15 Fascinating TED Talks for Econ Geeks

Soudan: alors que l’indépendance du Sud se rapproche, le Conseil de sécurité crée la Force de sécurité intérimaire des Nations Unies pour Abyei Conseil de sécurité 6567e séance – matin Le Conseil de sécurité a décidé, ce matin, en adoptant sa résolution 1990 (2011) de créer, pour une période de six mois, la Force de sécurité intérimaire des Nations Unies pour Abyei (UNISFA). Cette Force, chargée d’assurer la sécurité dans la zone, sera dotée d’un effectif maximum de 4 200 militaires, de 50 policiers et d’un personnel civil d’appui correspondant, et elle recevra l’assistance du Gouvernement éthiopien. Aux termes du projet de résolution adopté à l’unanimité de ses 15 membres, le Conseil de sécurité se félicite de l’Accord du 20 juin entre le Gouvernement soudanais et le Mouvement populaire de libération du Soudan sur les arrangements temporaires pour l’administration et la sécurité d’Abyei. Il charge l’UNISFA de contrôler et de vérifier le redéploiement de toutes les Forces armées soudanaises et de l’Armée populaire de libération du Soudan « ou de l’entité qui lui succédera », comme le prévoit l’Accord. Le Conseil de sécurité, 1. 2.

The Big Mac Index - Applying Simple Economic Common Sense Simple ”quick and dirty” economic modeling can give powerful insight The Economist’s Big Mac Index has traditionally been thought of as an interesting yet dubious proxy for currency valuations and purchasing power. Mcdonald’s has a vast array of branches worldwide. The most beautiful economic models are very simple yet generate very interesting insights. The economic sense behind the Big Mac Index – Purchasing Power Parity Purchasing power parity, also known as PPP is a broadly used economic concept. The Big Mac is an ideal example for a sold good which should be priced the same in the many different countries it is sold in. Purchasing power parity is most commonly used in comparing living standards in different countries. The following map, by Wikipedia, illustrates the purchasing power parity of the gross domestic product for the countries of the world (2003). Source: WikipediaWhich currencies are overvalued and which are undervalued according to the Big Mac Index?

Books development economists and aid workers seldom read but should? – Chris Blattman A car trip with a colleague yesterday spurred the question. Here is my answer, with books that (a) changed the way I think about development, yet (b) friends and colleagues seem to seldom read. For the ADHD crowd weaned on soundbites and Twitter, I offer inadequate twitterish encapsulations of each book. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. and 7. 8. 9. 10. and 11. 12. 13. and 14. 15. 16. and 17. 18. I don’t always agree with the authors, but they do make you think.

Mind the Gap May 2004 When people care enough about something to do it well, those who do it best tend to be far better than everyone else. There's a huge gap between Leonardo and second-rate contemporaries like Borgognone. You see the same gap between Raymond Chandler and the average writer of detective novels. A top-ranked professional chess player could play ten thousand games against an ordinary club player without losing once. Like chess or painting or writing novels, making money is a very specialized skill. Why? I think there are three reasons we treat making money as different: the misleading model of wealth we learn as children; the disreputable way in which, till recently, most fortunes were accumulated; and the worry that great variations in income are somehow bad for society. The Daddy Model of Wealth When I was five I thought electricity was created by electric sockets. Because of the circumstances in which they encounter it, children tend to misunderstand wealth. Stealing It Notes

Interactive The World of Seven Billion The map shows population density; the brightest points are the highest densities. Each country is colored according to its average annual gross national income per capita, using categories established by the World Bank (see key below). Some nations— like economic powerhouses China and India—have an especially wide range of incomes. But as the two most populous countries, both are lower middle class when income is averaged per capita. Ten Recurring Economic Fallacies, 1774–2004 - H.A. Scott Trask As an American historian who knows something of economic law, having learned from the Austrians, I became intrigued with how the United States had remained prosperous, its economy still so dynamic and productive, given the serious and recurring economic fallacies to which our top leaders (political, corporate, academic) have subscribed and from which they cannot seem to free themselves—and alas, keep passing down to the younger generation. Let’s consider ten. Myth #1: The Broken Window One of the most persistent is that of the broken window—one breaks and this is celebrated as a boon to the economy: the window manufacturer gets an order; the hardware store sells a window; a carpenter is hired to install it; money circulates; jobs are created; the GDP goes up. The fallacy lies in a failure to grasp what has been foregone by repair and reconstruction—the labor and capital expended, having been lost to new production. Myth #2: The Beneficence of War In 1865, the financial question recurred.

