A warning we should heed - (sounds familiar)

The message of Islam is that pursuit of money for its own sake is unnatural, inhumane, and will lead us to catastrophe.

In God We Trust??

An interesting take on faith and development. I really like it when former political leaders do something extraordinary after they leave office.

Can Aid Work?

Of course it can, and here are five small interventions that can transform the world.

Not just me...

I read this post and thought you might be interested in seeing how other economists think about investments in human capital.

notice the simple picture

Development Links

Here is the Link to Half the sky.

Women and Children

Here's what Duflo and Sachs had to say at the UN.

small change?? - REALLY???

Here is a quote from the Banerjee, Duflo et al. paper that was cited in the Small Change article from the Boston Globe.

On balance our results show signi…ficant and not insubstantial impact on both how many new
businesses get started and the pro…titability of pre-existing businesses. We also do see signifi…cant
impacts on the purchase of durables, and especially business durables. However there is no
impact on average consumption, although the effects are heterogenous, and as we will argue
later, there may well be a delayed positive effect on consumption. Nor is there any discernible
effect on any of the human development outcomes, though, once again, it is possible that things
will be different in the long run.

So, business profits are up, new businesses are started, and durable goods acquisition increases. Is this really "small change?"