Publications

This paper argues that every rich country should consider its immigration policy to be part of its international development policy, and vice versa. A development policy that includes migration will be more effective; an immigration policy that includes development will better serve rich countries’ ideals and interests.

The authors address several questions relevant to international discussion about climate adaptation: How will climate change alter the incidence of extreme weather events, and how will their impact be distributed geographically? How will future socioeconomic development, notably an increased focus on education and empowerment for women and girls, affect the vulnerability of affected communities? And, of primary interest to negotiators and donors, how much would it cost to neutralize the threat of additional losses in this context?

Does foreign military assistance strengthen or further weaken fragile states facing internal conflict? In a new working paper, CGD post-doctoral fellow Oeindrila Dube and co-author Suresh Naidu find that U.S. military assistance to Colombia may increase violence and decrease voter turnout, undermining the perceived value of foreign military assistance.

With the Copenhagen climate talks finally underway, a CGD survey of 500 development and climate aficionados in 88 countries finds unexpected agreement about what should be done—and important differences between respondents from developed and developing countries about how an agreement should be financed and managed. Jan von der Goltz and CGD president Nancy Birdsall examine the survey results to shed light on some of the ingredients of a successful climate agreement.

Benjamin Leo, formerly of the U.S. Treasury and National Security Council and a key behind-the-scenes player in the inception and implementation of Multilateral Debt Relief Initiatives, examines the potential risk of renewed debt re-accumulation by countries that have only recently completed the HIPC/MDRI process that was to prevent a repeat of excessive debt accumulation.

In this working paper, the authors shed light on systemic problems of variability and valuation in the Penn World Table GDP estimates that distort cross-country comparisons of the data. They propose creating a new chained series that values all data at PPP prices and makes better use of disaggregated data for different benchmark years to overcome the limitations.

The authors suggest a new approach assessing carbon taxes on imports to address the concerns from high-income countries about the effect of taxes on competition without damaging trade from developing countries.

The paper proposes a new narrative on climate equity that emphasize basic energy needs and the equality of access to energy opportunities rather than emissions. It advocates abandoning the setting of emissions targets and instead developing a framework where all countries contribute to maximizing technology creation and diffusion.