Assorted

Everything is a project, even this

How to keep meetings short: 5 tricks

Life's trade-offs in 10 easy principles

Economics and voter irrationality: my review of The Myth of the Rational Voter

A bouquet of fallacies from Gary Becker and Stephen Dubner

According to the economic approach, therefore, most (if not all!) deaths are to some extent "suicides" in the sense that they could have been postponed if more resources had been invested in prolonging life.

The Prospects for Global Imbalances: A View from the IMF

Five questions on asset prices and monetary policy

On a Scale of One to Four, How Happy Are You?

Data Mining: Course Materials (Fall 2009)

A Way to Share in a Nation’s Growth

Learning from bad graphs and weak analysis

The Gospel of thrift

The Hidden History of the Health Care Bill

Best Development Idea of 2009

World Bank should take heed:

Paul Romer's Charter Cities

The Age of the Dashboard!

Assorted about Public Sector Dashboards.



Dashboards - A Downloadable "How To" Guide

Using Performance Measures

The Federal IT Dashboard-The Status Quo Is No Longer Acceptable !

OMB’s New Performance Principles;

He also noted the use of management dashboards, such as the IT Dashboard, and said “We plan similar dashboards for other common government functions, including procurement, financial management, and personnel management.” He also said OMB will look for ways to make agency Performance and Accountability Reports more useful. The Department of the Interior’s report may be a useful model.

Memo to IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department: You guys need to have a close watch over the innovative ways the new US administration is dealing with performance management- some of their ideas are replicable in many developing countries.

Performance Reporting Case Studies

Australia

The Australian government introduced an Outcomes and Outputs Framework as the basis for budgeting and reporting for public sector agencies in 1999–2000. Among the main elements of the framework are:
• Specification of what the government is trying to achieve (outcomes);
• Specification of how actual deliverables will assist in achieving the outcomes (outputs); and
• Annual performance reporting of agencies’ contribution to the achievement of outcomes and the delivery of outputs (Australian National Audit Office, 2007, p. 15). Annual reports to Parliament detail the degree to which plans for the coming budget year are realized and targeted performance is achieved.

Canada
Canada has had an Improved Reporting to Parliament project running since the 1990s. Thirteen broad Government of Canada outcomes are specified, and agencies must develop clearly defined and measurable strategic outcomes that link in to these over-arching outcomes. Departmental performance reports are intended to provide a comprehensive but succinct picture of departmental performance, as it compares against the strategic outcomes, through the reporting of program activities linked to the strategic outcomes (Treasury Board of Canada, 2007). An effort is being made to refocus reporting away from governmental out¬puts to higher-level outcomes that show how agencies make a difference to citizens.

Ireland
In Budget 2006, the Minister for Finance indicated that the government had decided that, starting in 2007, individual departments would publish an annual state¬ment on the outputs and objectives of their depart-ments, and from 2008, the actual out-turns. These statements (named output statements) are presented to the relevant parliamentary committee along with the department’s annual estimates. Guidance from the Department of Finance suggests that, with regard to reporting on performance, a small number of high-level goals per department—each with a macro level outcome indicator—should be complemented by a small number of more detailed output indica¬tors which should, where possible, be quantitative in nature; otherwise, qualitative.

United States
The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 requires federal agencies to produce strategic plans, annual performance plans, and annual performance and accountability reports (PARs). These are aimed at establishing a system of accountability whereby agencies articulate what they are trying to achieve, how they will accomplish it, and how Congress and the public will know if they are succeeding (Breul, 2007, p. 313). Goals and objectives need to be stated as outcomes, and performance indicators must be valid indicators of the impact on outcome goals (Department of Energy, 2006).

For more read, a report by Richard Boyle, Head of Research for the Institute of Public Administration in Dublin, 'Performance Reporting: Insights from International Practice'

One lesson:

there is a clear distinction between performance reports in the US and those in other countries he examined. On the whole, indicators contained in US reports are more likely to report on outcomes, be quantitative in nature, meet data quality criteria, and have associated targets and multi-year baseline data.

Related;
Performance Reporting - Good Practices Handbook

PFM Books

The Many Faces of Public Management Reform in the Asia-Pacific Region;

During the past decade, globalization and democratization have been the major forces that helped transform the structures, functions, and processes of Asian public sectors. Nevertheless, these transformation efforts of Asian countries vary considerably depending on local context, and have met with different degrees of success. Some countries experienced smooth transformations. For others, the reform process has been more volatile. These issues were explored at a conference July 7-9, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand, hosted by the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, and co-sponsored by the International Public Management Network, the Asia-Pacific Governance Institute, and Thailand Democracy Watch. This book presents some of the works contributed by participating scholars and practitioners at the conference. The contents fall into three categories: corruption and anti-corruption initiatives, public financial management reforms, and public management reforms with emphasis on performance and results.

Editor are Clay Wescott, Bidhya Bowornwathana, L.R. Jones,

Highly recommended:
World Bank, 2008. Public Sector Reform: What Works and Why? An IEG Evaluation of World Bank Support.

