From the Yale Journal of International Affairs, a special issue on development. From New Left Review, Jan Breman on the myth of the global safety net. Michael Schuman on the “middle-income trap”, where a developing nation gets “trapped” when it reaches a certain, relatively comfortable level of income but can't seem to take that next big jump into the true big leagues of the world economy. Is state capitalism really a scheme to paralyze free-market democracies, as some prominent analysts argue? Dani Rodrik on the myth of authoritarian growth. How we've oversold the rule of law: Here are some of the overblown assumptions we’ve made about the rule of law and economic growth. A review of The Bottom Billion and War, Guns and Votes by Paul Collier. Focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism: An interview with Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, authors of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. A review of The Developing World and State Education: Neoliberal Depredation and Egalitarian Alternatives. A global graveyard for dead computers in Ghana: The unexpected consequences of shipping computers to the developing world. A wealth of data: A useful new way to capture the many aspects of poverty. From SSIR, an interview with Jeffrey Sachs on global poverty and sustainable development. Free money: Here’s an idea for foreign aid — just hand over the cash. A review of Famine and Foreigners by Peter Gill. How to feed the world: The emerging conventional wisdom about world farming is gloomy — there is an alternative in Brazil (and more). From Slate, is food aid culturally specific? The Peanut Solution: An easy-to-produce paste may help cure malnourishment around the world — but who owns the recipe?
