Tag archive for ‘OECD’
The Case for Public Investment
The fiscal crises now besetting several OECD countries risk replaying the long agony of over-indebtedness in Africa. In Africa the process was directly overseen by the IMF. Its model of debt sustainability implicitly assumed that public investment was entirely unproductive: this was the implication of the absence from the model of any link between public [...]
Youth Without Work
Among the many devastating effects of the current global financial crisis, one of the most pernicious in the developed world is the upward trajectory of the unemployment rate for youth, which rose by six percentage points in the OECD area from 2007 to 2009, with Spain experiencing an alarming 42% youth unemployment rate in 2010. [...]
Europe’s Policymakers are rushing towards the Edge of the Cliff
Lemmings are cute, family-oriented, apparently well-adjusted creatures who, most of the time, live more or less happily in the tundra. Although it is an urban myth that they commit collective suicide to control population, they certainly experience periodic mass frenzies. Driven by some deeply rooted instinctive yearning, they swarm off in search of salvation, looking [...]
Africa’s Window of Opportunity
Just when Europe’s economic future has deteriorated Africa’s is looking more promising than for many decades. That promise is underpinned by global commodity prices, high despite the world recession, and by years of gradual reforms. The revenues from resource extraction are going to increase massively. This is because Africa is the last frontier for resource [...]
The End of Social Europe?
As a further round of economic crisis unfolds, many European social democrats seem frozen like a hare in a car’s headlights. They have nothing new to say about how to deal with fiscal deficits – except that the cuts must not occur all at once and that the most vulnerable must be shielded. Otherwise, economists [...]
Which planet is America on (and which Europe)?
The American political commentator Robert Kagan once claimed that ‘Americans are from Mars, Europeans from Venus’. If so, I have just spent a week in the capital of Mars. And, back on Venus, I have watched from afar the debate, if that is the right word, on the reform of the Martian healthcare system. I [...]
How to Really Help Africa
Despite the enlargement of the G8 to the G20, Europe remains its largest presence. In November France will host the G20 meeting, and so Europe will have the predominant influence on the agenda. While Africa is permanently on the agenda, the question is how we might best use that moment to do something for our [...]
New Development Commissioner has his Work cut out
News of the appointments in the new European Commission has been dominated by the political struggles for the high-profile positions. The portfolio responsible for the Commission’s development program in poor countries is decidedly not one of them. The Financial Times, reporting on the appointment of Andris Piebalgs to the post, suggested that he deserved better. [...]
A Shift in Spending to Save Jobs
UK unemployment figures released yesterday show the highest rate of unemployment since the mid-1990s. This is a worrying situation but the UK is not the worst affected country in Europe. In Spain, for instance, unemployment is approaching 20%. These figures point to a crucial question for public policy in the UK and other European countries: [...]
