Health Equity: 04/05/11

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

[EQ] Poor Economics - A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty

Poor Economics - A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty -

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at MIT.

Esther Duflo is Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at MIT.

Available online at: http://bit.ly/g2WlJo

“….Poor.Economics is a book about the very rich economics that emerges from understanding the economic lives of the poor. It is a book about the kinds of theories that help us make sense of both what the poor are able to achieve and where, and for what reason, they need a push.

Each chapter in this book describes a search to discover what these sticking points are, and how they can be overcome. We open with the essential aspects of people’s family lives: what they buy; what they do about their children’s schooling, their own health, or that of their children or parents; how many children they choose to have; and so on.

Then we go on to describe how markets and institutions work for the poor: Can they borrow, save, insure themselves against the risks they face? What do governments do for them, and when do they fail them? Throughout, the book returns to the same basic questions. Are there ways for the poor to improve their lives, and what is preventing them from being able to do these things? Is it more the cost of getting started, or is it easy to get started but harder to continue? What makes it costly? Do people sense the nature of the benefits? If not, what makes it hard for them to learn them?

Poor Economics is ultimately about what the lives and choices of the poor tell us about how to fight global poverty. It helps us understand, for example, why microfinance is useful without being the miracle some hoped it would be; why the poor often end up with health care that does them more harm than good; why children of the poor can go to school year after year and not learn anything; why the poor don’t want health insurance; and it reveals why so many magic bullets of yesterday have ended up as today’s failed ideas.

The book also tells a lot about where hope lies: why token subsidies might have more than token effects; how to better market insurance; why less may be more in education; why good jobs matter for growth. Above all, it makes clear why hope is vital and knowledge critical, why we have to keep on trying even when the challenge looks overwhelming. Success isn’t always as far away as it looks….”

Teaching the Book

“…..This book grew, in part, out of years of teaching undergraduates and graduate students at MIT and elsewhere, and we hope that it can be used to support learning at various levels.

In the spring of 2011, we have been using the book for two courses: one, Challenges for World Poverty, an introductory course for students who do not have a background in economics. This course is a mix of lecture and discussion. Students read the book, as well as other papers, and they answer essay questions about the issues that they learn about. The second course, Foundations of Development Policies, is for advanced undergraduates and masters students.

These materials include the lecture notes, assignments, and videos used throughout the course. …. ‘

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[EQ] Knowledge, networks and nations Global scientific collaboration in the 21st century

Knowledge, networks and nations Global scientific collaboration in the 21st century

ISBN: 978-0-85403-890-9 - The Royal Society, March 2011

Available online PDF [114p.] at: http://bit.ly/hzcUo0

“…..Science is a global enterprise. Today there are over 7 million researchers around the world, drawing on a combined international R&D spend of over US$1000 billion (a 45% increase since 2002), and reading and publishing in around 25,000 separate scientific journals per year.

These researchers collaborate with each other, motivated by wishing to work with the very best people and facilities in the world, and by curiosity, seeking new knowledge to advance their field or to tackle specific problems. Knowledge, Networks and Nations reviews, based on available data, the changing patterns of science, and scientific collaboration, in order to provide a basis for understanding such ongoing changes.

It aims to identify the opportunities and benefits of international collaboration, to consider how they can best be realised, and to initiate a debate on how international scientific collaboration can be harnessed to tackle global problems more effectively.

From Singapore to South Africa, new researchers and research communities are reshaping the landscape for science and innovation, so long dominated by the USA, Japan and Europe. This report explores this changing geography of science and innovation. In Part 1, it maps and investigates where and how science is being carried out around the world and the ways in which this picture is changing.

· Science in 2011 is increasingly global, occurring in more and more places than ever before. Science is addressing questions of global significance. It is supported by governments, business, philanthropists and charities.

· There are particular countries where this increased activity is especially striking, with investment and scientific productivity outstripping general trends of growth. The rise of China has been especially notable, overtaking Japan and Europe in terms of its publication output in recent years. Beyond China, rapid developments have also taken place in India, Brazil and new emergent scientific nations in the Middle East, South-East Asia and North Africa, as well as a strengthening of the smaller European nations.

· However, the traditional ‘scientific superpowers’ still lead the field. The USA, Western Europe and Japan all invest heavily in research and receive a substantial return in terms of performance, with large numbers of research articles, the lion’s share of citations on those articles, and successful translation, as seen through the rates of patent registration.

· The continued strength of the traditional centres of scientific excellence and the emergence of new players and leaders point towards an increasingly multipolar scientific world, in which the distribution of scientific activity is concentrated in a number of widely dispersed hubs.

· Beyond these hubs, science is also flourishing. The recognition of the role that science can play in driving economic development, and in addressing local and global issues of sustainability, has led to increased research activity and the application of scientific method and results within less developed countries.

Content

Executive summary

Recommendations

Introduction: going global

Part 1: Scientific landscape in 2011

Part 2: International collaboration

2.1 Patterns of collaboration

2.1.1 Collaboration in a national context

2.1.2 Who is collaborating with whom?

2.2 Regional collaboration

2.2.1 South–South collaboration: a growing trend

2.3 Why collaborate?

2.3.1 Seeking excellence

2.3.2 The benefits of joint authorship

2.3.3 Capacity building through collaboration.

2.3.4 The geopolitical potential of scientific collaboration

2.4 Underlying networks

2.4.1 Tapping into the global networks of science

2.5 Enabling collaboration to promote excellent science

2.5.1 Technology

2.5.2 Funding mechanisms
2.6 Harnessing collaboration

Part 3: Global approaches to global problems

Conclusions and recommendations:

Cultivating the global scientific landscape

Glossary of acronyms

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