Sunday, October 9, 2011

Development economics for the rich industrialized world

I love Jeffrey Sachs. He got me interested in development economics with his best seller 'The End of Poverty'.

He writes in an accessible way and simpifies all that jargon into main street material. Economics for dummies, if you like.

Jeffrey Sachs is a renown economist especially in development circles for his proposals to end extreme poverty in Africa, Asia etc.

Lately, it appears his economics are needed in struggling economies like the US and in Europe.
He has written a new book, 'The Price of Civilization' and written op-eds in Newsweek and Time magazines about what is wrong with the American economy.

One of his arguments is that the US economy needs more taxes not tax cuts and that the US should invest in education and infrastructure. Invest in education? That sounds like a message he would give to a poor country like Uganda! Of late he has been on the circuit dispensing advice for the US economy when the poor world needs his attention more.

There was a time when the US didnt need advice from a professor who dabbles in ending extreme poverty but how things change.

And the europeans were desparate to retain the top seat at IMF not for prestige or power but out of real need for the IMF's help in their own countries! Now, all social studies students in Sub Saharan Africa know about IMF because it has always been there to dispense wisdom for failing economies. Even the World Bank comes in later. IMF is to dying economies what CPR is for dying patients.

This is indeed is the era of development economics for rich advanced countries! How times change.

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