Secret Tapes of the final Copenhagen Summit negotiations, starring Obama, Brown, Sarko & Merkel
21 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, environmental economics, global warming, growth disasters, growth miracles, income redistribution, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: Copenhagen Summit, global warming, obama
In Copenhagen’s final private negotiations, Obama, Brown, Sarko and Merkel sat down with He Yafei, the Chinese vice-minister of foreign affairs. There is a tape of this meeting at Der Spiegel
He Yafei was the smartest guy in the room. Wen Jiabao refused to attend most of the negotiating sessions.
Given the choice of walking out or sitting down with a vice-minister, they chose humiliation. One response of Obama was:
It would be nice to negotiate with somebody who can make political decisions.
There were still two important placeholders, X and Y, in the draft agreement. They marked the spots where the percentage targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, for the industrialized nations and emerging countries respectively, were to be entered.
China and India were unwilling to make that commitment. They had reached their own agreement with Brazil and South Africa.
"We have all along been saying ‘Don’t prejudge options!,’" said a representative of the Indian delegation*, prompting Merkel to burst out: "Then you don’t want legally binding!"
The entire discussion at Der Spiegel in multiple parts should be read while listening to the tape.
Nicholas Kristof – Where Sweatshops Are a Dream
20 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, international economic law Tags: child labour, developing countries, Labour standards, neocolonialism
Before Barack Obama and his team act on their talk about “labor standards,” I’d like to offer them a tour of the vast garbage dump here in Phnom Penh.
This is a Dante-like vision of hell. It’s a mountain of festering refuse, a half-hour hike across, emitting clouds of smoke from subterranean fires. The miasma of toxic stink leaves you gasping, breezes batter you with filth, and even the rats look forlorn.
Then the smoke parts and you come across a child ambling barefoot, searching for old plastic cups that recyclers will buy for five cents a pound. Many families actually live in shacks on this smoking garbage.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats who favor labor standards in trade agreements mean well, for they intend to fight back at oppressive sweatshops abroad.
But while it shocks Americans to hear it, the central challenge in the poorest countries is not that sweatshops exploit too many people, but that they don’t exploit enough.
Talk to these families in the dump, and a job in a sweatshop is a cherished dream, an escalator out of poverty, the kind of gauzy if probably unrealistic ambition that parents everywhere often have for their children.
via Op-Ed Columnist – Where Sweatshops Are a Dream – NYTimes.com.
The Economics of Elysium
16 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, F.A. Hayek, growth disasters, growth miracles, income redistribution, law and economics, Marxist economics, movies, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: Cuba, Elysium
Human Capital, Development, and Growth | Lars Peter Hansen, Edward Glaeser, Claudia Goldin and Robert Lucas
16 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic growth, Gary Becker, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, human capital, labour economics, law and economics, property rights Tags: Claudia Goldin, Edward Glaeser, Gary Becker, Robert Lucas
Managerial Econ: Markets vs. Mother Theresa: who has done more for the world’s poor?
05 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: growth disasters, overseas aid, overseas development assistance, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
The role of Bollywood in the fall of the Permit Raj and emergence of the Indian economic miracle
30 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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