Published on Let's Talk Development

Turkey, India’s inflation, a new WTO tool, growth & happiness, and migration & remittances update

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Timothy Taylor, Managing Editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, re-posts a classic Thanksgiving blog on turkey supply and demand from last November on the Conversable Economist. Read it here.

 ‘Purchasing power parity wages and inflation in emerging markets and developing countries’ is the topic of a new Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) working paper by Ashima Goyal that explores the puzzle of the persistent deviation of real exchange rates from purchasing power parity (PPP) values. According to the paper, the conundrum exists because nominal shocks, which cause such deviation, are expected to have only short-run effects. Balassa Samuelson (BS) explains what happens when some goods are non-traded and looks at price differences in advanced economies. However, consistently higher inflation in emerging or developing economies presents separate challenges. Goyal presents a framework that grapples with this, drawing on the case of India.

The WTO has launched an “International Trade and Market Access” interactive tool that provides a new dynamic presentation for all WTO data on merchandise and commercial services trade as well as selected market access indicators from World Tariff Profiles, a WTO, ITC and UNCTAD co-publication. The tool is accessed through the WTO’s website.

Does economic growth alone ensure citizen’s well being? Apparently not. According to a new survey by The Guardian, economic gains don’t equate with happiness. Using indices of multiple deprivation and life satisfaction, the survey, conducted in the UK, looks at areas that have the highest life satisfaction. Read it here to find out more.

90 million people work outside their country of origin and migrants roughly make up 3% of the world population, but the remittances they send back home are  often a substantial share of their countries’ GDP.  According to the latest Migration and Development brief, as a percentage of GDP, the top recipient of remittances, in 2011, is Tajikistan with 47% of GDP share. The report also notes that developing countries will receive over $400 billion in remittances in 2012, despite high costs. Read the Financial Times post here.

While we are on this topic, check out the data visualization on “Global Brain Trade.”


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