This could be the most important thing to happen in a long time

Scientists appear to have developed a malaria vaccine.
Wow.

Kristof on Aid ...

...and health, and education, and economics.

Here at the NYT

Last call for posts

OK class... here's a shot at some blogging credit.

What topics did you think were the most interesting? The least? Why?

Was there a topic that you wish we had spent more time on? Less? Why?

How do you feel about the study of the economics of growth and development? Hard? Easy? Confusing?

Of all the topics we covered this term, which do you feel deserves more (or less) attention in terms of the public's general knowledge?

Collier on post-conflict resolution

Here's a video of Paul Collier at the US State Department discussing the keys to rebuilding war torn nations.

He emphasizes the importance of security before politics and discusses the economics of peacekeeping.

What are key elements to this approach?

Foreign Aid

Here are some readings and viewings on the pros and cons of foreign aid:

Various views at the Guardian.

Dambisa Moyo voices her strong objection to aid for Africa at the NYT.

Here's Moyo at the Colbert Report.

Moyo and Sachs argue at the Huffington Post here and here.

Bill Gates at Time.

Collier

Here's a video of Paul Collier discussing a few steps toward reversing the downward trend for the bottom billion. Note the importance of governance and the perils of "instant democracy". These have obvious implications for transitions currently underway in north Africa and the middle east. He also discusses the resource curse, and mentions "verified auctions" as a potential way to prevent backroom deals for extraction rights. The idea is that anyone interested in being a buyer or seller of the commodity must be backed by an objective third party (hence verified as a legitimate participant). The third party would presumably be an international agency.

Correlation, causation and data

Here's a cool short post from the guys at Freakonomics about using data to advocate a viewpoint. You may recognize the name of the purported offender.

Many of you have had econometrics or are now enrolled in 422 (others will have me for 422 next spring), so hopefully if you can't relate to this, you soon will. People want answers. Analysts included. During tumultuous economic times this is especially so. Our job as economists is to seek those answers, find the truth, whatever it may be, and report it as objectively as possible. But many times the truth is "we don't know". People (especially those paying for analysis) don't seem to like that answer, which can create unfortunate pressures that can lead to tenuous conclusions.

Hopefully this class has increased your awareness that economics is messy, and "one size fits all" solutions are very rare.

For your work, be open about what you know, what you don't know, and what your assumptions are. When reading the work of others, question assumptions, check the data and always know your sources.

Thanks to RH for the link.