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Senior Fellow Liliana Rojas-Suarez made comments on the sovereign debt auctions held recently by several European governments. She thinks the so-called success of these auctions is relative for two reasons. First, it is important to remember that before this auction took place, the European Central Bank intervened to buy sovereign bonds in order to lower spreads in the market, which at the time were sky-high. Second, an important proportion of these bonds have been bought by local investors. It is, therefore, worrisome that the liquidity that the European Central Bank has injected into a number of European banks might be channeled (at least partly) to the purchase of sovereign bonds. The concern is that in the event of sovereign debt defaults, banking crises would also ensue.

You might not think you’d need a Ph.D. to figure out that people with more money are happier than people with less. Yet that relationship is surprisingly controversial and—not so surprisingly—highly relevant for development policy. This week’s Wonkcast features a young academic whose new work on subjective wellbeing, income and economic development is upending the conventional academic wisdom on happiness. Justin Wolfers, a visiting fellow at Brookings and associate professor at the Wharton School, spoke last week at a Massachusetts Avenue Development Seminar (or MADS), a series of events that CGD hosts in cooperation with The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. (You can sign up for invitations to future MADS here www.cgdev.org/subscribe under ‘other subscriptions’).

In developed countries, official identification systems are a fact of life, providing the foundation for a myriad of transactions including elections, pension payments, and the legal system. Without functional ID systems, citizens of many developing countries miss out on the benefits of official identification. On this week’s Wonkcast, I am joined by CGD senior fellow Alan Gelb who has been researching the potential for new biometric technology, such as computerized finger printing and iris scans, to help poor countries leapfrog the long and complicated process of setting up ID systems.

In our conversation, Alan explains the depth of the problem in the developing world. “In most rich countries there are already identity systems that work more or less well,” he says. “In many poor countries, not only is there no consistent identity system but at least half of the people don’t have records of birth at all. They simply don’t exist.”