50th Nobel Symposia - Growth & development / Climate Change

Some of the world's most prominent economists discuss development and climate change at 50th Anniversary of Nobel Symposia.

Original Link here.  (highly recommend going to original site)

Program

Monday, September 3

8:15 - 9:00 Registration

9:00 - 9:10 Opening of Symposium

Growth 1
Chair: Per Krusell

9:10 - 10:40 Technology [Video]

Speaker: Paul Romer, Stanford University [Presentation]
Discussant: Peter Howitt, Brown University [Presentation]

11:00 - 12:30 Empirical Determinants [Video]

Speaker: Robert Barro, Harvard University [Paper] [Presentation]
Discussant: Abhijit Banerjee, MIT [Presentation]

Development 1 
Chair: Fabrizio Zilibotti

13:50 - 15:20 Schooling [Video]

Speaker: Mark Rosenzweig, Yale University [Presentation]
Discussant: Claudia Goldin, Harvard University [Presentation]

15:40 - 17:10 Health [Video]

Speaker: Michael Kremer, Harvard University [Presentation]
Discussant: Nancy Stokey, University of Chicago [Presentation]

17:30 - 19:00 Credit and Insurance [Video]

Speaker: Robert Townsend, MIT [Presentation]
Discussant: Orazio Attanasio, UCL [Presentation]

Tuesday, September 4

Development 2 
Chair: Jakob Svensson

9:00 - 10:30 Well-Being [Video]

Speaker: Angus Deaton, Princeton University [Presentation]
Discussant: Chad Jones, Stanford University [Presentation]

10:50 - 12:20 Policy Evaluation [Video]

Speaker: Esther Duflo, MIT [Presentation]
Discussant: Guido Tabellini, Bocconi University [Presentation]

Growth 2 
Chair: Philippe Aghion

13:50 - 15:20 Productivity and Misallocation [Video]

Speaker: Peter Klenow, Stanford University [Presentation]
Discussant: Chris Udry, Yale University [Presentation]

15:40 - 17:10 Human Capital [Video]

Speaker: Robert Lucas Jr., University of Chicago [Presentation]
Discussant: Sendhil Mullainathan, Harvard University [Presentation]

17:30 - 19:00 Institutions [Video]

Speaker: Daron Acemoglu, MIT [Presentation]
Discussant: Andrei Shleifer, Harvard University [Presentation]

Wednesday, September 5

Panels

09:30-11:00 Micro Meets Macro [Video]

Daron Acemoglu, MIT
Abhijit Banerjee, MIT
Angus Deaton, Princeton University
Elhanan Helpman, Harvard University
Robert Lucas, Jr., University of Chicago
Chair: Torsten Persson

13:40-15:10 How Can Policy and Aid Help in Bringing down World Poverty? [Video]
Public session at Aula Magna, Stockholm University

Panel discussion:
Paul Collier, Oxford University
Esther Duflo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
William Easterly, New York University
Dani Rodrik, Harvard University
Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University
Introduction: Gunilla Carlsson, Minister for International Development Cooperation
Moderator: Timothy Besley, London School of Economics

15:10 - 15:40 Celebrating the IIES at 50 [Video]

15:40-15:50 Break

15:50-17:20 How Can We Solve the Problem of Global Warming? [Video]

Panel discussion:
Sir Nicholas Stern, London School of Economics
Hans-Werner Sinn, University of Munich
John Hassler, Institute of International Economic Studies
Elisabeth Moyer, University of Chicago
Introduction: Lena Ek, Minister for the Environment
Moderator: Klas Eklund, SEB 

17:20-18:00 Reception

Thursday, September 6

8:30 Coffee and Registration

Morning session
Chair: Torsten Persson

9:00 - 10:30 The Transition to Clean Technology [Video]

Speaker: Daron Acemoglu
Co-authors: Ufuk Akcigit, Douglas Hanley, and William Kerr
Discussant: John Van Reenen

10.45-12.15 Carbon taxes, Path Dependency and Directed Technical Change: Evidence from the Auto Industry [Video]

Speaker: Philippe Aghion [Paper]
Co-authors: Antoine Dechezlepretre, David Hemous, Ralf Martin, and John Van Reenen
Discussant: Robin Burgess

12.15-13.30 Lunch

Afternoon session
Chair: Philippe Aghion

13.30-15.00 Adapting to Climate Change: Evidence from Long-Run Changes in the Weather-Mortality Relationship in the 20th Century United States [Video]

