“The Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point is however to change it” reads the tombstone of Karl Marx in London quoting one of his works. Of course, this applies not only to the worldly philosophers but to economists as well. And in homage to his call, most of our articles carry at least a paragraph on ‘insights for policy’ or ‘policy recommendations’. Usually our work also starts with some anecdotal evidence on the problem to which the inferences of the article ...
A report out today from the United Nations Economist Network features contributions from UNU-WIDER’s Carlos Gradín and UNU-MERIT’s Neil Foster-McGregor – respectively writing on inequalities and the emergence of digital technologies. The report examines five megatrends: climate change; demographic shifts, particularly population ageing; urbanisation; the emergence of digital technologies; and inequalities – that are affecting economic, social and environmental outcomes. Efforts...
Little is known about what’s happening in Mozambique’s labour market, except that jobs are scarce for young people. Shutterstock Last week we published some initial reactions to the Nobel Prize in Economics 2019, which was jointly awarded to Abhijit Banerjee (MIT), Esther Duflo (MIT) and Michael Kremer (Harvard) for their work to alleviate poverty. There was praise for the latest batch of laureates — but praise with a fair few caveats. Prof. Franziska Gassmann was among those interviewed a...
"I think that the award is a well-deserved recognition for the field of development economics. I was not surprised that these three scholars were awarded the prize: they really changed the way we now think about evaluating the effectiveness of development (policy) interventions." Prof. Eleonora Nillesen...
"In a way, he has a vision that is more eclectic, more theoretical than somebody like Helen Clark, who would be more practical and policy-minded. But their concerns are more or less the same: the future of the planet and sustainable development. They simply take different approaches."...