Perhaps lost in the attention given to the summit last week in Hanoi between the US president and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un is the worsening income disparities among South Koreans. Behind the per capita income figure approaching $40,000, membership in the OECD, and the success of some of its world-class corporations like Samsung and Hyundai is the unpleasant truth that Korea’s internal peace is...
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The IMF and World Bank Group had their Annual Meeting in Bali in mid-October amid a growing global sentiment of uncertainty and unease. Just a week before, the IMF lowered its global growth forecast to reflect the impact of impending trade wars, this just after the Fund had finally been able to paint a more positive picture after the dismal outlook over the period 2010-2017...
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The decision to place inequality at the center of the discussion at Davos this year was a promising development. But actual solutions remain undeveloped, and concern about widening economic disparities within many countries remains inadequate, which must change if the current global economic recovery is to continue. More creative public policies to deal with rising inequality need the support...
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The Canadian government has taken a bold step in re-positioning its development assistance policy to focus on women. Exactly how this will be implemented and squared with other Canadian foreign policy goals is not yet clear — but two things do stand out. First, success will depend on identifying the binding constraints to women’s economic empowerment in specific countries...
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Industrial policy has always been controversial and practiced by many countries in some fashion or other. The development experience that most exemplifies successful industrial policy (IP) is that of South Korea, where despite its excesses and negatives, it was part of a package of successful policies pursued by a government-led development strategies.
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