Ideas to Action:

Independent research for global prosperity

Publications

 

Fair Growth: Economic Policies for Latin America's Poor and Middle-Income Majority

1/17/08
Nancy Birdsall, Augusto de la Torre, and Rachel Menezes

In an increasingly globalized world, inequality is an issue of rising concern, especially in Latin America, home to many of the world's most unequal societies. This new book, co-published by the Center for Global Development and the Inter-American Dialogue, describes the links between recent growth trends, changing patterns of inequality, and rising cynicism and frustration with the political leadership across the region. The authors, Nancy Birdsall, Augusto de la Torre, and Rachel Menezes, present a dozen economic policy tools to make life fairer for the great majority of people--without sacrificing economic growth.

Exclusion, Gender and Education: Case Studies from the Developing World

9/24/07
Maureen Lewis and Marlaine Lockheed

Girls have achieved remarkable increases in primary schooling over the past decade, yet millions are still not in school. In Inexcusable Absence, CGD visiting fellows Maureen Lewis and Marlaine Lockheed reported the startling new finding that nearly three-quarters of out-of-school girls belong to minority or otherwise marginalized groups. This companion volume further analyzes school enrollment, completion and learning with case studies in seven countries: Bangladesh, China, Guatemala, India, Laos, Pakistan, and Tunisia.

African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors

3/5/07
Todd Moss

Bill Easterly calls Moss's new introduction to Africa "compulsively readable and accessible" and "a masterpiece of clear thinking." Each chapter is organized around three fundamental questions: Where are we now? How did we get to this point? What are the current debates?

Inexcusable Absence: Why 60 Million Girls Still Aren't In School and What to do About It

1/4/07
Maureen Lewis and Marlaine Lockheed

Girls' education is widely recognized as crucial to development. Yet there has been surprisingly little hardheaded analysis about what is keeping girls out of school, and how to overcome these barriers. In Inexcusable Absence, Maureen Lewis and Marlaine Lockheed present new research showing that nearly three-quarters of the 60 million girls still not in school belong to ethnic, religious, linguistic, racial or other minorities. The authors then examine examples of success in helping these doubly disadvantaged girls to attend school and offer concrete proposals for new policies and programs.

Let Their People Come: Breaking the Gridlock on Global Labor Mobility

9/12/06
Lant Pritchett

This controversial book argues that irresistible demographic forces for greater international labor mobility are being checked by immovable anti-immigration ideas of rich-country citizens. Pritchett proposes breaking the gridlock through policies that support development while also being politically acceptable in rich countries. These include greater use of temporary worker permits, permit rationing, reliance on bilateral rather than multilateral agreements, and protection of migrants' fundamental human rights.

Rescuing the World Bank

9/5/06
Nancy Birdsall

Critics allege that the World Bank is deeply flawed. Yet the world needs a strong World Bank to help manage development and the related global challenges of the 21st century. Do the Bank's shortcomings put its future at risk? If so, can the Bank be rescued? Rescuing the World Bank, a new book that includes a CGD working group report and selected essays edited by CGD president Nancy Birdsall, offers timely perspectives on challenges that are crucial to the Bank’s future success.

A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform

3/1/05
Kemal Dervis and Ceren Özer

A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform by Kemal Dervis is a reformist manifesto that argues that gradual institutional change can produce beneficial results if it is driven by an ambitious long-term vision and by a determination to continually widen the limits of the possible.

Trade Policy and Global Poverty

6/1/04
William Cline

Trade Policy and Global Poverty by William Cline examines how changes in trade policies in the United States and other industrial countries could help reduce poverty in developing countries. Cline first reviews the extent of global poverty and its relationship to trade and growth. He then examines the key components of these relationships to identify lines of trade policy action that could help reduce global poverty.

The Other War: Global Poverty and the Millennium Challenge Account

6/1/03
Lael Brainard, Nigel Purvis, Steven Radelet, and Gayle Smith

This book tackles head on the tension between foreign policy and development goals that chronically afflicts U.S. foreign assistance; the danger of being dismissed as one more instance of the United States going it alone instead of buttressing international cooperation; and the risk of exacerbating confusion among the myriad overlapping U.S. policies, agencies, and programs targeted at developing nations, particularly USAID.

Washington Contentious: Economic Policies for Social Equity in Latin America

1/1/01
Nancy Birdsall, Augusto de la Torre, and Rachel Menezes

At the end of the 1990s the future of Latin America seemed grim in the face of four devastating problems—slow and unsteady economic growth, persistent poverty, social injustice, and personal insecurity. For 10 years Latin America had pursued—with considerable vigor—the 10 economic policies that make up the Washington Consensus, the growth formula promoted by the U.S. Treasury and the international financial institutions. But performance fell far short of expectations, and a new approach was needed.

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