Finance & Development articles from September 2007

Finance & Development archives from September 2007

The urban tipping point.(rural population going to urban area)(Editorial)
September 1, 2007... WITHIN the next year, for the first time in history, more than 50 percent of the world s population will be living in urban rather than rural areas, according to recent UN projections. Some 75 percent of the city dwellers will live in...

The dark side of aid.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2007... We all know that aid to sub-Saharan Africa has not always been put to good use. But I also agree with Mark Sundberg and Alan Gelb ("Making Aid Work," December 2006) that much of the money was never intended to be spent on development in the...

Stop misusing PPP calculations.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2007... Tim Callen's article on PPP calculations ("PPP Versus the Market: Which Weight Matters?" March 2007) does an excellent job of framing the main issues concerning the use of PPP exchange rates. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] However, when it...

Make antiretroviral drugs available to all.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2007... F&D's "In Brief" section (September 2005) highlights the desperate need for new AIDS funding in Africa, which carries 60 percent of the global AIDS burden. Granted, social diseases--such as sexually transmitted infections--are difficult to...

Tropical crops feel the heat.(climate change effects productivity)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... Climate change is likely to undermine food production in the developing world, while industrial countries could gain in production potential, according to Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Speaking at...

Knowledge aid.(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... The world's 50 poorest nations must harness science, technology, and innovation to be able to achieve the kind of economic growth needed to reduce poverty, says a new UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report. The Least Developed...

Map shows the way.(North and central Asian countries on the growth way)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... North and central Asian countries plan to draft a regional road map for achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include reducing poverty and raising living standards, by 2015. Officials meeting this summer in Bishkek,...

Events in 2007.(Brief article)(Calendar)
September 1, 2007... September 27-28, Chicago, USA 10th Annual International Banking Conference: Globalization and Systemic Risk October 20-22, Washington, D.C. Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank November 11-15, Rome, Italy 20th...

e-Mongolia: click here.(use of technolgy to connect to the world)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... Information technology has become a powerful tool for integrating landlocked Mongolia with the global economy, according to a recent UN-sponsored Internet governance seminar in Ulaanbaatar. Saikhanbileg Chimed, chairman of Mongolia's...

Ask the fund.(new debt realted isue corner in the website)(International Monetary Fund)(www.imf.org/concessionality)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... The IMF has created a new mailbox on its website dedicated to debt-related issues in low-income countries, including debt sustainability and concessionality. The intent is to provide a platform to respond to policy and country-specific...

Topping the charts: Prakash Loungani profiles Harvard macroeconomist Robert Barro.(Occupation overview)
September 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MOST scholarly articles fall without making a sound in the academic forest. Not ones by Robert Barro. A recent list of the 146 most influential articles in economics since 1970 has Barro sitting atop the charts with...

The urban revolution: rapid urbanization may prove a blessing, provided the world takes notice and plans accordingly.
September 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE YEAR 2008 will mark a watershed in the complex and ongoing urban revolution. For the first time in history, more than 50 percent of the world s people will live in urban areas (see Chart 1). And the current rate...

Urban poverty: are poor people gravitating to towns and cities? Yes, but maybe not quickly enough.
September 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE DEVELOPING world is becoming more urban. Some observers see this as the unwelcome precursor to new poverty problems, such as urban slums blossoming in congested cities. Yet others see it as a force for poverty...

The march of the cities.(PICTURE THIS)(population growth in countries)
September 1, 2007... THE coming year marks a dramatic milestone: the world s urban population will outstrip its rural population, albeit with big regional variations. The most urbanized region in the developing world is Latin America and the Caribbean, with 77...

Big, or too big? Megacities create special issues of governance, funding, and provision of services.
September 1, 2007... CITIES are all about economies of scale. Successful cities are centers of entrepreneurship and innovation that attract talented and skilled workers and foster greater productivity and growth. The considerable combined spending power of a city's...

