Category: poverty

Is the U.S. Still a ‘Land of Opportunity’?

~ MilesCorak ~ 5 Comments

The New York Times posed this question to a group of experts, Richard Florida, Isabel Sawhill, Timothy Smeeding, and five others, including me.

More specifically, they asked:

There is a growing consensus that it is harder to move up the economic ladder in the United States than in many other places, like Canada. Should more Americans consider leaving the U.S. to get ahead? Or can the U.S. make changes to be more of a “land of opportunity”?

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Diane Finley and Rebecca Blank meet Adam Smith: moving poverty lines are in

~ MilesCorak ~ 17 Comments

President Obama appointed Rebecca Blank—a capable, no-nonsense, PhD in economics, and a former Dean at the University of Michigan—to his new administration, and told her to answer a simple question: how should the United States measure poverty?

Diane Finley, the Conservative government’s Minister responsible for social policy, is not exactly Canada’s Becky Blank. She might certainly be capable, and she might certainly be no-nonsense, but to be honest she doesn’t seem to have a lot in common with the American academic turned policy-maker: except, of course, that in Canada Ms. Finley is ultimately the person responsible for poverty measurement.

Both women have pulled off quiet revolutions by recognizing that the poverty line should evolve over time: as the things needed to participate normally in society change, so should the poverty line.

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Foreign aid: forget the T-shirts, just give them the money

~ MilesCorak ~ 5 Comments

I am thinking of starting a contest.

To the first three people who sign up to follow my blog I will send one of my used T-shirts, shipping and handling included. Or how about this: to the first three people who sign up I won’t send T-shirts, but will send the approximately $10 it would have cost to ship them.

Which would you prefer?

Before answering you should know that foreign aid programs are often designed as in-kind transfers: they send the T-shirts, not the money. In fact, in some cases quite literally the T-shirts.

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Economics is about being a good plumber

~ MilesCorak ~ Leave a comment

Ester Duflo is a smart women.

She has a PhD from MIT where she has taught development economics since her graduation in 1999. She holds a chair in the Department of Economics there, edits an influential economics journal, has published too many articles to count, won major prizes and awards—including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship that is nicknamed the ‘genius’ award—and has authored or co-authored four books with the most recent released earlier this year called Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the way to Fight Global Poverty.

And to just what does this 38-year-old aspire? … She wants to be a good plumber!

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