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Notes On The Policy Seminar On Inequality And Development, Held On The 26th Of September 2014 At The Ministry Of Foreign Affairs Of Finland, J. G. A. Saviranta

Akseli Saviranta

The following document presents summarised key notes from the United Nations University – World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) policy seminar titled “Inequality and Development – Trends and Policies”. This policy seminar represented a follow-up to a prior two-day conference organised earlier in the same month by the same institute, in which the author has participated as well.

The Cost Of Conscience: Quantifying Our Charitable Burden In An Era Of Globalization, Frank A. Pasquale

Frank A. Pasquale

Development economists have long debated the proper targets for foreign aid contributions from wealthy countries. Philosophers like Peter Singer and Peter Unger now suggest that these countries' citizens have a parallel moral responsibility to tithe a portion of their income directly for the relief of the suffering of the poorest. These thinkers would prefer a systematic global redistribution of income - some public mechanism for accomplishing worldwide what the tax systems of egalitarian social democratic states accomplish. But they all realize that such global governance is unlikely to come about in any of our lifetimes. So they turn their attention …

(Wp 2010-06) How Do Structural And Policy Factors Affect A Country’S Probability To Achieve The Most (Or The Least) Favorable Growth Path?, Fabrizio Carmignani, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

We ask which economic policies can help a country create the most favourable conditions for development. We observe that the dynamics of several development indicators can be grouped into four clusters, each cluster corresponding to a different combination of growth and changes in inequality. Based on this observation, we define four different development scenarios and use limited dependent variable regressions to study how structural and policy factors affect a country’s probability to achieve the most (or the least) favourable of these scenarios. Our results point to a comforting picture: through the choice of appropriate policies countries can effectively increase their …

Economic Importance Of Keynesian And Neoclassical Economic Theories To Development, Prince Opoku Agyemang

Prince Opoku Agyemang

No abstract provided.

The Shadows Behind The Law: An Overview Of The Legal System In Ghana, Prince Opoku Agyemang

Prince Opoku Agyemang

The Evolution Of Poverty And Inequality In Sub-Saharan Africa Over The Period 1980-2010: What Do We (And Can We) Know Given The Data Available?, Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

No abstract provided.

European Integration And The Evolution Of Economic State Capacities In The Southern And Eastern Peripheries Of Europe, Laszlo Bruszt, Visnja Vukov

laszlo bruszt

No abstract provided.

Drilling In The Drought: The Industrial Organization Of Groundwater, Ujjayant N. Chakravorty, E. Somanathan

Ujjayant Chakravorty

China and India together produce about half the world's rice and a third of the world's wheat, but production in both countries is heavily dependent on depleting groundwater resources. A large proportion of farmers buy and sell groundwater - the trading facilitated by small farm sizes and fragments land holdings. The economics of groundwater, when farm sizes are small, is little understood. This paper develops a simple, spatial model of the industrial organization of groundwater markets appropriate for smallholder agriculture. We show that if water is abundant, then equilibrium with free entry results in Bertrand competition, with water sellers charging …

A Review Of Morten Jerven's 'Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled By African Development Statistics And What To Do About It', Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Book review of Morten Jerven’s Poor Numbers. How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It, Cornell Studies in Political Economy, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, January 2013, ISBN: 9780801478604, 176 pp.

Beyond Deterrence And Decline Towards A General Understanding Of Peace Economics, Raul Caruso

Raul Caruso

The aim of this short article is to provide elements for a general discussion on peace economics and its potential contribution to economics and economic policy. I first present a discussion on deterrence equilibria and consequent allocation of resources. Eventually I expound five economic channels through which military expenditures turn to be detrimental for economic development. Finally some elements to build a framework for a peaceful economic policy are presented.

Effects Of Export Restrictions On Domestic Market Efficiency: The Case Of India’S Rice And Wheat Export Ban, Kathy Baylis, Maria Christina Jolejole-Foreman, Mindy Mallory

Kathy Baylis

The use of export restrictions has substantially increased in recent years. While a number of papers show how these restrictions have increased world commodity prices, in this paper, we empirically estimate how one country’s export restrictions affected the efficiency of their domestic market. We use a threshold cointegration model to estimate the integration between selected wheat and rice markets in India before and during the export bans and test whether those bans exacerbated the price effects of domestic production shocks. We find that before the ban, the majority of port markets for rice and wheat are integrated with the world …