ፍትህ ለሁሉም / Justice for All
For too long, Western institutions have shaped empirical research and policy recommendations. Authors based in developing economies have a far too small footprint in top economics journals. They account for only 7 percent of articles in the top 10 journals of the profession, as Ernest Aigner, Jacob Greenspon, and I show in a forthcoming paper, even though …
For much of the 20th century, the disciplines of moral psychology and economics were seen as distinct—each focused on separate concerns, with little cross-pollination. This wasn’t always the case. If we look back to philosophers such as Adam Smith and Karl Marx, discussions of political economy were deeply intertwined with questions of morality. More recently, …
“If I’m here today, it’s because of public schools’ math olympiads,” says Tabata Amaral. By “here” she means her office in Brazil’s House of Representatives, where the 31-year-old, already serving a second term, found time to speak with F&D in a video interview on the same day that country’s 2025 federal budget was up for …
Folorunso Alakija can thank a Pitman’s secretarial studies diploma for setting her on the path to her position as one of Africa’s richest women. The training led to a job as an assistant to executives and bankers before she shifted gears to study fashion design and started her own brand. She then branched out into real estate …
The world economy has experienced a remarkable transformation over the past four decades. Global GDP per capita doubled in real terms, driven by the rise of China and India and by significant growth elsewhere. Much of these gains accrued to the global poor. The proportion of the world’s population living below the international poverty line …
Countries that attract the world’s most talented people will be the most successful at overcoming mounting economic pressures from aging populations and declining productivity. Yet immigration isn’t always popular. Will global talent flows—which I characterize as a “gift” in my book—come to an end? Absolutely not, but policymakers will need new frameworks. Why the optimistic take? Despite …
Artificial intelligence promises to expand and broaden opportunities for humanity—even as it takes over many tasks limited until recently to human ingenuity. But whether AI enlarges or shrinks the space for human talent depends on how widely AI tools are available and how ethically and fairly they are used. The challenge for policymakers is to …
Notwithstanding Plato’s 2,400-year-old proverb, necessity alone is not the mother of invention. It also requires opportunity. An individual’s likelihood of becoming an innovator reflects parental background in terms of income and sociological factors, recent research shows. Highly talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to innovate far below their potential, while children from wealthier or more …
Kyiv needs more resources and extra pressure must be put on the Kremlin. The legal and practical objections to putting frozen assets to good use can be overcome. We are living through the most momentous, and unpredictable, period in world affairs in decades. Amidst this uncertainty, we have a choice: to be buffeted by events, …
But with rising concerns about job losses, surveillance and deepfakes, will AGI be a force for progress or a threat to the very fabric of humanity? Watch the Video