Some of Rigobon’s findings: In Chile, when the price of wheat goes up by 10%, the price of bread goes up by 5% 18 months later. In Colombia and Peru, it takes three years for this same percentage increase to occur, with these countries taking longer “to digest the international shock of commodity prices.” Not only do the prices of bread, cookies, meat, chicken, move in lockstep with wheat, but in some cases, so do housing, health and education. But Rigobon found that when the international price of oil increases, there is an immediate impact on all products related to oil. What’s worse, when the price of oil increases, the price of gas at the pump or for a rental car goes up disproportionately.
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MIT World » : The U.S. and the World's Recession - 0 views
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It’s been true for years, notes Rigobon, that “oil is unconditionally negatively correlated with cereals.” If oil is up, maize, sorghum and wheat prices are down. But this has recently changed, a sign “of the unique times we’re in, the policy challenges we’re facing.” We are simultaneously facing recession (due in large part to the sub-prime mortgage crisis), and inflation, in both food and oil prices. Central banks, he notes with scorn and wonderment, don’t include food and energy in their calculations of “core inflation.” If the job of these banks and government is to take care of their citizens, they must respond to this crisis along the lines of the response to 9/11 or Enron. Rigobon endorses well-communicated, transparent policies, and some tough measures like interest rate increases.
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How we measure a problem will influence how we define that problem.
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This is not directly related to the Millennium Development Goals, but the current state of the world's economy will have a direct impact on implementing those goals. It also has a relationship with concepts such as PSRP (Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers). One interesting fact, Central Banks do not include food or energy in their inflation measurements which impact the poor more than the rich.
Institute of Development Studies - Making the Case for Aid: The Challenge of UK Public ... - 0 views
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Aid budgets face immense pressure - despite overseas aid being critical for poverty alleviation in developing countries and the explicit commitments of the world's industrialised countries to the Millennium development goals. With the world economy in a major downturn, the stakes for developing countries could not be higher. Public support for international development and aid will play a key role. Will the public become unsure about the UK's aid budget when they begin to feel cuts in government expenditure at home? How well equipped are we to 'sell' the UK's aid programme to a sceptical public in times of economic austerity?
Why America needs high-speed rails - CSMonitor.com - 1 views
South Asia - The End of Poverty - 0 views
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Recent changes in the global economy make this even more of a challenge and it shows even when we do make progress it only increases our responsibility.
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South Asia: Economic Growth and Inequality Facts South Asia Can Cut Poverty by Two Thirds in a Decade Report Despite obstacles such as conflict, corruption and high fiscal deficits in some countries, South Asia has achieved impressive economic growth and poverty reduction in the past decade, thanks mainly to economic reforms in the 1990s. If this growth accelerates to 10 percent a year, the region could see single-digit poverty rates by 2015. A closer look at the evidence suggests that much remains to be done to achieve these accelerated growth rates. These challenges require increasing investment, productivity, and the quality of labor, while addressing the problem of lagging regions and poor service delivery. South Asia can also benefit from regional cooperation in trade, water and energy, among other things.
MIT World » : Institutions, Geography, and Growth - 0 views
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ABOUT THE LECTURE:Three billion people on earth live on less than two dollars a day. A relative handful of us fare astronomically better. How do economists account for global “haves” and “have-nots”? Roberto Rigobon attributes a vast income inequality across countries to four connecting factors: luck, geography, quality of institutions, and quality of policies. If a country lies close to the 50th parallel, its citizens’ average income is six times greater than that of an equatorial country. Heat takes a toll on nation-building. Take Caribbean and Latin American countries, which experienced a wave of malaria in the 1500’s. Spanish colonists preferred to extract resources and send them home, rather than risk death by staying. Those nations developed impoverished economies and institutions that continue today. Colonists moved to cooler climes settled down, invested in the new world, and created enduring social structures. Rigobon can’t recommend a single, economic, or political doctrine to help a struggling nation achieve prosperity. “The set of rules depends on a country’s culture, history and religion…. In the end the only sustainable regime is democracy, freedom of speech, and the rule of law, but how we get there isn’t irrelevant.” Rigobon encourages developing nations to embrace social and political conflict as “an opportunity to improve.”
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I found this after having viewed his most recent talk at MIT. Rigobon can be rather irreverant, but there are many points of connection today with what he was saying back in 2004. One area he might have gotten wrong is picking Russia over China in terms of long term development, that could be argued though he migh have changed his mind since then.
Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People -- Godfray et al. 327 (5967): ... - 2 views
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more than one in seven people today still do not have access to sufficient protein and energy from their diet, and even more suffer from some form of micronutrient malnourishment
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Increases in production will have an important part to play, but they will be constrained as never before by the finite resources provided by Earth’s lands, oceans, and atmosphere
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a period of rising and more volatile food prices driven primarily by increased demand from rapidly developing countries, as well as by competition for resources from first-generation biofuels production
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