It hurts some times

IMF on fiscal contractions;

Second, external adjustment is not driven solely by the fall in domestic demand from fiscal consolidation. The contractionary effect of fiscal consolidation is now well established, with consequent effects on import demand, and this is something policymakers cannot ignore—fiscal consolidation hurts. But the current account also improves because exports get a boost from the real exchange rate depreciation that tends to accompany fiscal consolidation.

Reading for the Weekend- paper by Kashik Basu on Indian Inflation

Understanding Inflation and controlling it

Are GMU Professors taking over Asian Development Bank

Asian Development Review - Volume 28 No. 1
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John Nye, Edda Claus, Iris Claus, Garrett Jones, Qingqing Chen, Chor-Ching Goh, Bo Sun, Lixin Colin Xu, Philip Keefer, Stephane Straub, and Akiko Terada-Hagiwara write about the Political Economy of Development in the Philippines; Effects of Taxation on Migration: Some Evidence for the ASEAN and APEC Economies; National IQ and National Productivity: The Hive Mind Across Asia; Market Integration in the People's Republic of China; Collective Action, Political Parties, and Pro-Development Public Policy; and Infrastructure and Growth in Developing Asia

Variation, Survivability, Selection

David Brooks reviews Adapt;

Harford then illustrates how this basic process can work across a variety of contexts, from business to war to poetry. He’s an able guide to the world of human fallibility. For example, he cites James Reason who identifies three kinds of error. First, there are slips. In 2005 a young Japanese trader meant to sell one share of stock at 600,000 yen but accidentally sold 600,000 shares at 1 yen.

Then there are violations, when someone intentionally breaks the rules. This is what Bernie Madoff did. Then there are mistakes—things you do on purpose but with unintentional consequences.

Errors can be very hard for outsiders to detect. A study by Alexander Dyck, Adair Morse and Luigi Zingales looked at 216 allegations of corporate fraud. Regulators and auditors uncovered the fraud in only one out of six of those cases. It was people inside the companies who were most likely to report fraud, because they have local knowledge. And yet 80 percent of these whistleblowers regret having reported the crimes because of the negative consequences they suffered. This is not the way to treat people who detect error.

Harford is an economic journalist, so he doesn’t get into the psychological and spiritual traits you need to live with error and look it in the face, but he offers a very useful guide for people preparing to live in the world as it really is.

Related Podcast;
Who blows the whistle on corporate fraud?

Skills Policies- what works?

From ABCDE conference;

The third presentation provides a practitioner’s perspective on research to inform the design of skills policies. Willmott (2011) traces Singapore’s experience in moving to evidence-based policy and practice in continuing education and training, in order to support the country’s strategy for knowledge-and innovation-driven economic growth. A key challenge is to ensure that all workers, particularly the

low-skilled, are able to upgrade their skills and gain access to better-paying jobs as part of a strategy for shared growth.

Related:
Stepping Up Skills for More Jobs and Higher Productivity