Risks of too Open Government? Not at all

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Theory v. Practice - TSA Leak
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Related:
Task Force on Government Performance

Open Government Initiative

Assorted

2009 edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO)

If Statisticians Could Turn Back Time

Effective Habits for writers?

I'm interested in doing very few things. I don't have a cell phone. Don't have a computer. Don't have a TV set. Don't go to movies. Don't read. I ignore the world so I might live obsessively.

New software makes it easier to fight corruption

Twenty questions for would-be MPs

Animal Spirits

International Trade Statistics 2009

Global Wage Report 2008/09: Minimum wages and collective bargaining: Towards policy coherence

Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2009 : Trade-led Recovery and Beyond

The Arab knowledge report 2009: towards productive intercommunication for knowledge

Catalysing Low Carbon Growth in Developing Economies: public finance mechanisms to scale up private sector investment in climate solutions

Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium

Global health risks

Global Report on Human Settlements 2009: Planning Sustainable Cities


Improving Effectiveness and Outcomes for the Poor in Health, Nutrition and Population

Human development report 2009

Paying a Price for the Thrill of the Hunt

A Primer on Complexity

It's a complex world we live in.

Recently from GAO

International Monetary Fund: Lending Programs Allow for Negotiations and Are Consistent with Economic Literature;

IMF-supported programs in the four countries GAO reviewed--Liberia, Zambia, Hungary, and Iceland--include different sets of objectives, targets, and conditions that reflect country circumstances, based on negotiations between the IMF staff and country officials. In postconflict Liberia, the program focuses on rebuilding capacity and contains a target for maintaining a balanced budget with no borrowing. In Zambia--a country negatively affected by the recent economic crisis--the IMF-supported program is designed to increase economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve governance. Hungary, which faced a rising risk of default, has a program that focuses on restoring investor confidence while reducing debt and expenditures. A banking and currency collapse in Iceland precipitated the IMF-supported program, which contains some controversial approaches to monetary policy and banking reform. All four countries are making progress but face challenges in implementing conditions or achieving targets in their IMF-supported programs. The macroeconomic policies in IMF-supported programs are broadly consistent with the findings of the empirical literature GAO reviewed, although this literature lacks precise guidance for setting policy targets. For low-income countries, empirical evidence generally suggests inflation is detrimental to economic growth after it exceeds a critical threshold, which is broadly consistent with the inflation targets included in the IMF-supported programs we reviewed. For middle- and high-income countries, the literature identified specific policy weaknesses in advance of crises, including high inflation, high public indebtedness, and low international reserves. These weaknesses are consistent with the policies upon which the IMF focuses in the 13 programs in middle- to high-income countries GAO reviewed.

2010 Census: Census Bureau Has Made Progress on Schedule and Operational Control Tools, but Needs to Prioritize Remaining System Requirements

Operation Iraqi Freedom: Preliminary Observations on DOD Planning for the Drawdown of U.S. Forces from Iraq;

DOD has yet to fully determine its future needs for contracted services. Second, the potential costs and other concerns of transitioning key contracts may outweigh potential benefits. Third, DOD lacks sufficient numbers of contract oversight personnel. Fourth, key decisions about the disposition of some equipment have yet to be made. Fifth, there are longstanding incompatibility issues among the information technology systems that may undermine the equipment retrograde process. And sixth, DOD lacks precise visibility over its inventory of some equipment and shipping containers.

Millennium Challenge Corporation: MCC Has Addressed a Number of Implementation Challenges, but Needs to Improve Financial Controls and Infrastructure Planning

Industry best practices and past GAO work have shown that conducting design reviews and updating cost estimates prior to contract solicitation help to ensure that projects can be successfully bid and constructed.

Bureau of Prisons: Methods for Cost Estimation Largely Reflect Best Practices, but Quantifying Risks Would Enhance Decision Making;

BOP uses three general steps to estimate costs for its annual budget submission: (1) estimating cost increases to maintain service levels, such as inmate medical care and utilities; (2) projecting inmate population changes for the budget year and for several years into the future using a modeling program that incorporates data on the current inmate population and estimated incoming population and associated sentences; and (3) estimating costs to both provide additional capacity to house projected inmate population growth and implement new programs, such as activating new prisons. BOP's methods for cost estimation largely reflect best practices outlined in GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide

Troubled Asset Relief Program: Continued Stewardship Needed as Treasury Develops Strategies for Monitoring and Divesting Financial Interests in Chrysler and GM

U.S. Government Accountability Office: Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2009

New working papers on Budgeting

A Rule-Based Medium-Term Fiscal Policy Framework for Tanzania

Top-Down Budgeting - An Instrument to Strengthen Budget Management

The Consolations of Economics and other Podcasts

Princeton’s Dixit Discusses Nobel for Ostrom, Williamson

Calvo Sees Difficulty Unwinding Stimulus Packages

Bill Clinton Cites Discipline, Growth to Cut Deficit

Rogoff, Reinhart on Their Book `This Time Is Different'

