We are delighted to announce that the 6^th Bolivian Conference on Development Economics will be held at the Campus of Universidad Privada Boliviana (UPB) in Cochabamba, Bolivia, on August 28th and 29th, 2014. This conference is jointly organized by the Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD), the Society of Bolivian Economists (SEBOL), Universidad Privada Boliviana (UPB), and the Bolivian Academy of Economic Sciences (ABCE).

The conference will bring together local and international scholars for the exchange of ideas and discussion of recent results within theoretical and applied economics, and other disciplines related to development. We seek high quality academic work that enriches and challenges our knowledge. We particularly encourage female researchers and young Bolivian researchers to submit papers.

As highlights of the 2014 conference we will have two keynote lectures to be delivered by Hans Rosling (Gapminder Foundation) and Tyler Cowen (George Mason University), as well as Enrique García Rodríguez (CAF Development Bank of Latin America) as invited guest speaker. The conference will be organized to foster interaction and exchange of ideas among the participants in a comfortable atmosphere.

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By: Lykke E. Andersen*

There is probably nobody I admire more in the entire World than Hans Rosling, so getting him as keynote speaker for the next Bolivian Conference on Development Economics is a major coup. Unfortunately my biggest hero and role model seems to be largely unknown among Bolivian Economists. This is a disappointing fact, which I am going to work on remedying before Rosling comes to Bolivia; starting with this newsletter.

There are several things I love about Hans Rosling. The first is his chosen mission: To replace devastating myths with a fact-based worldview. This is absolutely crucial, because we can’t make sensible decisions and policies, if we have a completely distorted view of the world. And as Rosling has repeatedly pointed out, most of us know less about the World than a chimpanzee (see his first TED talk from 2006  “Debunking myths about the ‘third world’” or take his recent “Ignorance Test” at the BBC News Magazine yourself).

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This year’s conference was hosted by Universidad Privada de Santa Cruz de la Sierra (UPSA) on November 14 and 15. It was attended by about 330 persons (a 64% increase compared to last year) from 13 different countries and consisted of 3 keynote lectures, a round table discussion on energy and 50 contributed research papers (see program here). The contributed papers had been selected from a pool of 110 submitted papers (a 59% increase compared to last year) and spanned a wide variety of topics related to the process of development. All the papers presented can be downloaded from the conference webpage.

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By: Lykke E. Andersen, 13 November 2013

Climate change negotiations have entered peak season again with the COP 19 just starting in Warsaw. What is it that they say: 19^th time is a charm?

This year, like previous years, key questions related to climate finance have been discussed extensively in many different settings with many different experts and stakeholders all year. Last month’s PEGNet conference in Copenhagen was one such venue. As the session chair of the above titled roundtable, I fully realize the depressing repetitiveness of yet another climate finance discussion, but I still think the main points are important and original enough to share.

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By: Lykke E. Andersen

The goal in SimPachamama is to achieve as much human well-being as possible while causing as little environmental damage as possible. This is also the philosophy behind the Happy Planet Index developed by the new economics foundation (nef), which is why we have made the Happy Planet diagram central to the measurement of performance in SimPachamama.

In this short video, Nic Marks, one of the creators of the Happy Planet Index, explains the basic idea behind the Happy Planet diagram and also explains why we need to implement policies that help people move towards the top left corner, with high quality of life and low environmental impacts:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/sZPYI8BfnBs&w=500&rel=0]

We have adapted these simple, but convincing, ideas to SimPachamama in the Happy Planet panel. Read More »

Official launch date

SimPachamama will be officially launched on the 1st of September 2013. During the whole month of September, we will publish short articles on SimPachamama, learning games, forests and climate change and anything else relevant for the participatory development of fair and effective mechanisms to reduce deforestation and rural poverty in Bolivia.

 

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Leerlo en español AQUI  

Adverse shocks can take many forms: Natural disasters, climate change, illness, unemployment, technological change, price fluctuations, conflict, vandalism, fire, robbery, pest attacks, accidents, etc. The list is endless, and it is important for households to build up resilience against all of these, so that they will be able to overcome the adverse shocks that will inevitably happen from time to time (Andersen & Cardona, 2013).

An important strategy for coping with risk is livelihood diversification (Ellis, 2000; Ellis and Freeman, 2005). The greater the diversity of income, the greater the resilience of livelihoods to disruption from any particular source (Adger 1999).

Andersen & Cardona (2013) proposes a simple measure of livelihood diversification, interpreting it as the opposite of livelihood concentration. Thus, it is simply measured as one minus the widely used Herfindahl–Hirschman Index of Concentration.

Using this simple measure, they have estimated the level of livelihood diversification for all Bolivian households in the 2011 national household survey conducted by the National Statistical Institute. They then combined this information with information about the level of income, in order to identify highly resilient households (high income and high diversification) and highly vulnerable households (low income and low diversification). See figure 1.

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Leerlo en español AQUI 

Any economist who thinks people are rational, should read the books “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions” and “The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone – Especially Ourselves” written by Dan Ariely, professor at Duke University. He explores the fertile intersection between psychology and economics to understand why we often make less than rational decisions.

While he has worked on many interesting irrational behaviors–like engaging in risky sex or paying way too much for a good or service–this article is about dishonesty, and what we can do about it.

According to Ariely, we all struggle with two conflicting motivations: On the one hand, we want to reap the easy benefits from cheating and get as much money, glory and satisfaction as possible as quickly as possible; but on the other hand, we want to be able to perceive ourselves as honest, honorable people.

Ariely has made numerous laboratory experiments to understand how that internal conflict plays out in most people. He summarized that work in a Wall Street Journal article, and I will summarize it even further here:

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January has truly been a wonderful 2013 start for INESAD: prolific, impactful and full of news.

INESAD Ranks Number One:

To begin with, according to the recently released 2012 Global GoTo Think Tank Report – an international survey of over 1,950 scholars, public and private donors, policy makers, and journalists who helped rank more than 6,500 think tanks across the world – INESAD ranked number one in Bolivia (out of 51 evaluated). It also ranked among the top six percent of think tanks in Latin America and the Carribbean (among 721 evaluated) and, perhaps most impressively, on the analysis of environmental issues INESAD raced in across the finish line in the very top percentile of all institutions worldwide (out of all 6,603 evaluated).

 

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The 4^th Bolivian Conference on Development Economics:

The dominating event this month was the 4th Bolivian Conference on Development Economics (BCDE2012) which was held at the brand new EMI campus in La Paz on the 6^th and 7^th of November.

The Brazilian Embassy kindly hosted a Cocktail Party the evening before the conference to welcome all the presenters coming from 11 different countries on 4 continents.

Eduardo Lora from the Inter-American Development Bank opened the conference with a very stimulating keynote lecture on the importance of going beyond facts and incorporate perceptions into economic theory and practice.  The second keynote lecture was given by Rodrigo Soares from PUC-Rio who presented convincing evidence that cash transfers to poor families with teenagers in Sao Paola significantly reduce crime.

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