Overcoming the SME fetish?
Responding to a post last week on possible metrics for defining SMEs, blog reader Nadezhda expressed some concerns in the comments section.
events
A Universal Definition of Small Enterprise: A Procrustean bed for SMEs?
Editor's Note: Khrystyna Kushnir is a consultant on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises with the Enterprise Analysis Unit of the World Bank Group.
Development 2.0: The skills gap
No summer lull for the Development 2.0 world, it would seem, judging from recent activity: from Richard Heeks’ paper on Development 2.0: Transformative ICT-Enabled Development Models and Impacts to a comprehensive checklist comparing “old school development” with Development 2.0 aid; from Idealware’s
World Investment Report 2010: Investing in a low-carbon economy
Low-carbon FDI in areas such as renewables, recycling and low-carbon technology manufacturing is already large (some $90 billion in 2009), but its potential is huge. This is one of the conclusions of UNCTAD’s 2010 World Investment Report, released last month. The report is the most recent in an annual series exploring the latest trends and prospects for FDI flows and recent policy changes, and also offers a deeper analysis of a topically relevant issue of the day.
The trial-and-error process of policymaking
Jim Manzi, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, recently wrote an article that contains perhaps the most incisive critique of randomized control trials (RCTs) I've seen so far. RCTs already have a long history in the social sciences within the U.S.
Is the mainstream ready for output-based aid?
There is an ongoing conversation in the development community, certainly amongst donors, about the need to make sure that aid is well spent and reaches the people it is intended to help. Most recently the UK shared its vision for international development, highlighting Value for Money and the use of results-based approaches.
Microcredit ends hunger?
Apparently, Freedom from Hunger, the non-profit behind the End4Hunger campaign, didn't get the memo about making over-the-top claims on behalf of microcredit (let alone any type of aid). The ad below appeared in my Gmail account just a few hours ago.
An open door for firms
A new note in the Viewpoint series provides a handy summary of much of the recent research on the impact of business entry reforms. Unsurprisingly, cutting the costs and number of procedures to start a business results in more firms entering the formal market. To give one example, the creation of a one-stop shop in Mexico resulted in a 5% increase in new firms.
Investing in India
The WSJ reports that UK's Prime Minister David Cameron is pushing for India to lower its barriers to investment:
How do we get the crowd-sorcerers and the muggles to work together?
Humanitarian aid is not a standard topic for the PSD Blog, but I ran across a post recently on the disaster in Haiti that cuts across a lot of themes. Over at iRevolution, Patrick Philip Meier discusses the tension between those who helped crowdsource information related to the disaster -- what he calls the crowd-sorcerers -- and the formal humanitarian aid organizations -- playfully called "muggles".