Saturday, June 30, 2012

Development thread (2)


On the Millennium Development Goals

This is the last subsection of section 4.1 of our new syllabus:

'Outline the current status of international development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals'

MDG #1 is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. The targets within this goal include:

1. Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day
2. Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people
3. Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

Click here to read the factsheet on MDG #1. Check the 'where do we stand' points and the 'what has worked' section (take down notes).

Please watch this video on Vietnam's growth and poverty reduction effort and jot down the key points in a word file (to be saved in your development folder as agreed).



Enjoy!

Friday, June 29, 2012

Growth and the importance of institutions

The other day in both my Higher Level and Standard Level Economics sections we discussed issues on growth and I found the opportunity to mention the work of Daron Acemoglu and the importance of institutions in the growth process.  It makes a big difference, as he argues, whether  institutions are inclusive or extractive.

Please watch these videos where Prof. Acemoglou explains his work:

(longer presentation)


This is a much shorter presentation:




Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Mr Stiglitz...

This is an interview of Joe Stiglitz in the Rolling Stone magazine: 'The Price of Inequality'


A must as income inequality is part of the new 2013 syllabus (section 2.3 Equity in the Distribution of Income).  It's the one with the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient that we discussed only a few days ago.

(On Joe Stiglitz: check out his 62 (!) page CV here :http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/download/Stiglitz_CV.pdf 

Another interview on the same new book/ topic can be found here:

(many thanks to my colleague and friend Marcus DeBaca for bringing this to my attention)

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Development Thread (1)

In this thread I will be bringing to your attention resources (sites/ files/ articles/ videos) that my (and any) IB Candidates 13  students should check out, save and try to make summary notes in a development dedicated notebook (electronic or conventional).  These resources aim at helping us  understand and learn issues from the development section of our syllabus.

The first resource is about Burkina Faso and cotton ('white gold').  The issue is about the detrimental effects of US/EU cotton subsidies on the livelyhoods of millions of poverty stricken West African farmers and the expected benefits from a cotton subsidy reform (click on links)
Burkina Faso: Cotton Story

A couple of more resources on Western cotton subsidies can be found here:
West's billions in subsidy shut out African cotton growers

Cotton subsidies costing west African farmers £155m a year, report reveals

...and this video (which features a bit of Victoria's Secret in it - an additional non-academic incentive to the guys in my class to watch it...) is also about Burkina Faso cotton with a twist:



Enjoy!