News and Analysis: 17-31 July 2015 | EmergingFrontierMarkets.com

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Posted on Fri, 31 July 2015:

Bader and Dollar: Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership is the linchpin of the Asia rebalance, Brookings (blog), 28 July 15:
This week, 12 trade ministers meet in Hawaii to try to complete negotiations on the TPP agreement. If they succeed, there will be substantial benefits for their nations and a big diplomatic win for the Obama admin. If they fail, the accord risks getting bogged down in US presidential politics and puts into question the rebalance to Asia, write Inst senior fellows

Edmund Phelps: What is wrong with the West's economies?, NY Review of Books, Aug '15:
Many of us in the West feel that our economies are far from just, though our views on justice differ somewhat. One band of economists, led for decades by the British economist Anthony Atkinson, sees the West as being in another Gilded Age of inequality in income and wealth. Adopting Jeremy Bentham's utilitarian view, they would redistribute income from those in high brackets to those farther down, writes Nobel Laureate '06

Jonathan Leape: New "zero-draft" proposal on Sustainable Development Goals falls short, Int'l Growth Ctr (blog), 5 June 15:
With the current Millennium Development Goals set to expire this year, there is a real opportunity for the UN to frame this 2nd round of development goals in a way that focuses the global agenda on initiatives that will have the greatest impact on poverty eradication, writes Ctr exec dir / Lond Sch Econ prof (ODI's Stuart: SDG "zero draft"-- glass three-quarters full)

Posted on Wed, 29 July 2015:

Robert Rotberg: Measuring "governance" to improve lives, Conversation, 3 June 15 [via Ctr Int'l Governance Innov]:
Botswana does more for its people than Kenya; India delivers more quality services than Pakistan; Barbados is better at these things than Haiti or Jamaica; and Singapore offers the kinds of public goods that Malaysia does not yet provide. All kinds of officials and citizens, at home and abroad, want to know why and how those statements are true in order to help lives in less fortunate places improve, writes Ctr senior fellow

Not everything will go wrong, but when it does…, Allianz's Project M, June '15:
The economist Sam Peltzman famously showed in 1975 that compulsory seatbelt wearing did not decrease highway deaths. Instead, drivers drove more aggressively causing more deadly accidents among pedestrians. This completely negated any benefits. Now known as the "Peltzman Effect", this has been shown to exist in many contexts of regulation

Ricardo Hausmann: Does better education really drive economic growth?, Project Syndicate, 1 June 15 [via WEForum (blog)]:
Education's importance is incontrovertible - teaching is my day job, so I certainly hope it is of some value. But whether it constitutes a strategy for econ growth is another matter. What most people mean by better educ is more schooling; and by higher-quality educ, they mean the effective acquisition of skills (as revealed, say, by the OECD's standardized PISA exam). But does that really drive econ growth?, asks Harvard Ctr Int'l Dev't dir

Posted on Mon, 27 July 2015:

Economics has an Africa problem - take 3, World Bank (blog), by M Goldstein, 13 May 15:
Recently, Grieve Chelwa had a nice post where he pointed out how few (or none) of the big name int'l academic dev't conferences are held in Africa and how few Africans there were on the editorial boards of the major econ journals. Chris Blattman followed up with a post where he argued that a big factor in driving this pattern was the "poor state" of African universities. Chris's post made me feel old, writes Bank's Africa region lead economist

Paul Krugman: The MIT gang, NY Times, 25 July 15 [via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
Goodbye, Chicago boys. Hello, MIT gang. The term "Chicago boys" refers to Latin American economists, trained at the Univ Chicago, who took radical free-market ideology back to their home countries. Their influence was part of a broader phenomenon in the 70s and 80s, an era of ascendancy for the Chicago school. Now a different school is ascendant, writes Nobel Laureate '08 (Hubbard/Warsh: How the US can return to 4% growth, WSJ) [courtesy Columbia U]

Angus Deaton: The logic of effective altruism - A comment, Boston Review, 1 July 15:
Children are not dying for the lack of a few thousand dollars to keep them alive. Dev't is neither a financial nor a technical problem but a political problem, and the aid industry often makes the politics worse. Like Singer, I am privileged to teach at Princeton. I too see students who want to relieve suffering in the world. Should they go to Dhaka or Dakar? Focus on bed nets or worms?, writes Princeton U prof (Another comment, by MIT's Acemoglu)

Posted on Fri, 24 July 2015:

WTO inks trade deal to end tariffs on more than 200 tech products, AP, 24 July 15 [via CBC News]:
Dozens of countries have agreed to abolish duties on more than 200 tech products -- from advanced computer chips to GPS devices, printer cartridges and video-game consoles. The agreement announced Fri marks the World Trade Org's 1st tariff-killing deal in 18 years. The deal is an expansion of the 1997 Information Technology Agreement, which includes 80 WTO member countries

