Though growth is necessary for development, not all growth benefits the poor. CGD’s work on this topic includes exploring strategies to ensure that economic growth is “pro-poor” and that donor organizations and government agencies encourage broad-based, pro-poor growth.
Though growth is necessary for development, not all growth benefits the poor. CGD’s work on this topic includes exploring strategies to ensure that economic growth is “pro-poor” and that donor organizations and government agencies encourage broad-based, pro-poor growth.
Other work contributes to and supplements research on economic growth, including research on encouraging innovative private investment, expanding access to financial services, and reducing global inequality.
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Nancy Birdsall testifies before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade on rebuilding Haiti's competitiveness and private sector. March 16, 2010.
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Paul Romer argues that the principal constraint to raising living standards in this century will come neither from scarce resources nor limited technologies; rather, it will come from our limited capacity to discover and implement new rules. He suggests a new type of development policy: chartering new cities to create centers of growth and prosperity within developing countries.
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Kemal Derviş delivers the Fourth Annual Richard H. Sabot Lecture on June 11, 2009.
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Decades of research have been unable to conclusively show either a positive or negative effect of aid on economic growth in poor countries. CGD senior fellow Arvind Subramanian and Raghuram G. Rajan use a new technique in their latest working paper that suggests aid slows the manufacturing sector by appreciating the exchange rate and making the production of manufacturing goods less profitable. And if aid slows the manufacturing sector, the implications for overall growth could be adverse.
Read the Working Paper
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In this working paper, the authors shed light on systemic problems of variability and valuation in the Penn World Table GDP estimates that distort cross-country comparisons of the data. They propose creating a new chained series that values all data at PPP prices and makes better use of disaggregated data for different benchmark years to overcome the limitations.
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CGD vice president and senior fellow Todd Moss and reasearch assistant Lauren Young propose direct cash distribution of Ghana's oil profits to help the country avoid the natural resource curse. One positive effect of the plan would be to strenghten democratic pressure on the government to be good stewards of the resource.
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What policies could help Latin America achieve accelerated, sustained growth that reduces poverty and inequality? CGD senior fellow Liliana Rojas-Suarez describes the framework for growth outlined in the book Growing Pains in Latin America and its practical policy recommendations.
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Growing Pains in Latin America lays out and applies a new approach to delivering sustainable, inclusive economic growth to the region.
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Senior fellow Todd Moss investigates how the aftershocks of the global economic downturn are affecting Africa. African countries that take the right steps to mitigate the pain will be poised to benefit from the eventual recovery; those that don't will be left behind.
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Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, editor-at-large at U.S. News & World Report, and a senior political analyst for CNN, David Gergen joined CGD president Nancy Birdsall, and CGD senior fellows who authored essays in our recent book, The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President, for a lively discussion of the prospects for improved U.S. development policy under President Barack Obama.
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The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President shows how modest changes in U.S. policies could greatly improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, thus fostering greater stability, security, and prosperity globally and at home. Center for Global Development experts offer fresh perspectives and practical advice on trade policy, migration, foreign aid, climate change and more. In an introductory essay, CGD President Nancy Birdsall explains why and how the next U.S. president must lead in the creation of a better, safer world.
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Paul Romer argues that the principal constraint to raising living standards in this century will come neither from scarce resources nor limited technologies; rather, it will come from our limited capacity to discover and implement new rules. He suggests a new type of development policy: chartering new cities to create centers of growth and prosperity within developing countries.
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Microfinance is a widely celebrated strategy for helping poor people in the developing world. Leading microfinance institutions, including the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Grameen Bank, reach millions of clients. CGD research fellow David Roodman and Uzma Qureshi analyze why some microfinance institutions succeed in covering costs, earning returns, attracting capital, and scaling up. They conclude that financial imperatives can explain much about how microfinance products are designed, for example, the common emphasis on group lending to women. Thus the business acumen of microfinance innovators is underappreciated. But more rigorous study is needed to understand when and where these design choices help clients.
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The Burnside and Dollar (2000) finding that aid raises growth in a good policy environment has had an important influence on policy and academic debates. We conduct a data gathering exercise that updates their data from 1970-93 to 1970-97, as well as filling in missing data for the original period 1970-93. We find that the BD finding is not robust to the use of this additional data. (JEL F350, O230, O400)
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Many poor countries, especially in Africa, will miss the MDGs by a large margin. But neither African inaction nor a lack of aid will necessarily be the reason. Instead, responsibility for near-certain ‘failure’ lies with the overly-ambitious goals themselves and unrealistic expectations placed on aid. While the MDGs may have galvanized activists and encouraged bigger aid budgets, over-reaching brings risks as well. Promising too much leads to disillusionment and can erode the constituency for long-term engagement with the developing world.
