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1. Thomas Piketty's Capital and the Developing World

Author:
Nancy Birdsall
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a tour de force—a compelling and accessible read that presents an eloquent and convincing warning about the future of capitalism.* Capitalism, Piketty argues, suffers from an inherent tendency to generate an explosive spiral of increasing inequality of wealth and income. This inegalitarian dynamic of capitalism is not due to textbook failures of capitalist markets (for example, natural monopolies) or failures of economic institutions (such as the failure to regulate these monopolies), but to the way capitalism fundamentally works. Unless the spiral is controlled by far more progressive taxation than is now the norm, the political fallout could undermine the viability of the successful “social state” (p. 471) in the advanced economies, putting the democratic state itself at risk.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, and France

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. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. The (Indispensable) Middle Class in Developing Countries; or, The Rich and the Rest, Not the Poor and the Rest

Author:
Nancy Birdsall
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Inclusive growth is widely embraced as the central economic goal for developing countries, but the concept is not well defined in the development economics literature. Since the early 1990s, the focus has been primarily on pro-poor growth, with the "poor" being people living on less than $1 day, or in some regions $2 day. The idea of pro-poor growth emerged in the early 1990s as a counterpoint to a concern with growth alone (measured in per-capita income) and is generally defined as growth which benefits the poor as much or more than the rest of the population. Examples include conditional cash transfers, which target the poor while minimizing the fiscal burden on the public sector, and donors' emphasizing primary over higher education as an assured way to benefit the poor while investing in long-term growth through increases in human capital. Yet these pro-poor, inclusive policies are not necessarily without tradeoffs in fostering long-run growth. In this paper I argue that the concept of inclusive growth should go beyond the traditional emphasis on the poor (and the rest) and take into account changes in the size and economic command of the group conventionally defined as neither poor nor rich, i.e., the middle class.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, Poverty, and Foreign Aid

9. The Washington Consensus: Assessing a Damaged Brand

Author:
Nancy Birdsall, Augusto de la Torre, and Felipe Valencia Caicedo
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In this paper we analyze the Washington Consensus, which at its original formulation reflected views not only from Washington but also from Latin America. We trace the life of the Consensus from a Latin American perspective in terms of evolving economic development paradigms. We document the extensive implementation of Consensus-style reforms in the region as well as the mismatch between reformers' expectations and actual outcomes, in terms of growth, poverty reduction, and inequality. We then present an assessment of what went wrong with the Washington Consensus-style reform agenda, using a taxonomy of views that put the blame, alternatively, on (i) shortfalls in the implementation of reforms combined with impatience regarding their expected effects; (ii) fundamental flaws—in either the design, sequencing, or basic premises of the reform agenda; and (iii) incompleteness of the agenda that left out crucial reform needs, such as volatility, technological innovation, institutional change and inequality.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Washington and Latin America

10. Schooling Inequality, Crises, and Financial Liberalization in Latin America

Author:
Nancy Birdsall, Gunilla Pettersson, and Jere R. Behrman
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Latin America is characterized by high and persistent schooling, land, and income inequalities and extreme income concentration. In a highly unequal setting, powerful interests are more likely to dominate politics, pushing for policies that protect privileges rather than foster competition and growth. As a result, changes in policies that political elites resist may be postponed in high-inequality countries to the detriment of overall economic performance.
Topic:
Economics, Education, Globalization, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Latin America