Development Economics (Audio)

An introduction to microfinance based on Portfolios of the Poor. The poor live on irregular income flows and needs--microfinance helps to manage the unpredictability.

A prescient economist who started a lot of the trends in current development work, including original data gathering and careful natural experiments.  He started off as an abstract monetary theorist and ended up measuring rice consumption in rural...

How well has this effort really gone?  What kind of success can we expect?  Has such an approach been tried in the past?

Who gives and who receives foreign aid? What do countries give? How much aid is tied?

Why is it difficult to give effective foreign aid? We discuss knowledge problems, incentive problems and feedback and learning.

There are some things we can do to help, and this video introduces what those might be, including the most succesful foreign aid program ever. Aid can help even when it doesn't generate sustained growth.

What does the World Bank Group actually do?  What are the separate parts, and why has the institution apparently become less important over time?

Here's a very brief overview of what this important multilateral agency is all about.