Economics
Food aid and the roots of scarcity
IPN Opinion article
Luther Tweeten analyses a recent report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. He writes, "THE United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has at last admitted that food aid can distort local markets, helping to perpetuate the conditions that demand food aid in the first place. But it does not go far enough in addressing the root causes of famines, which persist amid plenty."
The Milton Friedman I remember: Inspirational
IPN Opinion article
"Milton Friedman has been -- and will continue to be -- an inspiration to those of us who were lucky enough to know him, or who have learnt from him. History will no doubt see him as one of the great minds of modern times."
Fifth Annual Bastiat Prize for Journalism Awarded Jointly to Tim Harford and Jamie Whyte
IPN Press release
Africa can feed itself, if allowed
IPN Opinion article
FAMINES are created by policies, not by pests or droughts. Hunger plagues hundreds of millions of Africans, even though they are capable of feeding themselves. The solution is the right sort of policies. Agricultural production has surpassed population growth and reduced hunger everywhere except in sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty and malnutrition are widespread. Environmental hardships such as soil erosion are omnipresent and are only worsening with primitive techniques of subsistence farming.
20/20 vision for policy makers
IPN Opinion article
"Economic performance is in a country's direct control, not dependent on variables such as natural resources, climate, size, race, culture or arable land, nor on external factors such as colonial history, foreign aid or tariff barriers. Poor countries do not face any special barrier to growth: the poor get poorer only when they have poor policies..."
The poor are just like everyone else
IPN Opinion article
Franklin Cudjoe responds in the Financial Times to Christian Aid's claim that development in Africa can only be achieved by the redistribution of wealth.
Fashion and foreign aid; a realistic look at the "digital divide"
IPN Opinion article
The most recent edition of the Institute for Public Affairs quarterly journal includes an contribution from Alec van Gelder on the misguided effort to close the so-called "digital divide" by foreign aid transfers. Governments should concentrate less on specific innovations and technology and more on the fundamentals of economic growth that encourage their development and distribution in the first place. (Download PDF)
