Short cuts (III)

Another wave of short readings for the weekend:

1. On the issues of climate change it's becoming harder to determine what is a good or a bad policy. In this interesting short piece, it is argued that building a Toyota Prius takes more combined energy than a Hummer (thanks Joan Oriol for the notice!).

2. Trouble and instability is back in DR. Congo! To keep informed: http://allafrica.com/

3. An interesting piece about the economic inefficiencies derived from the activities of lobbies. It concludes:

The upshot is that the reassuring theoretical result that lobbying is efficient is only valid in highly restrictive situations. In general, the existence of lobbying is highly likely to create economic inefficiencies – a result with implications for the design of political systems, including governance and campaign finance reforms in developing countries. Those inefficiencies are likely to favor less economically productive groups (such as lagging sectors or regions), at the expense of more productive ones. And in societies where there is mobility, and wealth depends more on one’s own productivity than on inherited privilege, there should be no presumption that lobbying need necessarily benefit the rich. Under those circumstances, populist distortions are even more likely.

One can complement this short piece with a recent comment appearing in The Economist about the American-Jewish lobby in the US... It is interesting how US politics work!