winners will have to contend with a deadly cholera epidemic that has killed more than 1,500 since mid-Oct, and the ongoing effects of the Jan earthquake,   Miami Herald, 25 Nov 10

The globalization of ideas: The global flow of ideas is apparent in the PCs, smart phones, e-readers, MP3 players and other technologies that fill our everyday lives. An idea is a set of instructions to produce a new good, to increase quality or to reduce costs. An idea is different from a good or a service because it is nonrival: it can be used by different producers simultaneously. Therefore, an idea is not scarce in the same way that a good or service is scarce. Ideas are great engines of econ growth precisely because everybody can use them simultaneously, by Anthony Landry,   Dallas Fed Res Bank Econ Letter, Nov '10

Study highlights role of foreign investment: Foreign direct investment generates more jobs per capita in Ireland than in any other nation. That is one of the findings in a new report from IBM, which also finds that the top 5 destinations by est. jobs in business support services are the Philippines, India, US, Poland and China. In addition, the top 5 destinations by est. jobs in R&D are India, US, China, Malaysia and France. It further notes that the top 5 destinations by est. jobs in production are the US, China, Mexico, India and Malaysia,   Irish Times, 22 Oct 10  (IBM Global Location Trends report [PDF, 1.2MB])

Posted on Wed, 24 Nov 10:

After crisis, Dubai refocuses while tackling debts: It was the celebrity endorsement marketers dream about. Before harnessing up to film stunts for the next 'Mission: Impossible' on the face of the world's tallest tower, Tom Cruise bounded onto stage in the skyscraper's plush new Armani Hotel in Dubai. With cameras rolling, he thanked the emirate's ruling sheik and praised the city as "very cinematic and beautiful". Publicity stunt it may have been. But the filmmakers' decision to set a large part of the movie here also reflects the headway Dubai has made on its own tough mission: to again charm investors and repair its reputation a year on from its financial crisis,   AP (courtesy Taiwan News), 24 Nov 10

Michael O'Hanlon: Understanding and confronting NKorea--Why does NKorea continue to provoke, often with lethal force, and always with severe consequences for stability and peace of mind in Northeast Asia? At one level, no one knows. The Hermit Kingdom is famously opaque, and with a leadership transition from Kim Jong-Il to his son Kim Jong-Un likely in the works as well, the current mystery is even deeper than usual. At another level, the answer is rather obvious, notes Inst senior fellow,   Brookings (Weblog), 23 Nov 10

Mirrlees Review of tax system recommends radical changes: The Mirrlees Review, led by James Mirrlees, Nobel Laureate '96, brought together a high-profile group of int'l experts and younger researchers to identify the characteristics of a good tax system for any open developed economy in the 21st century. The key principles are that the tax system should: 1) be designed as a whole, together with the benefits system, 2) seek 'neutrality', and 3) achieve 'progressivity' as efficiently as possible. Then it assessed the extent to which the UK tax system conforms to these ideals, and recommended how it might realistically be reformed,   Inst Fiscal Studies, 10 Nov 10 (Exec sum | Columbia U--Taxation in developing countries, July '10 | Exec sum) [PDF]

Posted on Mon, 22 Nov 10:

Haiti's cholera epidemic caused by weather, say scientists: Weather conditions - not UN soldiers - may have triggered Haiti's cholera epidemic, which has killed more than 1,000 people in less than a month, 3 leading researchers said. A coincidence of several catastrophic events - from climatic changes caused by the ocean-atmosphere phenomenon La Niña, to the plunge in water and sanitation quality following Haiti's disastrous Jan earthquake - provide the most likely explanation for the outbreak, which has hospitalized 17,000 people, SciDev Net, 19 Nov 10 (Haiti cholera response less than 10% supported, UN Ofc Coord Humanitarian Aff, 20 Nov)

Xinhua-DJ int'l financial centers development index launched in Shanghai: New York outranks London as the top financial center, acc. to a new report which selects and ranks 45 int'l financial centers. For the first time, development capability becomes an important indicator for producing the ranking. The rest of the top 10 are Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, Singapore, Frankfurt, Shanghai, Washington, and Sydney, Dow Jones Indexes, July '10 (Xinhua-DJ IFCD report [PDF, 2.5MB] | China’s financial center, Shanghai or Hong Kong?, China Briefing, July '10)

EmergingFrontierMarkets.com

emerging and frontier markets:

the unofficial field guide