Skidelsky Says Stimulus Debates Today Same as 1930s

Zandi Sees Little Traction for U.S. Recovery in 2010

Plosser Says No Bank Should Be Too Big to Fail

Sustainable Wealth: Achieve Financial Security in a Volatile World of Debt and Consumption

The Consolations of Economics
Speaker: Tim Harford

The Strange Friendship of Pauli and Jung: when physics met psychology
Speaker: Professor Arthur I Miller

Keynes and the Crisis of Capitalism
Speaker: Professor Lord Skidelsky

The current state of the economy
Speaker: Professor Edward C. Prescott

Building windmills not walls – Hungary's approach in the economic storm
Speaker: Gordon Bajnai

Optimal Financial Structure and Economic Development
Speaker: Dr Justin Yifu Lin

Islam: what I believe
Speaker: Professor Tariq Ramadan

The Future of Banking and Financial Regulation
Speaker: Eric Chaney, Professor Charles Goodhart

Predictioneer: How to predict the future with game-theory
Speaker: Professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

A Year after the Collapse of Lehmans: where does global capitalism go now?
Speaker: Professor Andrew Gamble, Will Hutton, Professor Danny Quah

Risk, Behaviour and Applications to Health Policy
Speaker: Dr Joan Costa-i-Font, Dr Caroline Rudisill

How to Control and Change Individual Behaviour: the world as installation
Speaker: Professor Saadi Lahlou

Human Rights in the 21st Century
Speaker: Professor Noam Chomsky

The Idea of Justice
Amartya Sen

Capitalism and Confusion
Amartya Sen

The Role of Political and Economic Ideas in Policymaking
Douglas Irwin, Professor of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics, Dartmouth College
David Colander, Professor of Economics, Middlebury College
Murray Dry, Professor of Political Science, Middlebury College
James Morrison, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Middlebury College

Capitalism 3.0
Dani Rodrik

Natural Resource Management -Collier

A Conversation with Lord Nicholas Stern

Developing Rural Areas - Esther Duflo

The Life and Impact of Ayn Rand

It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistleblower

Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World

The Return of Depression Economics

The Global Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences - Greenspan

Controlling corruption
Out of the Fitzgerald Inquiry, the National Integrity System was born, and is now used by governments and authorities in most countries around the world. The latest is Kurdistan. Corruption, like death and taxes, is inevitable. Ian Townsend explores ways in which it can be managed and minimised.

Addiction, free will and self control

Gandhi and philosophy - the centenary of Hind Swaraj

Beethoven and the modern

How T.H. Huxley helped me teach my students how to write

The Better Buy Project

The Better Buy Project is an experiment dedicated to the belief that there’s a lot of room for improvement in the way government buys products and services. We’re testing this hypothesis by asking for your ideas on how to make acquisition process more open, transparent and collaborative.

By a Consultant for another Consultant?

Senior Budget Adviser- Timor Leste (deadline October 6)

From the scope of work;

-Where requested, report to and advise the Senior Management and on matters of budget design and execution;
-Develop the management and leadership skills of the National Director, focusing in particular on:
clear comprehension of his core roles and responsibilities;
identifying how directorate workflows fit into these roles and responsibilities;
effective delegation;
realistic workload assessment and planning; and
inculcating some basic concepts of team-building.
-Support the development and execution of the national budget in line with the budget guidelines;
-Assist in the integration of the services provided by the Ministry to Line Ministries in the areas of budgeting, planning, treasury functions and procurement.
-Build capacity within the budget and expenditure review units with a view to, over time, a greater percentage of the work of the units can be undertaken independently by national staff,
-Build the capacity of local staff to oversee the management of line Ministry budget processes;
-Support the development of new systems and processes as the budget design is gradually computerised onto the FMIS and devolved to line agencies;
-Provide advice and support to the implementation of the performance budgeting element of the FMIS;
-To instill and further develop a client focus culture in the budget and expenditure review units.
-Provide advice on the budgetary impacts of various government initiatives to the Minister for Finance;
-Provide holistic/ strategic advice on ministry issues, as requested; and,
-In consultation with the Professional Development Program director, identify training needs for staff in the National Directorate of the Budget and Planning and develop strategies to secure the necessary skills needed to ensure the long term viability of the National Budget Directorate.
-Perform such other technical and inline functions as may be required by the Program Services Directorate or the Ministry of Finance.

I've to say good luck to the Budget Adviser.

Related;
Timor-Leste PEFA

A Balancing Act: Implementation of the Paris Declaration in Timor-Leste

East Timor- AUSAID

Timor-Leste: Reflections on the 10th anniversary of independence

Timor-Leste-World Bank

Goolsbee defends Obama fiscal policies

GOOLSBEE: I think there's some conventional wisdom forming among opponents of the administration that the deficit is getting bigger primarily because Obama is spending like crazy, and it's totally wrong.

If you look at the 10-year budget, the reason that 10-year deficit is getting bigger, it's first and foremost because the economy has gotten substantially worse, and as the current economy gets worse, it makes the 10-year deficit numbers significantly worse also. And that's by far the biggest thing driving it.

