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Begin New Search Publishing Institution Center for Global Development Author Nancy Birdsall

1. The Median Is the Message: A Good-Enough Measure of Material Well-Being and Shared Development Progress

Author:
Nancy Birdsall and Christian J. Meyer
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
We argue that survey-based median household consumption expenditure (or income) per capita be incorporated into standard development indicators, as a simple, robust, and durable indicator of typical individual material well-being in a country. Using household survey data available for low- and middle-income countries from the World Bank's PovcalNet tool, we show that as a measure of income-related well-being, it is far superior to the commonly used GDP per capita as well as survey-based measures at the mean. We also argue that survey-based median measures are "distributionaware", i.e. when used as the denominator of various widely available indicators such as mean consumption expenditure per capita they provide a "good-enough" indicator of consumption (or income) inequality. Finally, as a post-2015 indicator of progress at the country-level in promoting shared development and reducing inequality, we propose that the rate of increase in median consumption per capita after taxes and transfers exceed the rate of increase in average consumption in the same period.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, Poverty, and World Bank
Political Geography:
United Nations

2. The Quality of Official Development Assistance 2014

Author:
Nancy Birdsall, Homi Kharas, and Nabil Hashmi
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA) measures donors' performance on 31 indicators of aid quality to which donors have made commitments. The indicators are grouped into four dimensions associated with effective aid: maximizing efficiency, fostering institutions, reducing the burden on partner countries, and transparency and learning. The 2014 edition finds that donors are overall becoming more transparent and better at fostering partner country institutions but that there has been little progress at maximizing efficiency or reducing the burden on partner countries. The World Bank's concessional lending arm, the International Development Association (IDA), performs very well in QuODA, ranking in the top 10 of 31 donors on all four dimensions. The United States ranks in the bottom half of all donors on three of the four dimensions of aid quality and last on reducing the burden on partner countries. The United Kingdom ranks in the top third on three of four dimensions of aid quality and scores particularly well on transparency and learning. The Global Fund ranks in the bottom third on fostering institutions but ranks in the top third on the other three dimensions of aid quality, including the top spot in maximizing efficiency.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States and United Kingdom

3. The Brazil-Norway Agreement with Performance-Based Payments for Forest Conservation: Successes, Challenges, and Lessons

Author:
Nancy Birdsall, Frances Seymour, and William Savedoff
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In March 2004, the Brazilian government initiated a range of policies and enforcement actions (under the Action Plan for Preservation and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon) that brought sharp reductions in the rate of deforestation. In 2008, Brazil signed an agreement with Norway to receive payments during a 5-year period for bringing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation below a 10-year average (1996–2005). Norway pledged up to US$1 billion for this agreement, which stipulated that these funds would be donated to the Amazon Fund (Fundo Amazônia), managed by the Brazilian National Development Bank and invested in actions to prevent deforestation and to promote the conservation and sustainable use of the Amazon biome.
Topic:
Climate Change, Treaties and Agreements, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Norway and Brazil

4. A Note on the Middle Class in Latin America

Author:
Nancy Birdsall
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) database provides information about the carbon dioxide emissions, electricity production, corporate ownership, and location of more than 60,000 power plants in over 200 countries. Originally launched in 2007, CARMA is provided freely to the public at www.carma.org and remains the only comprehensive data source of its kind. This paper documents the methodology underpinning CARMA v3.0, released in July, 2012. Comparison of CARMA model output with reported data highlights the general difficulty of precisely predicting annual electricity generation for a given plant and year. Estimating the rate at which a plant emits CO2 (per unit of electricity generated) generally faces fewer obstacles. Ultimately, greater disclosure of plant-specific data is needed to overcome these limitations, particularly in major emitting countries like China, Russia, and Japan. For any given plant in CARMA v3.0, it is estimated that the reported value is within 20 percent of the actual value in 85 percent of cases for CO2 intensity, 75 percent for annual CO2 emissions, and 45 percent for annual electricity generation. CARMA's prediction models are shown to offer significantly better estimates than more naïve approaches to estimating plant-specific performance.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, Poverty, and Social Stratification
Political Geography:
Russia, Japan, China, America, and Latin America

5. The Global Financial Crisis: The Beginning of the End of the "Development" Agenda?

Author:
Nancy Birdsall
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In this paper, written as the introduction to New Ideas on Development after the Financial Crisis (JHU Press, 2011), Nancy Birdsall discusses two themes. The first is the pre-crisis subtle shift in the prevailing model of capitalism in developing countries—away from orthodoxy or so-called market fundamentalism—that the crisis is likely to reinforce.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, Markets, and Financial Crisis

6. The Quality of Official Development Assistance Assessment 2009: Is Aid Quality Improving?

Author:
Nancy Birdsall, Homi Kharas, and Rita Perakis
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
This report presents the results of the second edition of the Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA) assessment, with a focus on the changes that have occurred in donor performance since the first edition. These results were released in summary form in November, 2011, just before the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Economics, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
South Korea

7. Declining Inequality in Latin America: Some Economics, Some Politics

Author:
Nancy Birdsall, Nora Lustig, and Darryl McLeod
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Latin America is known to have income inequality among the highest in the world. That inequality has been invoked to explain low growth, poor education, macroeconomic volatility, and political instability. But new research shows that inequality in the region is falling. In this paper we summarize recent findings on inequality, present and discuss an assessment of how the type of political regime matters and why, and investigate the relationship between changes in inequality and changes in the size of the middle class in the region. We conclude with some questions about whether and how changes in income distribution and in middle-class economic power will affect the politics of distribution in the future.
Topic:
Economics, Poverty, and Social Stratification
Political Geography:
Latin America

8. Find Me the Money: Financing Climate and Other Global Public Goods

Author:
Nancy Birdsall and Benjamin Leo
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The global community faces a number of critical challenges ranging from climate change to crossborder health risks to natural-resource scarcities. Many of these so-called global commons problems carry grave risks to economic growth in the developing world and to the livelihoods and welfare of their people. Climate change is the classic example. Despite the risks involved, donor governments have funded programs addressing global challenges such as climate change at far lower levels than traditional programs of country-based development assistance. The prospects for dealing with such global challenges will depend at least in part on new collective financing mechanisms.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Health, Humanitarian Aid, and Foreign Aid

9. Measuring the Quality of Aid: QuODA Second Edition

Author:
Nancy Birdsall, Homi Kharas, and Rita Perakis
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
As demonstrated by the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and Accra Agenda for Action, the development community has reached a broad consensus on what constitutes good practice for the delivery of development assistance. But since these high-level agreements were made, there has been almost no independent quantitative analysis of whether donors are meeting the standards they have set for themselves.
Topic:
Development, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, Treaties and Agreements, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Paris

10. The Post-Washington Consensus: Development after the Crisis

Author:
Francis Fukuyama and Nancy Birdsall
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
A clear shift in the development agenda is underway. Traditionally, an agenda generated in the developed world was implemented in—and, indeed, often imposed on—the developing world. The United States, Europe, and Japan will continue to be significant sources of economic resources and ideas, but the emerging markets will become significant players. Countries such as Brazil, China, India, and South Africa will be both donors and recipients of resources for development and of best practices for how to use them. In fact, development has never been something that the rich bestowed on the poor but rather something the poor achieved for themselves. It appears that the Western powers are finally waking up to this truth in light of a financial crisis that, for them, is by no means over.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Europe, India, South Africa, and Brazil