Speaker: Olivier Deschenes [Paper]
Co-authors: Alan Barecca, Karen Clay, Michael Greenstone, and Joseph Shapiro
Discussant: Peter Nilsson

15.15-16.45 Weather and Infant Mortality in Africa [Video]

Speaker: Masayuki Kudamatsu [Paper]
Co-authors: Torsten Persson and David Strömberg
Discussant: Dean Karlan

17.15-18.45 Poverty, Growth and the Demand for Energy [Video]

Speaker: Catherine Wolfram [Paper]
Co-authors: Paul Gertler, Orie Shelef, and Alan Fuchs
Discussant: Jakob Svensson

19.30- Dinner

Friday, September 7

Morning session
Chair: David Strömberg

09.00-10.30 Climate Change, Environmental Shocks, and Socio-Economic Networks: the Case of Rainfall and Temperature in Thailand [Video]

Speaker: Robert Townsend [Paper]
Co-authors: John Felkner and Kamilya Tazhibayeva
Discussant: Andrew Foster

10.45-12.15 Evolving Comparative Advantage and the Impact of Climate Change in Agricultural Markets: Evidence from a 9 Million-Field Partition of the Earth [Video]

Speaker: Dave Donaldson [Paper]
Co-authors: Arnaud Costinot and Cory Smith
Discussant: Sam Kortum

12.15-13.30 Lunch

Afternoon session
Chair: Per Krusell

13.30-15.00 Conflict, Climate and Cells: A Disaggregated Analysis [Video]

Speaker: Eliana La Ferrara [Paper]
Co-author: Mariaflavia Harari
Discussant: Melissa Dell

15.15-16.45 The fossil Episode [Video]

Speaker: Hans-Werner Sinn [Paper]
Co-author: John Hassler
Discussant: Rick van der Ploeg

17.15-18.45 On the Spatial Economic Impact of Global Warming [Video]

Speaker: Esteban Rossi-Hansberg [Paper]
Co-author: Klaus Desmet
Discussant: Larry Karp

19.30- Dinner

Saturday, September 8

Morning session
Chair: John Hassler

09.00-10.30 The Social Cost Of Abrupt Climate Change [Video]

Speaker: Thomas Lontzek [Paper]
Co-authors: Yongyang Cai and Kenneth Judd
Discussant: Christian Traeger

10.45-12.15 A Global Economy-Climate Model with High Regional Resolution [Video]

Speaker: Tony Smith
Co-author: Per Krusell
Discussant: Elisabeth Moyer

12.15-13.30 Lunch

Afternoon session
Chair: Sam Kortum

13.30-15.00 Participation and Duration of Climate Contracts [Video]

Speaker: Bård Harstad [Paper]
Co-author: Marco Battagliani
Discussant: Tore Ellingsen

15.15-16.45 Environmental Policy and Directed Technical Change in a Global World: Is there a Case for Carbon Tariffs? [Video]

Speaker: David Hemous [Paper]
Discussant: Vasco Carvalho

17.15-18.45 Market-based Emissions Regulation and the Evolution of Market Structure [Video]

Speaker: Meredith Fowlie [Paper]
Co-authors: Meredith Reguant and Stephen Ryan
Discussant: Brian Copeland

USAID Chief trying to break links with for-profit contractors

From Foreign Policy magazine.  Original here.

Hired Gun Fight

Obama's aid chief takes on the development-industrial complex.

BY JOHN NORRIS | JULY 18, 2012

Rajiv Shah, President Barack Obama's U.S. Agency for International Development administrator, is waging a high-stakes battle to make U.S. foreign aid programs less dependent on American for-profit contractors. At the same time, he's aiming to roughly double the amount of assistance that flows directly to governments and local organizations in the developing world.

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Shah's initiative reflects Obama's broader desire to clean up government contracting announced early in his term, as well as the thrust of a White House review of development policy and the State Department's first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. Although Shah's plan hasn't gotten much public attention, it represents a seismic shift in how American foreign aid programs are conducted and will require both wrenching institutional change and a very tough political battle if it is to become a reality.

Given the degree to which USAID works with contractors, some of Shah's language has been delightfully undiplomatic. In a 2011 speech, he drew parallels between the agency's reliance on for-profit firms and Eisenhower's warnings about the emergence of a military-industrial complex. Saying that USAID was "no longer satisfied with writing big checks to big contractors and calling it development," Shah argued that development firms were more interested in keeping themselves in business than seeing countries graduate from the need for aid. "There is always another high-priced consultant that must take another flight to attend another conference or lead another training," he complained.