The second is the President consciously came in and said, "We're going to stop engaging in a series of budget gimmicks that are used to artificially make the 10-year deficit look smaller," so things like, they put in zero dollars for natural disaster cost each year, even though there's a hurricane season. So you would think that this is a somewhat regular expense.

Each year, they say, "Oh, my goodness. How could we have predicted there would be a hurricane hitting South Carolina this year?" And so the president said, "Look, let's take the average cost for natural disasters. Let's put it in the budget every year. Let's stop saying the R&D tax credit is only temporary. Let's make it permanent because they renew it every year. Let's stop saying we're going to go cut all doctors' salary by 20 percent at the end of the year and then, at the end of the year, saying actually we're not going to do it this year, but we promised to do it all future years," thereby keeping the long-run deficit smaller.

None of those are spending. The president is not spending anything that people were not spending before for all of those budget gimmicks. He is instead saying, "Let's be honest about what the situation we're in," and so I would just encourage that people who are agitated about the spending to do two things.

The first is go look at the 10-year budget and ask how much of the increase in the 10-year deficit is actually due to new programs versus just being honest and just the state of the economy, and the second is, for this year and next year, while we're in stimulus and Recovery Act land, in the face of the stiffest recession since 1929, that is not when you try to tighten the belt. It is extremely dangerous to do that. That is exactly what Herbert Hoover did that got us into the Depression.

ROMANO: Well, why not? Now, see, that's counterintuitive for a lot of people listening to you. They're saying, "Well, we should be tightening our belt."

GOOLSBEE: We should tighten our belts in the sense of getting the savings rate up. Getting long-run fiscal responsibility is going to be quite important, but if you go at everybody and the savings rate went to 25 percent in a day and we went and massively cut government spending right now, it would drive the GDP downward. And this may be a paradox, but in a period of crisis, you can't do that. That's what Herbert Hoover did. They faced stiff recession, big financial crisis, and they said, "You know what we should do, we should try to balance the budget, and let's start raising taxes and cutting spending." And by doing that and by letting the financial systems collapse, they started the Great Depression, which was a spiral that they would not fix itself and really stuck with us for more than 10 years until World War II ends up getting us out as you know, as a big stimulus.

We faced a financial crisis bigger than the one in 1929. We faced a recession, the stiffest since 1929. The stage was set that if we engaged in a series of policy missteps, we're in the Great Depression, and the Fed deserves great credit and this administration deserves great credit as taking actions to prevent that. And one of the actions that was absolutely needed to prevent it was loosening the belt, not tightening the belt, in the face of those things.

-Voices of Power Transcript: Austan Goolsbee, Economic Adviser to President Obama

Need a motivation to study international development

"The greatest challenge for me is remaining hopeful and optimistic when the changes that you see are so small and they come so slowly," Meyer said. "It is a slow and incremental process, and it can be discouraging, but you must stay connected to your personal vision even if its realization may take long periods of time."

-Amy Meyer: Leading Efforts to Spur the Economy in a Volatile Region

The Contest to Find Government Waste

In his weekly radio address on April 25, Obama promised that the administration would establish a process for every government employee to submit their ideas on how their agency can save money and perform better. "Americans across the country know that the best ideas often come from workers -- not just management," Obama said in the speech.

The "SAVE Award," which stands for Securing Americans Value and Efficiency, is open to all federal employees, and only people with government e-mail addresses will be able to submit suggestions.

Entries will be judged by these questions, according to the Web site: Does the idea reduce costs in a way that is concrete and quantifiable? How does it improve the way that government operates? Does the idea have a tangible impact on citizens' lives or the environment? Is there a clear and practical plan for implementing the idea? Will it be possible to realize savings immediately?

-Search Is On for Best Cost-Cutting Ideas

Book Recommendation- for Predictioneers

The Predictioneer’s Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future

Assorted

From Poverty to Prosperity Watch

The Lord is my central banker, I shall not want…

Plastic fantastic

Global Development Finance 2009: Charting a Global Recovery


Selective extracting

The Impact of the Trilemma Configurations on Macroeconomic Performance

Why Pressure Cookers Are Big in the Netherlands

Fiscal Stimulus, Interest Rates and Crowding-Out

Combining findings at the Province and County Level from Iran's Election

Indian Capital Control Liberalization: Evidence from NDF Markets

Public libraries in India

For Father's Day: the IR guide to parenting

Roads to Success: Budget Consolidations in OECD Countries

Respinning the web

If the financial crisis has taught us anything,” says Michael Taylor, “it is that too much conventional wisdom can be dangerous.”

Laffer Curves Are Average Not Marginal Taxation

The Fragility of Economic Data

Was there Really a Hawthorne Effect at the Hawthorne Plant?

If you smell, here's a remedy

Bring Your Questions for White House Economist Austan Goolsbee

Books I am looking forward to reading

Grey hair may be protecting us from cancer

Podcasts Lectures- Paul Krugman

The Return of Depression Economics Part 3: The night they reread Minsky

The Return of Depression Economics Part 2: The eschatology of lost decades

The Return of Depression Economics Part 1: The sum of all fears

F & D is out

Finance and Development June 2009

Where Does the Public Sector End and the Private Sector Begin?

