A Discussion of “Morality and Spirituality: The missing link for economic development in the 21st century”. Economists postulate that it takes good institutions (laws, regulations, morality, customs) to create the incentives needed to organize your factors of production (capital, labor, etc.) to produce a growing output (GDP per capita). Can…
Tag: Developing Countries
Economic Thought
Can Ancient Greece Help Developing Economies?
A Discussion of “Morality, Institutions and the Wealth of Nations: Some Lessons from ancient Greece” When I teach macroeconomics, I know one question the students have is, “Why can’t we use all this economic knowledge to help poor countries grow?” And the answer is, we can, to a point. But,…
Macroeconomics
Why Countries Rich with Resources can be so Poor and How to Prevent It
A Discussion of “Does Information Break the Political Resource Curse? Experimental Evidence from Mozambique” It seems logical that a country with no resources would be poor, so it seems puzzling when a country rich in resources is poor. However, Armand, Coutts, et al. (2020) note the Resource Curse, defined as…
Macroeconomics
Can Emerging Market Economies Prevent Importing a Financial Crisis?
A Discussion of “When Do Capital Inflow Surges End in Tears?” Post World War II the “Powers that Be” set about building an economically interdependent global world order, governed by institutions like the IMF, the WTO and the World Bank, with the intention of preventing future global wars. If a war…
Microeconomics
Targeted Beats Universal in Developing Countries
A Discussion of “Universal Basic Income vs. Targeted Transfers” Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a hot issue— it even played a role in the 2020 Democrat presidential primary as a key feature of Andrew Yang’s platform. I see a lot of political, ethical, and philosophical reasons given for it, but…