Short cuts (XVII)

Back with some short cuts...

1. Research about private aid is very scarce. this interesting article titled Uncharted Territories by a friend in the Netherlands is an exception. It analyses how NGODs geographically allocate the money they spend. According to a new database specifically built for these research, they show that although "non-governmental development organizations are expected to focus on countries with poor governance, new evidence shows that they do not. While they do tend to focus more than bilateral donors on poor countries, they make some curious geographical choices. It seems that they too have their ‘donor darlings’. It seems that "the more an organization depends financially on its official donor, the greater is the correlation between their choices of countries". Very useful for those working in non-governmental organisations or bilateral agencies!

2. I have been playing with this interesting website developed by the Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank that gathers very useful information on governance, social and economic conditions, etc... in a very user-friendly way. It is called Datagob.

3. Krugman on Milton Friedman... an interesting approach to one of the most influential and polemic figures in the economics and the political economy of the past century. Latin America was one the most important playing fields for his acolytes!