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Decades of research have been unable to conclusively show either a positive or negative effect of aid on economic growth in poor countries. CGD senior fellow Arvind Subramanian and Raghuram G. Rajan use a new technique in their latest working paper that suggests aid slows the manufacturing sector by appreciating the exchange rate and making the production of manufacturing goods less profitable. And if aid slows the manufacturing sector, the implications for overall growth could be adverse.
Read the Working Paper
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Aid and trade are over-rated when it comes to helping reduce poverty, according to this provocative Foreign Affairs article by Nancy Birdsall, Dani Rodrik, and Arvind Subramanian. Neglected issues, such as giving poor nations more space for policy making, financing R&D for vaccines and other new technology, and easing restrictions on migrant labor, are potentially more important, they argue.
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In an increasingly globalized world, inequality is an issue of rising concern, especially in Latin America, home to many of the world's most unequal societies. This new book, co-published by the Center for Global Development and the Inter-American Dialogue, describes the links between recent growth trends, changing patterns of inequality, and rising cynicism and frustration with the political leadership across the region. The authors, Nancy Birdsall, Augusto de la Torre, and Rachel Menezes, present a dozen economic policy tools to make life fairer for the great majority of people--without sacrificing economic growth.
Learn More
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Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, editor-at-large at U.S. News & World Report, and a senior political analyst for CNN, David Gergen joined CGD president Nancy Birdsall, and CGD senior fellows who authored essays in our recent book, The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President, for a lively discussion of the prospects for improved U.S. development policy under President Barack Obama.
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CGD vice president and senior fellow Todd Moss and reasearch assistant Lauren Young propose direct cash distribution of Ghana's oil profits to help the country avoid the natural resource curse. One positive effect of the plan would be to strenghten democratic pressure on the government to be good stewards of the resource.
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Pranab Bardhan, Non-Resident Fellow Pranab Bardhan is a Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley where he has been since 1977. Before joining the Berkeley faculty, Bardhan was a professor at MIT and the Delhi School of Economics. Bardhan was the Chief Editor of the Journal of Development Economic, and the co-chair of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Network on the Effects of Inequality on Economic Performance. From 2008-2009 Bardhan held the distinguished Fulbright Siena Chair at the University of Siena, Italy, and from 2010-2011 Bardhan will be the BP Centennial Professor at London School of Economics.
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Nancy Birdsall, President An internationally recognized expert on the impact of rich-country policies on poor people in developing countries, Nancy Birdsall is the author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books and over 100 articles in scholarly journals and monographs, published in English and Spanish. Her most recent book is Cash on Delivery: A New Approach to Foreign Aid.
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Michael Clemens, Research Fellow Research Fellow Michael Clemens leads CGD’s Migration and Development initiative. This work investigates how rich countries’ regulation of international movement by people from poor countries shapes the lives of the people who move as well as those who do not.
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William R. Cline, Senior Fellow William R. Cline is a senior fellow jointly at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global Development. His research focuses on finance, capital flows, trade and development; currently he is investigating the differential impact of global warming on agriculture in rich and developing countries.
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Ricardo Hausmann, Non-Resident Fellow Ricardo Hausmann is Professor of the Practice of Economic Development at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Previously, he served as the first Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank (1994-2000), where he created the Research Department.
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Ethan Kapstein, Visiting Fellow Ethan Kapstein is a visiting fellow at CGD and Paul Dubrule Professor of Sustainable Development at INSEAD. Prior to this, Kapstein was Stassen Professor of International Peace at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and Dept. of Political Science at the University of Minnesota (1996-2003). He has also served as vice president and director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book, The Fate of Young Democracies, co-authored with Nathan Converse, is available through Cambridge University Press.
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Devesh Kapur, Non-Resident Fellow Devesh Kapur is the Director of the Centre for Advanced Study of India, he holds the Madan Lal Sobti Professorship for the Study of Contemporary India, and he is an associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. His research examines local-global linkages in political and economic change in developing countries, particularly India. He also focuses on the role of international institutions and diasporas in development. He is the co-author, with John McHale, of Give Us Your Best and Brightest: The Global Hunt for Talent and Its Impact on the Developing World.
