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Twenty-five years ago, James Foster's influential work with Joel Greer and Erick Thorbecke helped define the way the world measures poverty. Foster will present his recent work on the theory of how to measure poverty when we care not only about income but also other dimensions of well-being such as health and education. Martin Ravallion, Director of the Development Research Group at the World Bank, is the author of a new essay that criticizes the idea of a single multidimensional index. He will argue instead that multiple indicators should be tracked separately.

In 1974, three out of four countries were ruled by authoritarian regimes; today, nearly half of all governments are democratically elected—and even more democracies may be emerging in the Middle East. But with elections come new form of patronage—such as offering benefits in exchange for votes—that can undermine the intent of democracy and effectiveness of programs intended to help the poor. My guest this week, Simeon Nichter, a CGD post-doctoral fellow, is studying a phenomenon that has important implications for development but is often overlooked in optimistic accounts of democratic progress.

After the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last Friday, I invited Arvind Subramanian, a former IMF resident representative in Cairo and a regular columnist for the Business Standard, the leading business daily in his native India, to share his views on Egypt’s economic prospects.

In the interview, Arvind argues that Egypt’s biggest economic challenge is reliance on rents, which he defines as wealth derived from historical and geographical legacies rather than job-generating economic growth. Arvind includes among these the Suez Canal, which I was surprised to learn generates some $5 billion a year in fees; aid received in exchange for peace with Israel; the pyramids and other antiquities that draw tourists, and even remittances, which he says are the result not of Egyptian success but of failure that forces its citizens to seek work abroad.