What Obama can learn from African entrepreneurs, GE Ideas Lab, 22 July 15:
African entrepreneurs are enjoying the spotlight, hosting Pres Obama this week at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, Kenya. The pres will discover innovative minds -- whether in using mobile tech to leapfrog the competition or off-grid innovations to power rural villages -- eager for partnership, says a co-founding partner of a private equity fund which offers growth capital to small and medium enterprises in Africa

Greg Mankiw: History echoes through Greek debt crisis, NY Times, 19 July 15 [PDF, via Harvard]:
It is worth bearing in mind the lessons from Mr Keynes. A nation can withstand only so much econ pain before the political fallout becomes ugly. And that fallout can extend beyond the border of the problem nation. Yes, the Greeks have every reason to be contrite. But it might also be wise for the rest of the world to show some mercy, writes Pres GW Bush's Council Econ Advisers fmr chair / Harvard prof

Posted on Wed, 22 July 2015:

Sustainable Development Goals - A revolution begins, OECD Observer, July '15:
If the Millennium Development Goals were, as one of their architects, Mark Malloch Brown, puts it, about identifying 'the pocketbook' issues -- health, education, water -- which people want money spent on, then perhaps the SDGs could be characterized as putting that money into the pocketbook in the first place. Economics has returned to share the center stage in the SDG debate

Paul Blustein: No Grexit for now, but we need a better way, Globe and Mail, 13 July 15 [coutesy CIGI]:
The latest from Europe indicates that Greece will stay in the euro zone - for a while longer, at least. Whatever the ultimate outcome, it's clear that the world needs a better way to deal with countries that get over their heads in debt. By coincidence, a document that came to light just as the Greek drama was intensifying underscores the defects in the current system, writes Ctr senior fellow / award-winning journalist and author

Berkeley economist appointed to a top IMF post, U Calif-Berkeley News, 20 July 15:
The IMF announced on 20 July the appointment of Maurice Obstfeld as its chief economist. Christina Romer, Pres Obama's Council Econ Advisers fmr chair, praised the appointment. "Int'l econ issues have never been more important for the US or the world. I will sleep better at night knowing that Maury is helping to guide the IMF's critical role" (Obstfeld: Crises and the international system, May '13) [PDF, courtesy UC-Berkeley)

Posted on Mon, 20 July 2015:

Jeffrey Frankel: Is Tsipras the new Lula?, Project Syndicate, 17 July 15:
Emerging market crises do hold important lessons. Greek PM Tsipras has the chance to become to his country what SKorean Pres Kim Dae-jung and Brazilian Pres Lula da Silva were to theirs: a man of the left who moves toward fiscal responsibility and freer markets. Both immediately confronted the international financial constraints that opposition politicians can afford to ignore, writes Harvard prof / member of NBER biz cycle dating cmte

Barry Eichengreen: What China should learn from Greece's cautionary tale, Caixin Online, 15 July 15 [courtesy CIGI]:
Many of the problems could have been averted had Greece been allowed to restructure its debts starting in 2010. But the worry was that restructuring the debt would destabilize the German and French banks. Now that foreign banks have been allowed to exit, the worry is that restructuring will further damage weak Greek banks that still hold gov't bonds. What does any of this have to do with China?, asks U Calif-Berkeley prof

Alex Evans: Addis - Where are the concrete plans for action in the development finance deal?, Guardian, 16 July 15:
Start with the good news from this week's finance for development conference in Addis Ababa: at least it got the narrative right. It was able to highlight the message that no one gets left behind. But as far as concrete actions are concerned, there's no debate on whether the glass was half full or half empty, writes NYU Ctr International Cooperation senior fellow

Posted on Fri, 17 July 2015:

John Taylor: The lesson Greece's lenders forgot, WSJ, 10 July 15 [courtesy Hoover Inst]:
The lesson for the IMF, European Central Bank, and the Eurogroup made up of finance ministers, should be clear. Don't lend to a country with an unsustainable public debt. If you do, you'll end up bailing out the creditors and leaving the people you say you are trying to help, and many others, worse off. The IMF 1st learned this lesson more than a decade ago. After years of crises in emerging markets it adopted a framework in 2003, writes Inst senior fellow

Aid burst lifts people out of extreme poverty, Nature, 14 May 15:
Giving some of the world's poorest people a two-year aid package -- including cash, food, health-care services, skills training and advice -- improves their livelihoods for at least a year after the support is cut off, acc. to the results of an experiment involving more than 10,000 households in six countries. The poverty intervention had already been trialed successfully in Bangladesh, and the study's researchers say it shows the approach works in other cultures too

Nook & Cranny: Banerjee and Pande -- How to prioritize UN goals, NY Times, 10 Sep 14 [PDF, courtesy MIT]:
In France, children grow up hearing the story of the 100 times good cake: A cat and a dog preparing a cake start from the idea that if the cake has 100 delicious ingredients, it will be "100 times good". So they make a cake with strawberries and cream, garlic and pepper (and throw in a mouse and some bones for good measure). Diplomats are facing a "100 times good" temptation as they work to establish new UN global goals for dev't, write MIT prof; and Harvard fellow

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