Where Does the Public Sector End and the Private Sector Begin?;

Summary: The boundary between the public and private sectors can be defined on the basis of ownership of institutional units. Nonmarket government-owned entities and corporations that are owned or controlled by government units belong to the public sector. “Economic ownership” is more important than majority ownership. Joint ventures, public-private partnerships, and social insurance funds (including for public employees) can be unambiguously allocated to the public or private sector on the basis of international public sector accounting standards. Boundary problems within the public sector are just as acute as those between the public and private sectors, mainly because of ambiguities in distinguishing “market” from “nonmarket” activities.

Assorted about budgets and transparency

Budget 2009: Lets Assume we have a Candle Opener (Australia)

OMB reveals transparency roadmap

The White House wants to make about 240,000 different sets of data available to the public over the next month. It took the first step Thursday by launching its Data.gov web site with 46 sets of data in 13 areas from 26 agencies.

New Zealand budget 2009: Downgrade alert?

Is Australia's Treasury independent?

The setting for the budget speech- India

Winners of the Indian Election!

India's massive general election

Assorted

Swine flu: why does it take so long to make a vaccine?

Cloud Computing

White House Launches ‘Open Government Initiative’

Sunday Function

How Pigs Replaced Economics


The IS curve

That Freshman Course Won’t Be Quite the Same

The problem with economists;

Incorporating the factors that created problems in the financial markets makes the theory complex. But to be effective in the real world, to be able to communicate economic ideas, you have to simplify. Sometimes, you start believing your simplifications as if they were the general theory.

An Economist Tries to Defend His Profession--and Fails

Foreclosures and Modifications for Beginners

Paper for Discussion next week on the blog

The following working paper from IMF;

The Challenge of Reforming Budgetary Institutions in Developing Countries;

Summary: The paper notes that the development of sound budgetary institutions in countries such as France, the U.K. and the U.S. has taken a very long time?200 years or more?and is still evolving. It discusses Douglass North's prediction 'which is supported by available data that institutional reform is also likely to be very slow in developing countries since the budget is especially prone to rent-seeking influences. Finally, the paper discusses the currently fashionable emphasis on complex, multiannual PFM reform strategies, which have been strongly promoted by the donor community; and advocates a simpler approach grounded on Schick's important principle of "getting the basics right." The paper identifies several areas where further research would be fruitful.

Idiots Guide to the US Budget System

The Budget System and Concepts

Budget Reform Proposals

And more by Peter R. Orszag

Assorted

Maybe we should put rats in charge of foreign aid research

Whither the Causation?

My Information Diet

Planning Commissions are supposed to disappear

Now South Africa's incoming President Jacob Zuma is moving Manuel to a new job, a cabinet-level post heading a National Planning Commission (NPC) that is key to Zuma's plans for overhauling much-criticised public services.

"The NPC will be responsible for strategic planning for the country to ensure one national plan to which all spheres of government would adhere," Zuma said in announcing the change.

"This would enable us to take a more comprehensive view of socio-economic development in the country."

Manuel's successor at the finance ministry, former tax boss Pravin Gordhan, is also a respected figure credited with improving tax collection during his time at the helm of the revenue service...

Appointed Nelson Mandela's finance minister without any formal economics training in 1996 at the age of 40, the trained civil engineer announced a budget surplus a decade later -- the first in 30 years.

Stringent fiscal policies under his watch are also credited with steering South Africa's banks safely through the global meltdown.

But while widely applauded, Manuel has not shied from unpopular choices and has frequently raised the ire of South Africa's powerful political left who criticise his tight controls over the budget and views on inflation targeting.

-Manuel handed S.Africa planning commission post

For Discussion: What do you think of the creation of this new planning commission in South Africa? In terms of PEFA ranking for medium term fiscal planning, the country gets a B grade- not a bad score?

Related; Development of central fiscal institutions;

Planning ministries are quite common in developing countries, but become less common as countries develop. Across the world, there has been a shift from traditional detailed planning, as reflected in 5-year plans and similar instruments, towards strategic coordination. This coordination is increasingly done by finance ministries or by prime ministers’ offices. This is often accompanied by a gradual integration of planning, strategy development and budgeting into a single, coordinated process, and a unified, strategic budget document. Planning ministries were often involved in project preparation, but this function is shifted to line ministries as their capacity develop. Macroeconomic forecasting is often transferred to the emerging macrofiscal and macroeconomic departments in the finance ministries, and statistics are increasingly produced by independent statistics agencies.

Should we encourage Swine Flu parties?

Infectious-disease specialists say they understand the logic: surviving the current, apparently mild strain of the virus may be protective if a more virulent strain emerges next fall. But they are generally against it.

Dr. Anne Moscona, a flu specialist at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, said she had been called by a reporter for a women’s magazine “asking if mothers should hold swine flu parties, like chickenpox parties.”

