The Duck of Minerva

I've been conspicuously silent on the matter of who would or should succeed Robert Zoellick as President of the World Bank. This was because I was convinced that it was coming down to a Hobson's choice between two narcissistic, white male economists: Larry Summers, former World Bank chief economist, infamous for composing an internal memo in which he outlined the pristine economic logic of exporting industrial waste to the Third World; and Jeffrey Sachs, an self-nominated development diva who hangs out with rock stars and is really high on bed nets and the "big push for aid". A few other...

I can't resist sharing this wonderful news clip from Malawi. I challenge Duck readers to have fun with this: What might the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street movements learn from Malawi?Malawi protests scheduled for January 15, Chilembwe Day12 January 2012tags: chilembwe day, malawi, protestby dadakimThe following call to protest in Malawi on January 15 (Chilembwe Day) was sent as an email, and has been reported on by opposition online news agency Nyasa Times.***********************CONCERNED CITIZENS OF MALAWI — PRESS RELEASEFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 11 JANUARY 2012TIME FOR ACTION AGAINST ECONOMIC...

David Bosco has a terrific post (and a promised series) on "Can Conservatives Learn to Love Multilateral Organizations?" (Short answer: no, especially not in an election year). It is a timely entry after the recent Republican debates on US foreign policy, during which the candidates did their very best to beat each other at the age-old game of beating up the principle of multilateralism. Much to my horror (but not surprise), Texas Governor Rick Perry took the cake when he promised that, if elected, he would "zero out foreign aid" and instead allocate aid based upon countries' "support for...

Is the IMF growing a pair....? This past week, the Fund's new Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, delivered a rabble-rousing speech in Jackonson Hole, Wyoming in which she called for a mandatory capital increase for European banks, using public funds if needed. I'm not convinced that's going to fly, but I have to say that I admire Lagarde's moxy. Today, Kenneth Rogoff, the Fund's former Chief Economist, published an op-ed in which he suggested that the Fund may finally be pulling away from the party line and demonstrating some willingness to contradict its European masters. Maybe. I had to...

In an article last week in the Financial Times on "Sex, Lies, and the Pitfalls of Overblown Statistics," John Kay bluntly wrote: "Always ask yourself the question: where does the data come from?" It's a good question, and one I frequently ask myself when I read yet another story about the hottest craze in the international development aid business today: the Open Data Initiative of the World Bank. Don't get me wrong. I think the World Bank's Open Data initiative is freaking awesome. You can now get free access to the Bank's World Development Indicators (hitherto accessible, but by no means...