Center for Global Development

About: Center for Global Development is a nonprofit organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Poverty & Population. The organization has 1472 authors who have published 3891 publications receiving 162325 citations.

To Formalize or Not to Formalize? Comparisons of microenterprise data from Southern and East Africa *

Abstract: Why do firms choose to locate in the informal sector? Researchers often argue that the high cost of regulation prevents informal firms from becoming formal and productive. Our results point to a more nuanced story.Using data from surveys of microenterprises in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda, we find that the labor productivity of informal firms is virtually indistinguishable from that of formal firms in East Africa, but very different in Southern Africa. We provide a theoretical model to explain this result, based on the key assumption that firms may evade taxes subject to a cost (or concealment cost) that is increasing and convex in the firm’s employment size. Consequently, the productivity distributions reflect the differences in concealment costs and the opportunity cost of formality. Greater enforcement of laws and better provision of services such as finance and electricity to formally registered firms in Southern Africa means that firms are more likely to register; those that do not are likely to be operating as “survivalist” firms. But in East Africa, weak enforcement of tax payment and no significant difference in access to services between formal and informal firms means that these variables do not explain the allocation of firms across the informal-formal divide.We conclude that in countries with weak business environments, informal firms are just as likely as formal firms to increase their productivity as they grow. Thus, interventions to increase productivity and lower the cost of formality may be helpful. But in countries with strong business environments such as those in Southern Africa, owners of informal firms are likely to be better off entering the labor market as wage labor. In the latter case, investment in education or vocational training is probably more important.

Commodity Dependence, Trade, and Growth: When 'Openness' is Not Enough

Abstract: Levels and changes in the value of exports and imports divided by aggregate GDP (the trade/GDP ratio) are occasionally used as measures of trade openness. The oft-quoted work of Dollar and Kraay (2001) and the World Bank (2002) uses changes in the trade/GDP as a basis for classifying countries as globalizers or non-globalizers. We argue that neither the level nor the change in a country's trade/GDP ratio can be taken as an indication of the openness of a country's trade policy. In particular, we examine the ways in which terms of trade shifts have affected trade/GDP ratio over the past two decades. While commodity prices were high in the early 1980s, commodity producing countries financed large trade deficits with expected export revenue. When the prices collapsed, their capacity to import fell precipitously and they were forced to close their trade deficits in order to balance the current account. Since the numerator of the trade/GDP ratio includes the sum of exports and imports, and the denominator includes the trade balance, this adjustment resulted in a decline and then stagnation in the trade/GDP ratio. Therefore, using stagnant or declining trade/GDP ratios to identify countries that are less open systematically picks out those countries that are highly dependent on commodities for their export revenue. Because these same countries have experienced stagnant or negative economic growth over the past two decades, the empirical evidence offered by Dollar and Kraay overstates the importance of trade policy in economic growth. Adding a commodity dependence dummy variable to their growth regressions reduces the magnitude of the apparent growth effect of their openness variable at least by half. We briefly review the literature on the relationships between commodity dependence and slow growth, highlighting that the whole question of openness vs. closedness is orthogonal to the problems of poor, slow growing, commodity producing countries.

Industrial Clusters and Poverty Reduction: Towards a Methodology for Poverty and Social Impact Assessment of Cluster Development Initiatives

Abstract: 1 L’Unido a axé depuis longtemps une partie de son travail sur la constitution de districts industriels pour favoriser le développement du secteur privé et des PME. Avec l’émergence des objectifs pour le millénaire, elle a approfondi la question en portant sa réflexion sur la manière dont les programmes pour le développement de districts industriels peuvent contribuer à la réduction de la pauvreté. Elle nous propose dans ce texte une approche méthodologique pour évaluer l’impact sur la pauvreté de ces programmes en vue de leur amélioration future.

Phase I Study of Intermittent Oral Dosing of the Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 and Insulin Receptors Inhibitor OSI-906 in Patients With Advanced Solid Tumors

Abstract: Purpose: We determined the maximum tolerated dose (MTD), safety, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and preliminary activity of OSI-906, a potent, oral, dual inhibitor of insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor (IGF1R) and insulin receptor (IR), in patients with advanced solid tumors. Experimental Design: This was a multicenter, open-label, dose escalation phase I study evaluating three intermittent dosing schedules of once-daily OSI-906 [schedule (S) 1, days 1–3 every 14 days; S2, days 1–5 every 14 days; S3, days 1–7 every 14 days]. A fed-fasting expansion cohort was included in the study. Results: Seventy-nine patients were enrolled: 62 in S1, 4 in S2, and 13 in S3. S2 was discontinued. Dose-limiting toxicity comprised grade 3–4 hyperglycemia, vomiting, fatigue, and prolonged QTc interval. The MTD and recommended phase II dose of OSI-906 was 600 mg for both S1 and S3 schedules. Other common adverse events were grade 1–2 nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and diarrhea. The pharmacokinetics of OSI-906 was dose linear, and the terminal half-life ranged between 2 and 6 hours. High-fat meals had a moderate effect on the pharmacokinetics of OSI-906. At the MTD, inhibition of IGF1R and IR was observed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. An increase in plasma IGF1 concentrations, an indirect measure of IGF1R signaling inhibition, was seen at doses ≥ 450 mg. Two patients with adrenocortical carcinoma achieved partial responses. Conclusion: The MTD of 600 mg was well tolerated and associated with preliminary antitumor activity. These data support further evaluation of OSI-906 in solid tumors. Clin Cancer Res; 21(4); 693–700. ©2014 AACR . See related commentary by Yee, p. 667

Reducing Global Poverty: The Case for Asset Accumulation

Abstract: A daunting challenge to the international community is how to go about lifting the world's huge poor population out of poverty "Asset-based" approaches to development are aimed specifically at designing and implementing public policies that will increase the capital assets of the poor --ie, the physical, financial, human, social, and natural resources that can be acquired, developed, improved, and transferred across generations In this pathbreaking book, Caroline Moser and a group of experts with on-the-ground experience provide a set of case studies of asset-building projects around the globe The authors use a cutting-edge research framework that moves beyond quick snapshot solutions to the problem of poverty They highlight the ways in which poor households and communities can move out of poverty through longer-term accumulation of capital assets Contributors include Michael Carter (University of Wisconsin), Monique Cohen (Microfinance Opportunities), Sarah Cook (Institute of Development Studies, Sussex), Hector Cordero-Guzman (Baruch College, CUNY), Lilianne Fan (Oxfam, UK), Pablo Farias (Ford Foundation, New York), Clare Ferguson (formerly DFID), Andy Felton (FDIC), Sarah Gammage (Rutgers University), Anirudh Krishna (Duke University), Amy Liu (Brookings Institution), Vijay Mahajan (BASIX, India), Paula Nimpuno-Parente (Ford Foundation, South Africa), Manuel Orozco (Inter-American Dialogue),Victoria Quiroz-Becerra (Baruch College, CUNY), Dennis Rodgers (London School of Economics), and Andres Solimano (CEPAL, Santiago, Chile)