Toward Greater Global Equity

People around the world do not have the same chances to live, learn, work, and participate in society’s activities, because these opportunities are greatly influenced by circumstances beyond their control, including their country of birth. Global equity is worth pursuing for its own sake and for greater global prosperity. Concrete changes in global policies and global governance are needed to bring about greater equity: better aid to help poor countries make up for limited endowments, more space for legal migration of unskilled workers, more open trade (particularly for agricultural goods), less restrictive protection of intellectual property rights, and reforms in global governance.

Not Separate, Not Equal: Poverty and Inequality in Post-Apartheid South Africa

As South Africa conducts a review of the first ten years of its new democracy, the question remains as to whether the economic inequalities of the apartheid era are beginning to fade. Using new, comparable consumption aggregates for 1995 and 2000, this paper finds that real per capita household expenditures declined for those at the bottom end of the expenditure distribution during this period of low GDP growth. As a result, poverty, especially extreme poverty, increased. Inequality also increased, mainly due to a jump in inequality among the African population. Even among subgroups of the population that experienced healthy consumption growth, such as the Coloureds, the rate of poverty reduction was low because the distributional shifts were not pro-poor.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40125/3/wp739.pd

Not Separate, Not Equal: Poverty and Inequality in Post-Apartheid South Africa

As South Africa conducts a review of the first ten years of its new democracy, the question remains as to whether the economic inequalities of the apartheid era are beginning to fade. Using new, comparable consumption aggregates for 1995 and 2000, this paper finds that real per capita household expenditures declined for those at the bottom end of the expenditure distribution during this period of low GDP growth. As a result, poverty, especially extreme poverty, increased. Inequality also increased, mainly due to a jump in inequality among the African population. Even among subgroups of the population that experienced healthy consumption growth, such as the Coloureds, the rate of poverty reduction was low because the distributional shifts were not pro-poor.Poverty, Inequality, South Africa

Are neighbors equal?

"A methodology to produce disaggregated estimates of inequality is implemented in three developing countries: Ecuador, Madagascar, and Mozambique. These inequality estimates are decomposed into progressively more disaggregated spatial units and the results in all three countries are suggestive that even at a very high level of spatial disaggregation, the contribution of within-community inequality to overall inequality remains very high. The results also indicate there is a considerable amount of variation across communities in all three countries. The basic correlates of local-level inequality are explored, and it is consistently found that geographic characteristics are strongly correlated with inequality, even after controlling for demographic and economic conditions." Authors' AbstractEquality ,Spatial analysis (Statistics) ,

Are neighbors equal?

"A methodology to produce disaggregated estimates of inequality is implemented in three developing countries: Ecuador, Madagascar, and Mozambique. These inequality estimates are decomposed into progressively more disaggregated spatial units and the results in all three countries are suggestive that even at a very high level of spatial disaggregation, the contribution of within-community inequality to overall inequality remains very high. The results also indicate there is a considerable amount of variation across communities in all three countries. The basic correlates of local-level inequality are explored, and it is consistently found that geographic characteristics are strongly correlated with inequality, even after controlling for demographic and economic conditions." Authors' AbstractEquality ,Spatial analysis (Statistics) ,Household surveys ,Economic conditions ,

Simulations for designing and interpreting intervention trials in infectious diseases.

BACKGROUND: Interventions in infectious diseases can have both direct effects on individuals who receive the intervention as well as indirect effects in the population. In addition, intervention combinations can have complex interactions at the population level, which are often difficult to adequately assess with standard study designs and analytical methods. DISCUSSION: Herein, we urge the adoption of a new paradigm for the design and interpretation of intervention trials in infectious diseases, particularly with regard to emerging infectious diseases, one that more accurately reflects the dynamics of the transmission process. In an increasingly complex world, simulations can explicitly represent transmission dynamics, which are critical for proper trial design and interpretation. Certain ethical aspects of a trial can also be quantified using simulations. Further, after a trial has been conducted, simulations can be used to explore the possible explanations for the observed effects. CONCLUSION: Much is to be gained through a multidisciplinary approach that builds collaborations among experts in infectious disease dynamics, epidemiology, statistical science, economics, simulation methods, and the conduct of clinical trials

Poverty Alleviation through Geographic Targeting

In this paper, we employ recently completed "poverty maps" for three countries as tools for an ex ante evaluation of the distributional incidence of geographic targeting of public resources. We simulate the impact on poverty of transferring an exogenously given budget to geographically defined sub-groups of the population according to their relative poverty status. We find large gains from targeting smaller administrative units, such as districts or villages. However, these gains are still far from the poverty reduction that would be possible had the planners had access to information on household level income or consumption. Our results indicate that a useful way forward might be to combine fine geographic targeting using a poverty map with within-community targeting mechanisms. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

The impact of blogs part II: Blogging enhances the blogger’s reputation, but does it influence policy?

Researchers who blog about a paper enjoy a large increase in the number of abstract views and downloads over the month that they blog, but does this mean that the reputation of the academic also improves? In the second of a three-part series, David McKenzie and Berk Özler try to discover if blogging affects reputations and government policy

Economics blogs clearly impact positively on paper downloads, professional reputation and stand to exert an influence on policy

With large impacts on dissemination of research and significant benefits in terms of individual reputations, David McKenzie and Berk Özler conclude that blogging academic or research work results in positive spillover effects for academic bloggers and their institutions while also influencing attitudes and knowledge amongst readers

Academic blogs are proven to increase dissemination of economic research and improve impact

There is a proliferation of economics blogs, with increasing numbers of famous and not-so-famous economists devoting a significant amount of time to writing blog entries, and in some cases, attracting large numbers of readers. Yet little is known about the impact of this new medium. In the first of a three part series, World Bank Senior Economists, David McKenzie and Berk Özler measure the various impacts of economics blogs