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Global Development Matters
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Nancy Birdsall

Expertise

Political economy of market transitions; developing nations; Latin America; East Asia; education; inequality; international financial institutions


Initiatives

When Will We Ever Learn? Closing the Evaluation Gap, Globalization and Inequality, Migration and Development, Mobilizing IMF Gold, Modernizing U.S. Foreign Assistance, Debt Relief for Nigeria, Population and Development Research Agenda, The Future of the World Bank

Research Topics

Aid Effectiveness, Capital Flows/ Financial Crises, Debt Relief, Economic Growth, Education, Globalization, Governance/Democracy, Inequality, International Financial Institutions, Migration and Population, Private Investment, Regions

Education

Ph.D., Yale University, 1979; M.A., Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, 1969; B.A., Newton College of the Sacred Heart, 1967


Background

Nancy Birdsall is the founding president of the Center for Global Development. Prior to launching the center, Birdsall served for three years as Senior Associate and Director of the Economic Reform Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her work at Carnegie focused on issues of globalization and inequality, as well as on the reform of the international financial institutions. From 1993 to 1998, Birdsall was Executive Vice-President of the Inter-American Development Bank, the largest of the regional development banks, where she oversaw a $30 billion public and private loan portfolio. Before joining the Inter-American Development Bank, Birdsall spent 14 years in research, policy, and management positions at the World Bank, most recently as Director of the Policy Research Department.

Ms. Birdsall is the author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books and monographs. She has also written more than 75 articles for books and scholarly journals published in English and Spanish. Shorter pieces of her writing have appeared in dozens of U.S. and Latin American newspapers and periodicals.

Full CV

Inequality and Development in a Globalizing World - A Syllabus (pdf, 225KB)

Non-CGD Publications

Books:

Population Matters: Demographic Change, Economic Growth and Poverty in the Developing World, edited with Allen C. Kelleyand Steven W. Sinding (Oxford University Press, 2001)

New Markets, New Opportunities? Economic and Social Mobility in a Changing World, with Carol Graham (Brookings and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999)

Distributive Justice and Economic Development, with Andres Solimano and Eduardo Aninat (University of Michigan Press, 1999)

Beyond Tradeoffs: Market Reforms and Equitable Growth in Latin America, with Carol Graham and Richard H. Sabot (1998)

Papers and Articles:

Education and the MDGS: Realizing the Millennium Compact, by Nancy Birdsall and Milan Vaishnav. Reprinted by permission of the Columbia Journal of International Affairs (Spring 2005). Copyright 2005, The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York.

The World Bank of the Future: Victim, Villain, Global Credit Union?
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. October 2000

Stuck In The Tunnel: Is Globalization Muddling The Middle Class? by Nancy Birdsall, Carol Graham, and Stefano Pettinato, The Brookings Institution Center on Social and Economic Dynamics, Working Paper No. 14, August 2000

Education: the Peoples Asset
The Brookings Institution Center on Social and Economic Dynamics Working Paper Number 5. September 1999.

Contributions to Edited Volumes:

"América Latina y la Globalización: Prebisch Tenía Razón," in Raul Prebisch: El poder, los Principios y la Ética del Desarrollo edited by Edgar J. Dosman. (IADB, 2006)

"Intergenerational Mobility in Latin America: Deeper Markets and Better Schools Make a Difference," with Jere R. Behrman and Miguel Szekely, in New Markets, New Opportunities? Economic and Social Mobility in a Changing World (1999)

"The U.S. and the Social Challenge in Latin America: The New Agenda Needs New Instruments," with Nora Lustig and Lesley O'Connell, in The Search for Common Ground: U.S. National Interests and the Western Hemisphere in a New Century (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1999)

"Deep Integration and Trade Agreements: Good for Developing Countries?" with Robert Z. Lawrence in Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press, 1999)

"No Tradeoff: Efficient Growth Via More Equal Human Capital Accumulation in Latin America," in Beyond Trade-Offs: Market Reforms and Equitable Growth in Latin America (1998)

Articles:

"That Silly Inequality Debate," in Foreign Policy, May/June 2002

"Education in Latin America: Demand and Distribution are Factors that Matter," with Juan Luis Londoño and Lesley O'Connell in CEPAL Review 66, December 1998

"Life is Unfair: Inequality in the World," in Foreign Policy, Summer 1998

"Public Spending on Higher Education in Developing Countries: Too Much or Too Little?" in Economics of Education Review, 1996