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451. Teaching Entrepreneurship: Impact of Business Training on Microfinance Clients and Institutions

Author:
Dean Karlan and Martin Valdivia
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Can one teach basic entrepreneurship skills, or are they fixed personal characteristics? Most academic and development policy discussions about microentrepreneurs focus on their access to credit, and assume their human capital to be fixed. The self-employed poor rarely have any formal training in business skills. However, a growing number of microfinance organizations are attempting to build the human capital of micro-entrepreneurs in order to improve the livelihood of their clients and help further their mission of poverty alleviation. Using a randomized control trial, we measure the marginal impact of adding business training to a Peruvian group lending program for female microentrepreneurs. Treatment groups received thirty to sixty minute entrepreneurship training sessions during their normal weekly or monthly banking meeting over a period of one to two years. Control groups remained as they were before, meeting at the same frequency but solely for making loan and savings payments. We find that the treatment led to improved business knowledge, practices and revenues. The program also improved repayment and client retention rates for the microfinance institution. Larger effects found for those that expressed less interest in training in a baseline survey. This has important implications for implementing similar market-based interventions with a goal of recovering costs.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Education, and Gender Issues

452. Foreign Aid

Author:
Kevin A. Hassett
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The financial-aid system for college students is in a state of disarray. Federal aid and programs administered through the tax code are bureaucratic and include unfair provisions. Congress should stop using programs with a track record of little success and start using those that will give students the opportunities—and financial aid—they deserve.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Education, and Government

453. Iraq in Books, Part II

Author:
Michael Rubin
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The following article is the second of two installments by Michael Rubin in AEI's On the Issues series. The two articles originally appeared as a review essay in the Spring 2007 edition of Middle Eastern Quarterly.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, and Education
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

454. Iraq in Books, Part I

Author:
Michael Rubin
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The following article is the first of two installments by Michael Rubin in AEI's On the Issues series. The two articles originally appeared as a review essay in the Spring 2007 edition of Middle Eastern Quarterly.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, and Education
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

455. Education, Intelligence, and America's Future

Author:
Charles Murray
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
In January, W. H. Brady Scholar Charles Murray stepped back from current education debates about reauthorization of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act and education funding in the president's budget to ask more fundamental questions about the goals that should shape American education in the future. This On the Issues is adapted from essays published in the Wall Street Journal on January 16, 17, and 18, 2007.
Topic:
Development, Education, and Government
Political Geography:
United States and America

456. A Color-Coded Professoriate?

Author:
Frederick M. Hess
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Race-based hiring practices are commonplace in today's colleges and universities. Not even our country's highest court has been able to put a stop to them. What is needed to end them are determined efforts by alumni and trustees, strong voices within universities, and an engaged public.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, Economics, and Education

457. The Wrong Kind of Bipartisanship?

Author:
Frederick M. Hess
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is due for reauthorization in 2007. In the nick of time, a bipartisan conventional wisdom has emerged that conveniently excuses the shortcomings of this awkwardly assembled law.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Education, and Politics

458. Are U.S. Military Academies Preparing Graduates for Today's Wars?

Author:
Andrew Exum
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
For the past five years, U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers have been operating in highly complex combat environments in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Uniformed decisionmakers realized early on that these wars required a wide array of skill sets and areas of expertise beyond those traditionally taught to junior officers. Army chief of staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker has stressed the need for a new kind of Army leader skilled in governance, statesmanship, and diplomacy and able to understand and work within different cultural contexts. The question, then, is to what extent the education given to future ground component officers at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis is working to produce such leaders. Specifically, to what extent are the traditional engineering-based curricula at the nations service academies producing leaders with the requisite language and cultural skills necessary to be effective officers on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Topic:
Development, Education, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Middle East

459. The philosophy of subject and the sociology of knowledge in the theories of Jürgen Habermas and Niklas Luhmann

Author:
Monica Judith Sánchez Flores
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
In this article I show that, in spite of essential differences between Habermas and Luhmann with respect to the philosophy of the subject, they both depend on the modern idea of the individual self to pose their theories of meaning (Habermas 1989 and 1990, Luhmann 1998). Habermas and Luhmann belong to divergent theoretical schools (critical and functionalist respectively) and yet they both use essential lessons about language from the German “sciences of the spirit” (Geisteswissenschaften); the phenomenological perspective and the sociology of knowledge. Even though their positions on the value of the modern individual self are opposed, the latter is an essential element in the theoretical perspectives of both sociologists: Habermas describes the individual subject as a linguistically competent, rational, and critical entity; while Luhmann rejects this anthropocentric conception outright and contemplates society as a set of systems oriented towards their own functionality. Luhmann produces a very useful sociological perspective, but rhetorically rejects the substantive aspect of the philosophy of the subject without recognizing that his perspective depends on the consciousness of the subject that he rejects at the same time. In the light of this dilemma I argue that it is necessary to remember essential lessons from Max Weber's methodology of the social sciences.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, and Education
Political Geography:
Europe

460. Social Democrats and Education Spending: A Refined Perspective on Supply-Side Strategies

Author:
Marius R. Busemeyer
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
This paper builds on the arguments developed by Carles Boix (1997, 1998) about partisan differences in supply-side oriented strategies. The original Boix model argues that social democrats in government prefer to increase public investment in human capital formation, while conservatives are opposed to this. The model is presented and subjected to a comprehensive empirical test. It is argued that it is necessary to determine the dynamics of spending in each educational sector separately. In addition, economic internationalization is not treated as a background variable as with Boix (1997, 1998), but fully included in the analysis. Finally, instead of relying on a simple dichotomy of leftist and rightist parties, the impact of government participation on the part of social democrats, Christian democrats and conservatives is analysed. The empirical test supports the Boix model only on a very general level. Social democrats are found for the most part to increase spending on higher education, which is at odds with the predictions of the Boix model and partisan theory in general. The paper concludes with a discussion of the consequence of the findings for the development of partisan theory.
Topic:
Economics, Education, Government, and Political Economy