Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Africa and the Middle East are hiring human traffickers and mounting rickety rafts each year to find a better life in Europe. Others are making the long trek North across deserts and over fences to enter illegally into the United States. At the IDB’s Annual Development Lecture, Princeton Professor Esteban Rossi-Hansberg discussed how many … [Read more...] about The Geography of Development: IDB Annual Development Lecture
Can Psychometrics Improve Credit Access?
By: Irani Arráiz What if I told you that your chances of getting a divorce are related to you and your spouse’s credit score? Well, it happens that your ability and willingness to pay depends, it seems, on some personality traits which, in turn, affect how we relate to one another, including our spouses. Based on that idea—that your ability and willingness to pay depends on … [Read more...] about Can Psychometrics Improve Credit Access?
External Aid and Government Capacity Building
A recent report by AidData (summarized in the Washington Post ) shows that Multilateral Banks “exert larger-than-expected agenda-setting influence on the basis of their financial contributions.” That is, institutions such as the IDB and the World Bank influence the setting of the reform agenda and help countries develop policies beyond what their actual financial contributions … [Read more...] about External Aid and Government Capacity Building
Little Money for Little Kids
For every dollar spent on children aged 0 to 5, three dollars is spent on children aged 6 to 12 in Latin America and the Caribbean. That is one of the unsettling findings of The Early Years: Child Well-Being and the Role of Public Policy, edited by Samuel Berlinski and Norbert Schady. This 2015 edition of the IDB’s flagship publication, Development in the Americas, was unveiled … [Read more...] about Little Money for Little Kids
Five Reasons Why Government Should Be Involved in Raising Kids
In recent years, advocates of limited government in both the developed and developing worlds have gained significant traction, arguing that large bureaucracies feed inefficiency and corruption, stifle initiative, and interfere with personal privacy. Yet, there is at least one area (likely more), in which that passion for limited government may well be misplaced: the need to … [Read more...] about Five Reasons Why Government Should Be Involved in Raising Kids