Ideas to Action:

Independent research for global prosperity

For Educators

This page brings together CGD work of special interest to development studies educators and their students including syllabuses and slidedecks for courses taught by CGD-affiliated professors, podcasts, and videos, and pedagogic writings. Search the materials by topic using the toolbar below and consult a list of development studies programs at US universities via the link to the right.

CGD books are available for purchase online from the Brookings Institution Press or through Hopkins Fulfillment Service, P.O. Box 50370, Baltimore MD 21211-4370. Tel: 1-800-537-5487. For review or exam copies, please send a note to publications @ cgdev.org with details about the potential review or the course you are teaching.

A Behavioral Economics Approach to Development Policy (Event Video)

8/8/12

SendhilBehavioral economics seeks to complement traditional approaches to economics by incorporating insights from psychology and human behavior, and taking a behavioral approach allows us to understand a host of behaviors that are critical to the success of a variety of development policies. In this event, Sendhil Mullainathan and Saugato Datta will present a paper exploring how behavioral economics can inform development policy, from education to health to cash transfer programs. Drawing on the latest research in these and other areas, the authors will discuss how behavioral economics provides policymakers with innovative new ways of tackling many important issues in development.

Reducing Deforestation by Paying for Performance – Michele de Nevers

8/7/12

Michele

Reducing carbon emissions from forest clearing and degradation has become an important part of the international climate agenda. But how can we create incentives to reduce deforestation, and how can we measure success? My guest on this week’s Wonkcast, visiting senior associate Michele de Nevers, tells me that the answers to these questions are more valuable than ever – if we don’t act quickly, our forests will disappear.

More Money, More Problems for US Development in Pakistan – Milan Vaishnav and Danny Cutherell

7/31/12

Despite an unprecedented increase in US civilian assistance to Pakistan, more money has led to more problems in achieving long-term development goals in the fractious and fragile state.  My guests on this week’s Wonkcast are Milan Vaishnav and Danny Cutherell, co-authors of a recent report written jointly with CGD president Nancy Birdsall. The new report--More Money, More Problems: A 2012 Assessment of the US Approach to Development in Pakistan--assigns letter grades to US government efforts in ten areas and provides recommendations for more effectiveengagement in Pakistan.

CGD in Europe – Owen Barder

7/24/12

Most Wonkcasts focus on CGD’s research and policy work. This one is different. My guest is Owen Barder and our topic is CGD itself, specifically the effort that Owen is leading to greatly increase the Center’s engagement in Europe. Owen, a CGD senior fellow and director for Europe, previously worked for CGD on our Advance Market Commitment initiative, which led to a $1.5 billion pilot commitment to purchase and ensure delivery of new vaccines to prevent pneumococcal disease. He subsequently spent three years in Ethiopia and recently resumed working for CGD, based in London, to strengthen the Center’s ties with the European development research and policy community. [Note: Owen continues to maintain his own excellent blog, Owen Abroad and to host occasional podcasts, Development Drums; these are also now available on the CGD Website multimedia page.]

International AIDS Conference and the AIDS Transition

7/16/12

Mead Over

Next week the International AIDS Conference will be held in the United States for the first time in 20 years.  CGD senior fellow Mead Over, one of the world’s leading experts on the economics of the epidemic, and policy outreach associate Jenny Ottenhoff join me this week to discuss the state of the epidemic, budget austerity, and the US role in the global response.

First I ask Jenny how it happens that the United States—the primary funder in the global fight against HIV/AIDS – has not hosted the conference for two decades.

Assessing the Los Cabos G-20 Summit and Rio+20 Earth Summit: Implications for Development (Event Video)

6/29/12

Over the course of one week, world leaders convened in Los Cabos, Mexico, for the G20 Summit and in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. The outcomes of these two high-level meetings have potentially important implications for poor people in the developing world in three key areas: food security and agriculture, energy, and green growth. U.S. representatives to the Los Cabos G20 and Rio+20 summits, and other distinguished speakers joined us for an assessment of these summits and the road ahead.

Haitian Officials Welcome H-2 Visa Program – Michael Clemens

6/26/12

Michael Clemens

After the 2010 Haitian earthquake flattened Port-au-Prince, the United States responded with an outpouring of money, food, and medicine for Haiti. But a more effective form of assistance -- the powerful tool of migration and labor mobility -- was at first overlooked in relief and recovery efforts.

CGD senior fellow Michael Clemens led a two-year research and policy engagement effort that reached a milestone in January when the U.S. government added Haiti to the list of more than 50 countries eligible for temporary worker visas, the H-2 visa program.  Michael calculated at the time that if just 2,000 Haitians worked as H-2 workers in the United States each year (just 2% of total H-2s) over the course of 10 years they would earn $400 million in additional, new income for Haitian families—an amount equal to the entire U.S. post-earthquake budget for reconstruction in Haiti.

IMF to the Rescue on Climate and Sustainable Development? — David Roodman and Michele de Nevers

6/18/12

Christine Lagarde
IMF managing director Christine Lagarde startled IFI watchers last week by warning at a CGD-hosted speech that the world faces “a triple crisis—an economic crisis, an environmental crisis and, increasing, a social crisis.”

Lagarde’s remarks, which I report on at greater length here, would not have been newsworthy coming from the head of an international environmental NGO or even the head of the World Bank, but from the head of the IMF, a citadel of economic orthodoxy, they surprised and delighted many in the development community, especially those alarmed by the looming development impacts of runaway climate change.

Improving Health in Developing Countries: Lessons from RCTs with Michael Kremer (Event Video)

6/13/12

Over the last 15 years, development economists have carefully accumulated rigorous evidence about what works and what does not in promoting health in poor countries. While each individual evaluation tests specific questions or sets of questions in specific contexts, the large number of studies now means that it is possible to draw more general conclusions. In addition, randomized evaluations are increasingly being designed to test fundamental questions about how people behave and thus generate lessons that are relevant for the design of different types of programs. In this seminar, Michael Kremer will discuss a new research paper co-authored with Rachel Glennerster, Lessons from Randomized Evaluations for Improving Health in Developing Countries, which summarizes lessons from the growing body of randomized evaluations of health programs in developing countries. The paper finds considerable evidence that consumers do not always invest optimally in health. In particular, consumers underinvest in cost-effective products for prevention and non-acute care of communicable disease and are very sensitive to the price and convenience of these products. This underinvestment does not simply reflect a lack of information of the benefits of preventative health. While this suggests the need for government intervention, many government health systems perform poorly and there is little accountability and few incentives for health care providers. Of the approaches designed to improve accountability, community or nongovernmental monitoring has had mixed results but district-level contracting has been quite successful. Many programs can improve health without excessive reliance on dysfunctional health delivery systems—delivering health products through schools for example, or improving health through water treatment.

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