Sep 22, 2009

MIT Economist Duflo Wins MacArthur “Genius” Award

Sep 22, 2009

Raising Tiny Tim

According to a recent study conducted by the OECD on child welfare, US-children rank among the lowest in certain indicators—such as material well-being and educational well-being—despite the fact that the US is one of the highest spenders. In fact, the study generally showed a poor relationship between funding and outcomes.

Sep 15, 2009

Progress on Climate Change. Really.

As the UN’s climate change conference draws nearer and debate on a possible cap-and-trade scheme in the US begins again, we’ll be seeing a tidal wave of reports on climate change. Almost all of them will be bad news, whether it’s further evidence of rapid change or pessimism about the prospects for concluding a meaningful agreement. But there is plenty of good news to be found.

Sep 07, 2009

Micro-Credit Impacts on the Poor

The blogosphere has been abuzz this summer with talk about the published results from the first two randomized controlled trials of the impact of micro-credit on poverty. Neither study showed any alleviation of poverty as the result of having access to micro-credit. For a full explanation of the study design and results, I sat down with IPA’s Nathanael Goldberg, Project Director for Microfinance.

Sep 02, 2009

Why Bad News for OLPC is Good News for Children

There are a lot of better, and much less expensive, ways to improve education in the developing world than giving a laptop to each child.