Famine Is a Crime - By Charles Kenny Deprived of food long enough, the bodies of starving people break down muscle tissue to keep vital organs functioning. Diarrhea and skin rashes are common, as are fungal and other infections. As the stomach wastes away, the perception of hunger is reduced and lethargy sets in. Movement becomes immensely painful. Thousands of Somalis have already suffered this tragic end, and it is likely to kill tens of thousands more in the coming months. For all its horror, starvation is also one of the simpler forms of mortality to prevent -- it just takes food. Historically, famines were sometimes the simple result of collapsed local food production, limited resources, and weak infrastructure to bring in food. Infrastructure is still a barrier to famine response in many parts of the world -- studies of modern famine suggest being near a main road significantly increases the chance of survival. So why do famines still happen at all? Consider China's Great Famine of 1959.

The truth about the global demand for food | Jayati Ghosh | Global development Ever since the global food crisis of 2007-08, a perception has persisted in many parts of the world that one of the main underlying reasons for the price spikes in major food items – especially food grain – is the increased demand from countries such as China and India. If anything, this perception has become even more widespread since prices started rising again, especially since early 2010. On the face of it, such a perception seems quite reasonable. After all, China and India both have huge populations, accounting for nearly 40% of the total world population between them. So it is only to be expected that the increased incomes in China and India would translate into more demand for food grain, and this could certainly affect the global supply demand balance in ways that would cause food prices to rise. It turns out that there has been barely any change, and if anything a slowdown, in the rate of grain consumption in these two large countries.

September 11 in Retrospect Ten years after 9/11, we can begin to gain some perspective on the impact of that day's terrorist attacks on U.S. foreign policy. There was, and there remains, a natural tendency to say that the attacks changed everything. But a decade on, such conclusions seem unjustified. Before 9/11, the Bush administration had focused its foreign policy attention on China and Russia; on determining whether a Middle East peace settlement was in the cards; on building a ballistic missile defense system; and on contemplating how to deal with "rogue" states such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea. Top officials did not consider terrorism or radical Islamism a high priority. To continue reading, please log in. Don't have an account? Register Register now to get three articles each month. As a subscriber, you get unrestricted access to ForeignAffairs.com. Register for free to continue reading. Registered users get access to three free articles every month. Have an account?

Copycat pirate attacks on the rise in West Africa While the world is struggling to contain the epidemic of Somali pirate attacks in the Indian Ocean, a new “copycat” phenomenon is emerging on the other side of the continent, in West Africa, where piracy is expanding rapidly. The new piracy hotspot is the Gulf of Guinea, off the coasts of Nigeria and Benin. The latest case is the MT Halifax, a Malta-flagged oil tanker with about 25 crew members, which was seized this week by pirates off the coast of southern Nigeria, near the city of Port Harcourt in the oil-rich Niger Delta. In a separate attack, a Nigerian vessel with links to the oil industry was reportedly seized in the same region on Wednesday, although few details are known. Another vessel was captured by pirates off the coast of Nigeria last month, with a crew of 20 Eastern Europeans aboard. In neighbouring Benin, the trend is even more dramatic. The pirates in West Africa, unlike the Somali pirates, don’t normally demand ransom for the ship crews.

Failed state: Can DR Congo recover? 21 November 2011Last updated at 07:43 As the Democratic Republic of Congo prepares for just its second general elections in four decades on 28 November, Congolese affairs analyst Theodore Trefon considers whether this failed state, still recovering from a war which led to an estimated four million deaths, can ever be rebuilt. People in the Democratic Republic of Congo expect very little from the state, government or civil servants. In fact, ordinary Congolese often repeat expressions like "the state is dying but not yet dead" or "the state is ever present but completely useless". It seems they also expect little from the upcoming elections and there can be little argument that DR Congo is indeed a failed state. Ordinary citizens are poor, hungry and under-informed. The government is unable to provide decent education or health services. The country - two-thirds of the size of western Europe - is a battleground. Continue reading the main story Inside DR Congo Predators Unfair Congo bashing Surreal

The Challenge of Replacing Organized Crime with Governance - Neighborhoods Largely dominated by drug gangs, the slums and favelas of cities like Medellin, Ciudad Juarez or Rio de Janeiro are often beyond the reach and control of the formal government. In efforts to relinquish power from these gangs, these cities are increasingly staging interventions, often in the form of militarized police invasions. But even after such actions, officials struggle to integrate slums into the formal city. The trouble often lies in the fact that the government has never been a part of these areas. “Many of these urban spaces are growing up extremely quickly without any oversight management by the state -- and often extremely problematically with the state not really being capable of delivering any public goods in vast segments of the city,” says Vanda Felbab-Brown, author of the report. She’s been researching the role of governments in Latin American cities as they try to come up against the organized criminal groups that control slums. “To bring jobs in takes years,” she says.