(Chickenpox parties, at which children gather so they can all be infected by a child who has the pox, are often held by parents who distrust chickenpox vaccine or want their children to have the stronger immunity that surviving a full-blown infection affords and are willing to take the risk that their child will not get serious complications.)

“I think it’s totally nuts,” Dr. Moscona said. “I can’t believe people are really thinking of doing it. I understand the thinking, but I just fear we don’t know enough about how this virus would react in every individual. This is like the Middle Ages, when people deliberately infected themselves with smallpox. It’s vigilante vaccination — you know, taking immunity into your own hands.”

The idea has arisen from the history of the 1918 Spanish flu. A mild spring outbreak was followed by two deadly waves in the early and late winter of 1918-1919. Some believe, although there is little evidence beyond anecdotal reports in old newspapers, that those who got sick in the first wave were less likely to get sick in the second and third.

Many cite as the source of their thinking the book “The Great Influenza,” a history of the 1918 pandemic by John M. Barry.

Mr. Barry, in a telephone interview, said he had never publicly suggested deliberate self-infection, “but I used to joke with my wife, and I may have jokingly said it in speeches, that if a virus emerged and looked mild, I’d be on an airplane to Indonesia.”

-Debating the Wisdom of ‘Swine Flu Parties’

How to Use Fiscal Policy in a time of crisis

An interesting podcast from the Fund

Assorted

How do we know how many people die from flu each year?

The mathematics of war

The State of Public Finances-Outlook and Medium-Term Policies After the 2008 Crisis

Swine Flu Genes Show Virus May Be Weak

More roles for the World Bank in Africa

Economic policy in Africa in light of the crisis- I would recommend Ali Mansoor's ( Mauritius finance secretary) comments;

• Emphasis on O&M 
  
• Countercyclical social Safety nets
  
• Invest on environment
  
• Mauritius approach to restructuring firms during the crisis
  -IFC needs to be more proactive
  

Shanta has more.

Containment is no longer a feasible option

In the 1918 Spanish flu, American cities that reacted quickly had fewer deaths than those that acted slowly and used fewer precautions, according to a 2007 study of 43 cities by researchers from the University of Michigan and the Centers for Disease Control. The most common combination was school closings and bans on public gatherings, which in 34 cities lasted for a median of four weeks. All those cities except New York, Chicago, and New Haven closed their schools; the median time was six weeks.

Deaths per 100,000 population ranged from 210 for Grand Rapids, Mich., to 807 for Pittsburgh.

Although some scientists and historians have argued that those measures just delayed deaths that later happened anyway, Dr. Cetron, one of the authors of the 2007 study, denied it.

“There’s no evidence of that,” he said. “Cities that acted early and layered on different interventions did well.”

Many people do not realize how long measures take to work. A child can shed flu virus for 10 days, Dr. Imperato said, an adult for 5.

Some experts are cautiously optimistic. A computer simulation of this outbreak released Wednesday by a team from Northwestern University projected a worst-case scenario, meaning no measures have been taken to combat the spread. It predicted a mere 1,700 cases in the United States four weeks from now.

-Containing Flu Is Not Feasible, Specialists Say

Spend more on Public Health, Mexico!

Mexico’s public health budget is about 3 percent of gross domestic product — within the range of spending by other major Latin American economies, but well below the rate in developed countries, according to the World Bank; and Mexico has only about half as many hospital beds per capita than the United States.

To help Mexico meet the extra costs of the flu epidemic, the World Bank issued a loan of $205 million.

“The two key things that they need to work on now,” said Keith Hansen, a World Bank health official for Latin America and the Caribbean, “is surveillance, to pick up patterns of infection, and to make sure that everybody who needs care has access to it.”

In an acknowledgment that Mexicans frequently act as their own doctors, the government’s announcements, played repeatedly on the radio, advise people not to self-medicate and instead to seek out medical attention.

-First Flu Death Provides Clues to Mexico Toll

Latin America's Finance Minister of the Year

Velasco, 48, applied the lessons learned from decades of economic failure in Latin America -- ones he said could also help the U.S. The current crisis followed “a massive regulatory failure in many advanced financial markets over the last decade or so,” Velasco said in an interview April 21 in his office overlooking the presidential palace in downtown Santiago...

Velasco, who runs 30 miles (48.3 kilometers) a week, is the son and grandson of national politicians. He received his higher education while living in the U.S. after Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship exiled his father from Chile in 1976 for criticizing the regime. Velasco earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and economics in 1982 and a master’s in international relations in 1984 at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, according to his resume. He received a doctorate in economics from Columbia University in New York in 1989....

Velasco taught economics for most of the 1990s at NYU, according to his resume. From 2000 to 2006 he was a professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked with Lawrence Summers, now U.S. President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council director.

“In this world, there are some people who are smart. There are some that are practical,” said Summers. “Andres Velasco is both.”...

Velasco “was always looking for the policy implications of what he was doing, which is very unique,” said Guillermo Calvo, a Columbia macroeconomist who hired Velasco as a teaching assistant. “He was one of the best, but you always sensed that he was going to eventually converge to politics.”

