MIT's [Massachusetts Institute of Technology ]Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a network of 59 affiliated professors around the world who are united by their use of Randomized Evaluations (REs) to answer questions critical to poverty alleviation. J-PAL's mission is to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is based on scientific evidence. Their current work in the Education…
Category Archives Economics
The disturbing scenes in London over the last few days bring in to a stark contrast the competing challenges of the immediate, short-term need for social order and the extended, long-term need for social inclusion. There are many thousands of pictures and words that will be written about this London summer. Jonathon Freedland, writing in the Guardian says: The soul…
One can't help but wonder if the the lack of agreement between the Democratic and Republican parties over the proposed extension of the US debt ceiling is anything more than grand political theatre, although this time it appears to be a different ball-game with the growing role and influence of the "tea-party" members. Perhaps more telling is the role of…
5.8% unemployment. Once again, the labour market data in Australia shows a remarkably robust labour market, with seasonally adjusted unemployment stable in July at 5.8%. ANZ CEO Mike Smith last night stated that he saw unemployment here stabilising at 6%, which would be remarkable. The problem is that that would require a fair pick up in the economy in the…
Executive Director of the Lowy Institute, Michael Wesley, gave a short presentation in Melbourne, with the broad theme being that coming years are likely to see Australia facing the most challenging global environment in our history. Read on at CoreEcon.. Australia's next great challenge?.
Do Teachers Matter?. A psychology study hit the headlines last Friday under the banner ‘Teacher quality makes little difference, study shows’. AN AUSTRALIAN study has cast doubt over the “teacher effect”, by suggesting differences between teachers play only a minor role in how well a child will learn. The global study, led by the University of New England, monitored 500 pairs…
Labour market. The unemployment numbers yesterday were again remarkably good relative to what is happening elsewhere in the world. The headline u/e rate is up to 5.8%. Since July last year we’ve lost about 160,000 full time jobs, but part time jobs are up about 127,000. Of course we need to create jobs to stop the unemployment rate from rising,…
Inequality and Growth. Joshua Gans has a new paper out with Dan Andrews and Christopher Jencks, on the relationship between inequality and growth. We reach a finding that is pretty standard in this literature – when we restrict the sample to 1960-2000, more inequality seems to be good for growth. However, if the inequality arises from a transfer from the bottom…
The Net Hubbert Curve: What Does It Mean?. Cutler Cleveland of Boston University has reported that the EROI of oil and gas extraction in the U.S. has decreased from 100:1 in the 1930Ŵ