mink

It's been a while since I've posted anything. That's partly due to the fact that I'm not sure who I'm putting up my blog for; there's a lotta folks taking up bandwidth on the Internet that is much needed for other purposes. Anyway, I just came to terms with a lesson I probably knew about a long time ago: Dreams can be realized. People can make things happen, but when they can't, it's probably because they doubt what they believe in. Carpe diem.

(Policy Brief # 2 Submitted December 6th 2007, for Econ 346 - Economic Development, Lafayette College) Over the course of the 20th century, Tanzania experienced a multitude of social, political and economic changes. It still remains poor today. The WorldBank classifies a ‘low income country’ – such as Tanzania – as one with a Gross National Income per capita of $905 or less (WorldBank Data 2006). As of 1992, Tanzania ’s per capita income was recorded at $110, and average per capita consumption was $0.5 per day (OECD 2000). Several possible factors have been blamed for contributing to current hardships, such as Julius Nyerere’s failed attempts to collectivize agriculture between 1961 and 1975 through his socialist Ujamaa policies as the first president of Tanzania (Pratt 1980). While pre-independence plans “focused on the commercialization of agriculture and the creation of industries that could reduce the need for a variety of imports”, post-independence interventions by the Gov...

(Policy Brief Submitted October 2007, for Econ 346 - Economic Development, Lafayette College) Foreign aid has become a topic of concern on the international stage. Development economists are assessing whether foreign aid is actually effective, either through poverty reduction or growth. There is little evidence that households actually lose out when foreign aid is distributed thereby making the aid ineffective, but this is not the focus of this paper. The following brief presents conditions found to be the important prerequisites of growth based on economics literature. Considering (a) the existence of market failures in developing countries (Dercon 2003) and that (b) “raising aid effectiveness is a matter of improving the framework conditions, of setting new priorities and of finding new operational means” (Langhammer 2004), this brief recommends restructuring foreign aid so it is specifically allocated to (1) improving governmental structures and accountability, (2) funding social...