What is the biggest challenge in managing large cities? Three points of view on different ways to manage things well.(POINT OF VIEW)(Matthew Maury employee of Habitat for Humanity International)(Kishore Mahbubani employee of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy)(Ramesh Ramanathan employee of Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy)
September 1, 2007... Within the next year, the world's urban population will exceed its rural population for the first time in history--with some 75 percent of city dwellers living in developing countries, according to a new United Nations report. The good news is...

China's rebalancing act: China's economic miracle may be at risk unless the country relies more on domestic consumption.
September 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN THE past 20 years, China has added about $2 trillion to world GDP, created 120 million new jobs, and pulled 400 million people out of poverty. These are big numbers--equivalent to adding a country of the economic...

Solving China's rebalancing puzzle: market forces will do the trick "naturally".
September 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] OVER the past year, observers of the global economic scene have been treated to a rare spectacle, as a host of U.S. cabinet-level officials and their Chinese counterparts sat down in a much-touted series of meetings...

China's approach to reform: rapid economic development is based on long-term goals that aim for stability.(POINT OF VIEW)
September 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SOME amazing things are going on in China right now. Cities are changing beyond recognition in just a few years, or even in a few months. Rapid industrialization is attracting hundreds of millions of peasants to the...

China's export boom: its export dynamism is revealed in a sharp move into electronics and machinery.
September 1, 2007... OVER the past 15 years, China's exports have jumped more than tenfold, far exceeding the tripling of world trade that has taken place over the same period. As a result, in 2004, China overtook Japan as the world's third largest exporter, just...

China's growing external dependence: the country's economic fortunes are increasingly tied to those of the global economy.
September 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] RAPIDLY growing foreign trade has been key to China's remarkable economic performance of the past three decades, yet the conventional view is that China's growth has been largely domestically driven. According to...

Why real exchange rates?(BACK TO BASICS)(how to check the currency valuation)
September 1, 2007... HOW does one determine whether a currency is fundamentally undervalued or overvalued? This question lies at the core of international economics, many trade disputes, and the new IMF surveillance effort. George Soros had the answer once--in...

Helping the global economy stay in shape: the IMF adopts a new framework for monitoring countries' economic performance.(Reform at the IMF)(International Monetary Fund)
September 1, 2007... FROM AN economic perspective, no country is an island. The policy decisions of one country often have consequences for neighboring ones. And when it comes to the policies of large countries, an entire region or even the whole world may be...

In search of the moral high ground.(All You Need to Know About Ethics and Finance)(Brief review)
September 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Avinash D. Persaud and John Plender Ethics and Finance Finding a Moral Compass in Business Today Longtail Publishing Limited, London, 2007, 215 pp., 19.95 [pounds sterling] (paper). FINANCIAL markets are often...

Reading the fine print.(Legal Foundations of International Monetary Stability)(book review)(Brief review)
September 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Rosa Maria Lastra Legal Foundations of International Monetary Stability Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, 600 pp., $199 (cloth). ROSA Lastra has produced a highly insightful and readable work on...

Economics the Caribbean way.(The Practice of Economic Management)(Organization of Eastern Caribbean States)(book review)(Brief review)
September 1, 2007... Sir Courtney Blackman The Practice of Economic Management: A Caribbean Perspective Ian Randle Publishers, 2006, 448 pp., $50 (cloth). Dr. S.B. Jones-Hendrickson Essays on the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Economies...

Mexico.(COUNTRY FOCUS)(economic policy rises the economic stability)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... Mexico enjoys sustained growth and stability thanks to sound economic policies. Its challenge now is to undertake further reforms to accelerate growth and reduce poverty while compensating for a likely decline in oil revenue. [GRAPHICS...

The rise of sovereign wealth funds: we don't know much about these major state-owned players.(STRAIGHT TALK)
September 1, 2007... SOVEREIGN wealth funds are a fairly new name for something that s been around for quite a while: assets held by governments in another country's currency. All countries have foreign exchange reserves (these days, they're typically in dollars,...