‘Growth with Equity’ is motherhood and apple pie in economic policy-making these days. But in a great new book, Spirit Level, authors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett argue that ‘economic growth, for so long the great engine of progress, has, in the rich countries, largely finished its work.’ Above a certain average income (the authors put it at $25,000 per

I’ve been reading a couple of interesting things on the informal economy recently. The OECD has a new book out with the engaging title ‘Is Informal Normal?’ which gives a pretty decent overview. Informal employment refers to jobs or activities that are not registered or protected by the state. Informal workers are excluded from social security benefits and the protection

Apologies for a bit of British parochialism, but this story has wider ramifications. A combination of political leadership and grassroots activism scored a real victory for the UK aid budget yesterday. Here’s why. All the headlines on Wednesday’s budget statement by Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) Alistair Darling were about the dire state of UK finances, and the extreme

Finally finished an illuminating book on the link between taxation and development: (Taxation and state-building in Developing Countries), edited by Deborah Brautigam, Odd-Helge Fjeldstad and Mick Moore). Here are a few highlights – a bit long, but I’m trying to summarize a densely argued 260 page book, so bear with me. Taxation is the new frontier for those concerned with

One of the G20 Voice bloggers at the London Summit last week was a rather distinguished-looking, silver haired Chilean who turned out to be Daniel Kaufman. He used to work at the World Bank, where he was one of the 46 employees who blew the whistle on Paul Wolfowitz in a letter to Wolfowitz and the bank’s board that argued

OK, this is the last post on the G20 for a few days. This is Oxfam’s more considered analysis of the communiques and accompanying intelligence gleaned over the course of the last few days. Hope it makes sense. Summary (for full paper click here): G20 leaders met for the second time in London on 2 April, as the global economic

So, it’s 7.30pm, some 14 hours after I started blogging this morning, and Obama is wrapping up his press conference. He looks exhausted. And the big question is, has this been a historic day or not? The answer is ‘maybe, but it’s too early to say’, but at least there’s a ‘maybe’ in there. I feel unusually optimistic for the

Had a great day yesterday meeting my fellow g20voice bloggers, a wonderfully diverse crew from every corner of the world who will be blogging furiously at the G20 summit today. I led a discussion on how to read the communiqué that should emerge some time this afternoon: this can be pretty stressful, since they are written in diplomatic code and

Here are some killer facts on the global economic crisis and the response. First the bail out: globally, as of January 2009, a calculation for Oxfam shows that banks and other financial service firms have already received or been promised at least $8.424 trillion. The breakdown is $903 billion of government capital injections; $661 billion of toxic asset purchases; $1.38

Time for a little attention to the rising aid sceptic tide. A number of books (Dambisa Moyo, Jonathan Glennie, Michela Wrong), blogs etc have been trashing aid with both good and bad consequences. Good in that, as From Poverty to Power argues, there is lots wrong with the aid system that urgently needs fixing (and some deeper questions on the

I was at DFID again this week (I should be on a retainer) , presenting a paper on the impact of the global crisis on Latin America (it should be on the Oxfam website by the middle of next week). One interesting glass-half-full v glass-half-empty discussion was over income inequality: I said the region was doing well in reducing the gulf between

Last week I attended two events that focussed on the crisis and its impact on development: a big DFID conference in preparation for its forthcoming white paper, and an NGO presentation to the UN ‘Commission of Experts’ on reforming the international financial system, which is chaired by Joe Stiglitz. Discussions at both events brought home just limited a role the