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Blog Post
August 30, 2022
The trend toward space-enabled affordability moved a notch forward last week when T-Mobile and SpaceX announced their alliance to provide “satellite to cell phone” service (in the US), joining the ranks of other New Space and telecommunications alliances, such as Lynk and Unitel (Mongolia) and Telik...
Blog Post
August 04, 2022
At the July G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors, a panel of experts (of which I was one) presented their report on the capital adequacy of the MDBs. Why care? the answer, quite simply, is that hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. As with any bank, small changes in th...
Blog Post
August 04, 2022
A more useful starting point in answering questions such as this is to reframe space as infrastructure, akin to roads or power. Road systems and electricity grids, for example, don’t directly feed people, but they do contribute greatly to the ability to grow, move, store, and sell agricultural goods...
Blog Post
July 15, 2022
The benefits of space technology are substantial, most simply demonstrated by how it contributes to every UN Sustainable Development Goal. Most countries’ economies and industries are already dependent on satellites to some degree, for position, navigation, and timing data (transportation, power gri...
WORKING PAPERS
June 09, 2022
We present data on the global diffusion of technologies over time, updating and adding to Comin and Mestieri’s "CHAT" database. We analyze usage primarily based on per capita measures and divide technologies into the two broad categories of production and consumption. We conclude that there has been...
Blog Post
May 10, 2022
Pretty much everyone following the war in Ukraine has seen satellite imagery of Russian convoys trundling across Ukraine, or read about Elon Musk’s delivery of 5,000+ Starlink satellite-internet receivers. News reports are backed up by a wealth of satellite data, which has short-circuited Russia’s a...
Blog Post
April 28, 2022
The idea that shavings of public gold sprinkled like fairy dust on private investment projects would bring to life a giant array of infrastructure and services which in turn would gift us wondrous progress in development hasn’t worked out. It is time to drop the fantasy and focus instead on the test...
Blog Post
April 20, 2022
In 2021, Ghana announced a plan to issue sovereign bonds of up to $2 billion, with proceeds due partially to fund a free secondary school program. Just months later, Ghana’s rising debt burden means this is no longer feasible. Can developing countries tap the social bond market in order to fund publ...