Shah's fiery rhetoric quickly set off alarm bells among USAID's many for-profit contractors, particularly since it came hot on the heels of the agency's December 2010 decision to suspend a huge non-profit, the Academy for Educational Development, or AED, from receiving new government contracts because of abuses in two of its Pakistan projects and what USAID argued was "serious corporate misconduct, mismanagement and a lack of internal controls." AED was one of USAID's larger partners, managing about $500 million annually in grants and contracts, and the suspension led AED to go belly up just month later in the spring of 2011. AED insiders complained bitterly that USAID overreacted; USAID insiders countered that AED would have survived had it not tried to downplay and conceal the problems when they were first discovered. Eventually, AED paid $5 million to the U.S. government in a Justice Department settlement for the Pakistan projects in question.

---

Top 10 USAID Contractors for FY 2011

	Vendor	Obligated Program Funds
1	Chemonics International, Inc.	$735,599,989
2	Partnership for Supply Chain Management	$417,726,429
3	John Snow, Inc.	$387,360,155
4	Development Alternatives, Inc.	$308,665,874
5	The Louis Berger Group, Inc.	$264,436,926
6	ABT Associates Inc.	$244,620,469
7	Management Sciences for Health	$220,295,202
8	Research Triangle Institute	$218,319,556
9	ARD, Inc.	$196,989,122
10	Creative Associates International, Inc.	$196,851,005

A bit of history is important in explaining why the Obama administration remains convinced that too much foreign aid flows through firms around the Beltway. Much of the current struggle has its roots in a bitter battle between the Clinton administration and Senator Jesse Helms during the mid-1990s, during which Helms and his allies attempted to abolish USAID and fold its functions into the State Department. USAID managed to fend off Helms, but ended up weathering steep cuts to its operating expenses, which forced it to dramatically reduce staff size through layoffs and attrition. Even when funding for foreign aid rebounded after Sept. 11, USAID was a shell of its former self, having lost much of its staff and expertise in key development areas like agriculture. A 2003 Government Accountability Office report captured the dilemma: "Since 1992, the number of USAID U.S. direct hire staff declined by 37 percent, but the number of countries with USAID programs almost doubled, and, over the last two years, program funding increased by more than 50 percent." In short, USAID had gone from being a development agency to being a large, poorly organized contracting agency. Incredible pressure to push money out the door in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan only exacerbated these trends.

Because USAID remains laden with bureaucratic restrictions, it also tends to rely on large umbrella contracts that favor a handful of well-connected Beltway firms. The 10 largest USAID contractors received more than $3.19 billion in 2011, and more than 27 percent of the agency's overall funding was directed to American for-profit firms last year. To put this in perspective, if the for-profit contractor Chemonics were a country, it would have been the third-largest recipient of USAID funding in the world in 2011, behind only Afghanistan and Haiti.

Thus Shah's push, under the rather benign title of "procurement reform," to channel more funds directly to institutions in the developing world: governments, entrepreneurs, educational institutions, and NGOs. The theory behind relying more on local institutions is simple and compelling: If the goal of development is to build sustainable local capacity and ownership, why not have countries play a larger role in helping help themselves? Not only is this good development policy in countries where proper management controls are in place, it also has the potential to save American taxpayers a great deal of money.

U.S. contractors, looking at losing large amounts of revenue, were not about to take this lying down.The Professional Services Council (PSC), an umbrella group of government contracting firms, quickly hired lobbyists to push back against procurement reform and helped establish the Coalition of International Development Companies, an advocacy coalition of 50 contractors touting the role of "America's most effective, efficient and innovative international development companies" in advancing the national interest. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but increased lobbying funded by the PSC directly preceded a sharply worded letter from the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight, Rep. Darrell Issa, to USAID questioning the wisdom of procurement reform. The letter hammered home one of the key arguments that contractors had been using against channeling more money directly to developing-country institutions: the threat of waste and corruption by foreigners.

That argument might be a little more persuasive if American for-profit contractors had not had their own problems in this regard. In 2010, Louis Berger Associates agreed to pay $69 million in penalties after the Justice Department found that it was intentionally overcharging taxpayers for its activities in Afghanistan. A 2009 Washington Post story revealed that managers at Chemonics encouraged employees in Afghanistan to deliberately downplay or ignore failing programs so as not to disrupt the flow of the grants.

