Africa Unleashed: Explaining the Secret of a Belated Boom Foreign Affairs November/December 2011, by Edward Miguel
Steven Radelet’s accessible new book, Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries are Leading the Way, argues that much of the credit for Africa’s recent economic boom goes to its increasingly open political systems. But Radelet fails to answer the deeper question: why some countries have managed to develop successful democracies while others have tried but failed.
Photo by William Mercer McLeod
Edward Miguel is professor of economics and director of the Center of Evaluation for Global Action at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 2000.
He earned S.B. degrees in both Economics and Mathematics from MIT, and received a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow.
Ted's main research focus is African economic development, including work on the economic causes and consequences of violence; the impact of ethnic divisions on local collective action; and interactions between health, education, and productivity for the poor. He has conducted field work in Kenya, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and India. Ted is a Faculty Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Associate Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Development Economics and Review of Economics and Statistics, recipient of the 2005 Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and winner of the 2005 Kenneth J. Arrow Prize awarded annually by the International Health Economics Association for the Best Paper in Health Economics.
Miguel is author with Ray Fisman of Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence and the Poverty of Nations (Princeton University Press 2008), and author of Africa's Turn? (MIT Press 2009).
CEGA
The Center of Evaluation for Global Action (CEGA) is the University of California's premiere center for research on global development. CEGA's mission is to improve development outcomes, by designing and rigorously testing strategies for poverty alleviation in low- and middle-income countries. CEGA's faculty affiliates use two powerful techniques—rigorous evaluation and economic analysis—to measure the impacts of large-scale social and economic development projects. The Center integrates business and economic approaches with expertise in agriculture, public health, education, and the environment. As a result, our initiatives have produced some of the most influential and policy relevant research projects in recent years, including cash incentives for women's empowerment, low-cost water technology for rural communities, and early childhood health interventions for improved adult economic outcomes. Like our sister centers, the Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT and Innovations for Poverty Action, we work to identify and disseminate the most effective strategies for poverty alleviation.
Economic Gangsters by Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel
In Economic Gangsters, Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel take readers into the secretive, chaotic, and brutal worlds inhabited by these lawless and violent thugs. Join these two sleuthing economists as they follow the foreign aid money trail into the grasping hands of corrupt governments and shady underworld characters. Spend time with ingenious black marketeers as they game the international system. Follow the steep rise and fall of stock prices of companies with unseemly connections to Indonesia’s former dictator. See for yourself what rainfall has to do with witch killings in Tanzania—and more. Since its initial publication, the book has been published in paperback, and in translation in Chinese, Farsi (Persian) and German.
Order a copy on Amazon or visit the book's website today.
Africa's Turn by Edward Miguel
In Africa's Turn? Miguel tracks a decade of comparably hopeful economic trends throughout sub-Saharan Africa and suggests that we may be seeing a turnaround. He bases his hopes on a range of recent changes: democracy is finally taking root in many countries; China's successes have fueled large-scale investment in Africa; and rising commodity prices have helped as well. Miguel warns, though, that the growth is fragile. Violence and climate change could derail it quickly, and he argues for specific international assistance when drought and civil strife loom. Responding to Miguel, nine experts gauge his optimism. Some question the progress of democracy in Africa or are more skeptical about China's constructive impact. But most agree that something new is happening, and that policy innovations in health, education, agriculture, and government accountability are the key to Africa's future.
Order a copy on Amazon or visit the book's website today.