Summers, Calvo and Velasco will be panelists tomorrow at a seminar in Washington examining the effects of the global economic meltdown on Latin America.

-Harvard Peso Doctor Vindicated as Chile Evades Slump

Assorted

Is China souring on the dollar?

The Reeducation of Tim Geithner

The monetary-policy maze

Taleb on the Fourth Quadrant

Saying What You Do and Doing What You Say

On Implementing Full-Fledged Inflation-Targeting Regimes: Saying What You Do and Doing What You Say;

Chapter 2- Why Inflation Targeting?
Chapter 3- IT Framework Design Parameters

Assorted Podcasts

Morgan Stanley's Roach Sees China's Economic Growth Slowing

Goolsbee Says Bank Stress Tests Are About `Clarity'

Stiglitz Says Corporate `Welfarism' Is Worst Possible System

Thoma Says Politics Limiting U.S. Efforts to Aid Banks

DeLong Hopes to See Bigger Stimulus Plan from Obama

Johnson Says Some European Banks `Too Big to Rescue'

Global Trade: Implications of the Current Crisis

What can the G20 do? The Case for Special Drawing Rights
-Soros

Democracy in Dangerous Places- Collier

The Politics of Resource Allocation
Neeraj Negi, evaluation officer for the World Bank, was a member of an evaluation team that studied macrodevelopment issues that contributed to the adoption of the new resource allocation framework by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF).

Prosperity or Peril? The Next Phase of Globalization

Book recommendation

Perspectives on Development: Memoirs of a Development Economist
by V. V. Bhatt

Thank you Mr. Eivind Tandberg

Eivind Tandberg is on a roll at IMF's PFM Blog.

Singapore helps Lao in PFM

Singapore’s best practices in treasury, tax and customs will be shared with senior policy makers and officials from Lao PDR in a two-year capacity-building programme supported by Temasek Foundation, Singapore Cooperation Enterprise and the World Bank, in partnership with the Ministry of Finance, Lao PDR. There will be policy roundtable discussions and workshops to enable the policy makers and treasury, tax and customs officers to acquire new knowledge and skills.

Ex-senior officials from the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, Singapore Customs and the Ministry of Finance of Singapore will be roped in to share their experience, and help Lao’s Ministry of Finance to adapt best practices in policies, systems and processes to the Lao context.

Temasek Foundation is supporting the programme with a S$1.15 million grant, with additional funding by World Bank at S$950,000

The Ministry of Finance of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic to Tap Into Singapore’s Expertise in Public Finance Modernisation and Governance;

This is the first ever tripartite collaboration between SCE, WB and Temasek Foundation. Increasing, International Organisations (IOs) have approached SCE to share Singapore’s developmental experience with their client countries.

Mr. Alphonsus Chia, Chief Executive Officer of SCE added: “We are happy that Singapore’s developmental experience has been recognised by International Organisations (IOs) like the World Bank and Temasek Foundation. SCE is pleased to partner the IOs to participate in more public sector led projects in this region. We hope that this programme will lead to more collaboration between Singapore and Lao PDR. Through greater understanding of the needs of the foreign governments and the types of expertise available, SCE hopes to contribute more meaningfully in development projects.”

Qualities of a Budget Chief

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) says of Orszag, "The No. 1 qualification for a budget chief is command of details. And he has that in spades. This is a man who doesn't just read a spreadsheet, he lives a spreadsheet."

-Budget Chief Peter Orszag: Obama's 'Super-Nerd'

Blog of the Day

Jeffrey Sachs Blog

Assorted

Causes of the Oil Shock of 2007-08

Japan’s recovery

Government deficits through fiscal policy and inter-generational justice

Mongolian government takes action to support small businesses (or Inspections Gone Wild)

To regulate finance, try the market

Consumer confidence indices: further economic deterioration

Why the GST is a good idea

Taylor rule and liquidity trap

The GPT That Dares Not Speak Its Name

Fed Confronts Financial Crisis by Expanding Its Role as Lender of Last Resort

World Economic Prospects -World Bank

World Bank: Global Economic Update

View more presentations from worldbank.

South Asia (SAR) has been marked down to 3.7 percent growth for 2009 from 5.4 percent anticipated earlier—and down from 5.6 percent registered in 2008. Though terms of trade have moved in favor of the region with the falloff in oil prices, weakening demand in export markets (including burgeoning Indo-Sino trade) is being felt sharply, as is a tempering of services exports from India’s high-tech centers, as capital spending wanes globally. Remittances are anticipated to ease as conditions in host countries falter, albeit with some lag. Capital inflows have diminished, contributing to falloff in investment growth, notably in India. Fiscal support for slowing economies may face constraints in already quite high budget deficits.