The risk of waste, fraud, or abuse is a constant specter in American aid programs, but it should also be acknowledged that spending hundreds of millions of dollars on overhead for American firms is also a real cost, and doesn't always contribute a great deal to lasting development. To its credit, USAID seems to be taking a rigorous approach to ensure that proper systems are in place in countries where it is pushing out more money through local channels, and it has been conducting audits of public financial systems in those cases where it wants to work directly through foreign governments.

USAID's response to Issa highlighted a recent example from Senegal in its defense. In Senegal, the agency shifted from using American for-profit contactors to build schools and instead carried out the work through a partnership with the Senegalese government. Money for the schools was not disbursed until after a completed school was certified to have met agreed safety and quality standards. The cost difference was striking: It cost $425,000 per school through American contractors, but only $200,000 when built by the Senegalese government.

Things now stand at an uneasy crossroads. Contractors don't like Shah's new approach, but are nervous about too aggressively biting the hand that feeds them. USAID has committed to working with local institutions, but its spending totals in 2011 actually saw the proportion directed to American for-profits go up, not down. The agency has a huge amount of work to do if it still hopes to reach its target of 30 percent of its aid being channeled directly to governments and local organizations in the developing world by 2015. And Shah's aggressive push for a new paradigm will likely wither on the vine if the White House flips come November. For-profit contractors have always had their strongest allies on the Republican side of the fence.

12 PhD studentships for Bloomsbury Colleges /Int'l development

MEMO

To:      All Staff @ Birkbeck, Institute of Education, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Royal Veterinary College, School of Pharmacy, School of Oriental & African Studies.

From: The Bloomsbury Colleges Research Committee

Date:   1 September 2011

Re:      Bloomsbury Colleges PhD Studentships for 2012

The Bloomsbury Colleges Consortium has six member institutions from the University of London: Birkbeck, Institute of Education, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Royal Veterinary College, School of Oriental and African Studies and The School of Pharmacy. Together they are identifying and pursuing opportunities for academic and administrative collaboration.

Twelve 3-year PhD studentships are available for intercollegiate research collaborations to start October 2012. These studentships entail collaboration between at least two Bloomsbury Colleges, and each participating College will be the lead (i.e., principal supervisor and registration base for the students) for two such collaborations.  For all colleges, the studentships will cover fees at the home/EU rate and maintenance at the level recommended by the Research Councils.  Applicants from non-EU countries will be required to meet the additional costs of overseas fees from other sources.  All studentships will be managed in line with the current good practices of all member Colleges.

This formal call for proposals from academic staff within the Bloomsbury Colleges has a deadline for submission of 17th October 2011.  Each School/College will screen proposals where the lead applicant is based in that institution, and select a maximum of 5 applications for forwarding to the Bloomsbury Colleges Research Committee for consideration at a meeting scheduled for 11th November (i.e., the Committee will receive a maximum of 30 applications).  The Committee will select 12 applications, and successful applicants will be notified by 18th November at the latest.  The studentships will be advertised on The Bloomsbury Colleges website before the Christmas break 2011 and placed in a selection of high profile journals in January 2012, with interviews and the selection process taking place during February to March 2012.  The students will start their courses in October 2012. 

Although a number of criteria* will be used in the selection process, it is important to note that applicants must convince the Committee that the studentship will foster new and sustainable research collaboration between the partner colleges.

The timetable for this process is summarized in the accompanying page. Please contact tbc@bloomsbury.ac.uk with any enquiries.

Applications should be submitted by the lead applicant to the corresponding receiver in their institution:

Berni Widemann             berni.widemann@pharmacy.ac.uk

Dean of Studies Office   dean_of_studies_office@lshtm.ac.uk

Kathryn Oatey                ko12@soas.ac.uk

Liz Wilkinson                   lwilkinson@rvc.ac.uk

Trevor Pearce                 t.pearce@bbk.ac.uk

Kate Gerrard                   k.gerrard@ioe.ac.uk

Professor David Thurston

Chair, Bloomsbury Colleges Research Committee

* Criteria for selection process are as follows:

1.    Strengthens new/blossoming Bloomsbury College collaboration

2.    Broadens range of existing studentship collaborations (eg in terms of college partnerships, subjects covered)

3.    Academic merit of the proposal, including realistic scope of the project for a 3 year PhD

4.    Security of funding to undertake the project (eg for data collection and consumables) - to avoid risk of delay or non-completion of project because of funding shortfall

5.    Strong track record and evidence of supervision capacity of lead supervisor

6.    Evidence of awareness of college supervision requirements and procedures (eg advisory panel, timing of upgrade).

7.    View for International Development