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Advocating For a Better Economic Environment for Refugees
Refugee youth in Kakuma Refugee camp embody the endurance of the human spirit. A study carried out by the International Financial Corporation (IFC) in 2018 took a unique look at Kakuma Refugee Camp a...
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Cheap Food in Venezuela

Food is cheap in Venezuela and some people even get it for free.  Its made possible through government established price controls.  Price controls were established a few years ago to safeguard the poor, but it seems that now they are achieving just the opposite - they are hurting, not helping th...

Economic Bridges Between the Koreas

South Korea is utilizing the economic advantages of Kaesong Industrial Park in North Korea.  Low wages, of course, is one of the major attractions for South Korean firms, but other incentives also seem to be in place. South Korean company presidents interviewed here predicted that their operations ...

Elections in South Africa

The disparities between South Africa's mainly middle-class beneficiaries of economic transformation and their less well-off countrymen has been brought into focus during the run-up to local government elections on 1 March. Sporadic violent protest against the slow pace of service delivery across th...

Moral Capitalism

I was at a discussion yesterday on the merits of moral capitalism and while listening to the presenter, tried to figure out what really are negative perceptions of capitalism all about.  The discussion focused on the moral aspects of doing business, the value systems and religious underpinnings of ...

Media Group in Kenya Raided

Heavily armed and masked police commandos smashed printing presses and seized transmission equipment Thursday in raids on Kenya's second-largest media company, while three reporters were charged with creating public alarm in what officials said was a national security case... The raid is linked to t...

Food Aid or Food Aids?

Check out this interview (part 1 and part 2) with Michael Maren in "The African Executive," a magazine published by CIPE partner Inter Region Economic Network (IREN).  Michael Maren has some strong statements in the interview, but it all comes down to one thing - his major argument seems to be t...

New Democracy Fund

The recently established U.N. Democracy Fund was inaugurated yesterday with pledges of $41 million from 17 countries, U.S. and India providing the most money.  In the description of what types of initiatives this fund will provide support for, there are all the right words - from democratic inst...

Employment Security: Employee vs. Employer Perspectives

French youth's protests against labor market reforms have far reaching implications for all countries around the world, not just France, struggling to integrate young people into the labor market.  Two quotes from the Christian Science Monitor's story on this capture the essence of the debate wel...

Limits to Liberal Democracy

Gorbachev reflects on the cult of personality, current political situation in Russia, media freedom, and other geo-political issues in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.  On the state of democracy in Russia:  I think any extreme is flawed. There are some that say the government m...

Stepping Nimbly in Cambodia’s Market

As I walk through a produce market in Phnom Penh, Cambodia I'm glad that I spent some of my younger years learning kung fu. Not because I ever feel threatened in any way. The case is quite the opposite, actually. If anyone seems overtly curious about me as I snap pictures with my conspicuously large...

Upping the Ante for Anti-Corruption

CIPE's programs around the world have always included a strong component focusing on anti-corruption.  Today, CIPE works with partners in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Columbia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mozambique, the Philippines, and Russia to eliminate corrupt practices at all levels of society. ...

Catallactic Competition

Not that I want to bore you with an economic theory discussion, but I was going through "Human Action" by Ludwig von Misses and thought that his comments on free competition merit your interest.  Economists, Misses argues, generally advocate for free competition - one means of achieving it, for e...

Corruption Deprives People from Access to Safe Drinking Water

I just read this summary of a report that the United Nations published.  The negative impact that corruption can have on basic human needs is truly alarming. Corruption plays a crucial yet nearly invisible role in depriving nearly a fifth of the world's population of access to safe drinking water, ...

Corruption in Northern Iraq

This morning the New York Times is reporting on violence and protest in Iraq that are not directly related to the war.  Yesterday, residents of Halabja, a city in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, destroyed the Halabja Monument, a shrine commemorating the deaths of the 5,000 people that were kil...

Two Ways of Dealing With Free Trade

Indigenous groups in Ecuador are standing firm against the proposed free trade agreement with the United States.  Indians in Ecuador fear that the free trade agreement, when signed, will threaten their culture and wipe out their agricultural industry.  Reports Reuters: Indian protesters are dema...

A Social Protection Plan for Latin America?

The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) announced yesterday in a press release that a Social Protection Plan will be unveiled on March 22, 2006 during the 31st meeting of the Commission in Montevideo, Uruguay. According to CEPAL, only four out of every ten ...

Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Forgiveness

Do post-conflict countries which concentrate on retribution and vengeance have worse growth prospects than post-conflict countries which concentrate on forgiveness and acceptance?  “Yes!” according to Pete Boettke and Chris Coyne of George Mason University, who build the argument in t...

Revolution Interrupted?

On Sunday, the "last dictator" in Europe was reelected with an astounding 83% of the vote.  It came as no surprise to anyone that Alyaksandr Lukashenka won, or that he won by such a majority.  Of course, the election was fraudulent, the opposition leaders were harassed and jailed, and pre-election...

Responding to Skeptics

Noam Chomsky responds to a question about feasibility of Latin American countries developing an alternative to the Washington Consensus and provides his view of globalization. The term "globalization," like most terms of public discourse, has two meanings: its literal meaning, and a technical sense ...

The Costs of Incomplete Privatizations

Across Latin America, a growing number of people say the privatization of public services, a movement that swept the region in the 1980s and 1990s, has failed. Protests have erupted over the issue in several countries, and some governments are beginning to reverse these policies. Last week Argentina...
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