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Michael Kremer, Non-Resident Fellow Michael Kremer is the Gates Professor of Developing Societies in the department of economics at Harvard University, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development. Kremer’s recent research examines education and health in developing countries, immigration, and globalization.
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Carol J. Lancaster, Non-Resident Fellow Carol Lancaster is Director of the Mortara Center for International Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Before joining the Georgetown faculty in 1996, Professor Lancaster served three years as Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
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Technologies, Rules, and Progress: The Case for Charter Cities
- Mar 3, 2010
Paul Romer argues that the principal constraint to raising living standards in this century will come neither from scarce resources nor limited technologies; rather, it will come from our limited capacity to discover and implement new rules. He suggests a new type of development policy: chartering new cities to create centers of growth and prosperity within developing countries.
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Aid, Dutch Disease, and Manufacturing Growth - Working Paper 196
- Dec 18, 2009
Decades of research have been unable to conclusively show either a positive or negative effect of aid on economic growth in poor countries. CGD senior fellow Arvind Subramanian and Raghuram G. Rajan use a new technique in their latest working paper that suggests aid slows the manufacturing sector by appreciating the exchange rate and making the production of manufacturing goods less profitable. And if aid slows the manufacturing sector, the implications for overall growth could be adverse.
Read the Working Paper
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Saving Ghana from Its Oil: The Case for Direct Cash Distribution - Working Paper 186
- Oct 19, 2009
CGD vice president and senior fellow Todd Moss and reasearch assistant Lauren Young propose direct cash distribution of Ghana's oil profits to help the country avoid the natural resource curse. One positive effect of the plan would be to strenghten democratic pressure on the government to be good stewards of the resource.
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Growing Pains in Latin America (brief)
- Sep 25, 2009
What policies could help Latin America achieve accelerated, sustained growth that reduces poverty and inequality? CGD senior fellow Liliana Rojas-Suarez describes the framework for growth outlined in the book Growing Pains in Latin America and its practical policy recommendations.
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How the Economic Crisis Is Hurting Africa--And What to Do About It
- May 8, 2009
Senior fellow Todd Moss investigates how the aftershocks of the global economic downturn are affecting Africa. African countries that take the right steps to mitigate the pain will be poised to benefit from the eventual recovery; those that don't will be left behind.
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The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President
- Aug 22, 2008
The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President shows how modest changes in U.S. policies could greatly improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, thus fostering greater stability, security, and prosperity globally and at home. Center for Global Development experts offer fresh perspectives and practical advice on trade policy, migration, foreign aid, climate change and more. In an introductory essay, CGD President Nancy Birdsall explains why and how the next U.S. president must lead in the creation of a better, safer world.
There are no initiatives related to this topic.
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India's Promise? Conflicting prospects for the world's most populous democracy appeared in Harvard Magazine. In the article Kapur asks, The exceptional confluence of good news—economic, political, international, internal—might seem to indicate that India’s moment has finally arrived. Or has it? Is India’s future akin to an Asian European Union—a liberal, democratic, multinational polity (albeit with lower levels of income)? Or is Brazil the more likely model—a giant system that has become wealthier but remains extremely unequal, and is afflicted by high levels of endemic violence? Or could India go the bleak way of Indonesia—a sprawling but weak polity led by governments with ostensible power but little authority; one that, despite its size, is likely to continue to languish in the minor leagues?
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Aid and trade are over-rated when it comes to helping reduce poverty, according to this provocative Foreign Affairs article by Nancy Birdsall, Dani Rodrik, and Arvind Subramanian. Neglected issues, such as giving poor nations more space for policy making, financing R&D for vaccines and other new technology, and easing restrictions on migrant labor, are potentially more important, they argue.
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This article by Nancy Birdsall and Rachel Menezes appeared in the July-September edition of Foreign Affairs Espanol.
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From the Financial Times
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From Foreign Policy Magazine, February 2005
Shortly after a tsunami swept through the Indian Ocean last December, a U.N. official complained that the West was "stingy" with its relief donations. Stung by this criticism, the Bush administration increased its financial pledge tenfold overnight—while loudly asserting that the United States actually led the global pack in foreign aid. Is the world’s wealthiest country a scrooge or a savior?
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From the International Herald Tribune
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From the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY)
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From the Financial Times
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