External financing requirements for developing countries as a group are anticipated to increase to $1.3 trillion in 2009, comprised of current account deficits ($330 billion) and principal repayments on private debt coming due ($970 billion). With a decline in capital flows to developing countries underway, this would generate an estimated financing gap of between $270-$700 billion, depending on the size of roll-over risks and the magnitude of capital flight. Regions with the largest funding gaps are Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. In the current projections, 84 of 109 developing countries would face financing gaps, in most cases too large to cover by drawing down reserves alone. This suggests that in the absence of sufficient international support, countries could be forced into generating a sharp reversal in current account balance, implying further decline in domestic demand and imports.

Debates regarding the possible “shape” of recovery from the current downturn continue. But there is little question that the outlook for 2010 in particular, is surrounded by extreme uncertainty across a wide array of policy- and other variables that will eventually bring about a revival in economic activity. The pronounced cycle in worldwide investment could have sufficient dynamic to carry global growth back to positive territory by 2010, as the pace of decline in investment moderates, and postponed demand for durable consumer goods begins to catch up. Together with the effects of monetary and fiscal stimulus this results in the modest global recovery in the baseline forecast presented here.

However, continued banking problems or even new waves of tension in financial markets could lead to stagnation in global GDP or even to another year of decline in 2010. In all cases, the estimated output gap1 would increase in 2010 because (in the baseline as well), growth falls well short of potential (figure 1.e). This implies that unemployment and fiscal deficits will increase further into 2010, in high-income and developing countries alike, while disinflationary conditions could persist well into the year.

World Economic Prospects 2009

The Budget- Dept of Parliament of Whores edition

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Moment of Zen - Overseas Contingency Operations Budget
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Ever Spending Story
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Moment of Zen - More Charts
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

All the discussion you need on The Budget is here at Economist Mum

Peter Orszag on The Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Peter Orszag Pt. 1
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Peter Orszag Pt. 2
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The Man to save Pakistan Tax System?

The Shortcomings of the Stimulus Plan

Assorted

Why did the U.S. Housing go bust in 2006-07?;

There are essentially five theoretical models or frameworks that are used by economists to explain credit booms and busts. These are (1) changes in fundamentals over time; (2) irrational myopia as reflected in euphoric greed followed by fear or depressive panic; (3) implicit or explicit government subsidies and guarantees; (4) multiple equilibria or knife-edge problem; and (5) agency problems in assets management. Each of these frameworks is used to analyze the current housing problems, which triggered a U.S. financial meltdown and impacted a global economic crisis.

Banking and the Leverage Ratio

NIPFP-DEA Program on Capital Flows

India Financial Sector Self Assessment

FinancialStability.gov

Please torch my car

Structured Finance for Beginners

Credit Default Swaps, Herald of Doom (for Beginners)

Something to think about

"the IMF estimates that the balance of payments needs of low-income countries will be about $25 billion this year."

See
Appendix VI. Balance of Payments Financing Needs, The Impact of the Financial Crisis on Low-Income Countries.

Why Do People Do Bad Things?

Economic Gangsters talk

Assorted

What is up with the balance of payments?

The Fed's new balance sheet

A reporter’s budget mistake at the press conference

Now the Long Run Looks Riskier, Too as

Animal Spirits

In October 1989, I attended a conference at the National Bureau of Economic Research organized by Martin Feldstein, the Harvard economist, on “The Risk of Economic Crisis.” The conference still sticks in my mind because of a paper delivered there by Lawrence H. Summers, now the head of the president’s National Economic Council and the dominant economic intellectual at the White House. During the Clinton administration, Mr. Summers was Treasury secretary and backed legislation that helped deregulate financial markets; many analysts say the policies helped lay the foundation of the subsequent financial crisis. But back in 1989, because of his imaginative work, I came away with a recognition that a severe contraction, even a depression, could indeed come again....

Mr. Summers told a fictional but vivid story of a big financial crisis, complete with examples of specific events and how people might react to them. Seeing it concretized as an imaginary history, and placed in the near future — in just two years, in 1991 — made it seem more real and familiar.

He said that this crisis would be preceded by an enormous stock market boom, bringing the Dow to the unimagined high of 5,400 by October 1991. (The Dow was at 2,600 on the day of the conference; 5,400 would be 13,000 today if scaled up in proportion to gross domestic product.)

Euphoria gripped the investors of his fictional universe. “The notion that recessions were a thing of the past took hold,” Mr. Summers said. He added that over a 15-year period through 1990 — a time that included the 1987 crash — investors earned an average real return of 11 percent. The popular view was that “with a reduced cyclical element, the future would be even brighter.”

Furthermore, he said, “lawyers and dentists explained to one another that investing without margin was a mistake, since using margin enabled one to double one’s return, and the risks were small given that one could always sell out if it looked like the market would decline.”

Today, this sounds like a description of thinking that led to the 2000s boom, although the leveraging of investments tended to take a form other than that of traditional margin credit on stock purchases.

His fictional account went on to describe the early signs of the crisis, “In October 1991, problems began to surface,” he said, adding that a “major Wall Street firm was forced to merge with another after a poorly supervised trader lost $500 million by failing to properly hedge a complex position in the newly developed foreign-mortgage-backed-securities market.” He went on to describe how this provocation led to a change in psychology and a market crash and problems in banks and credit markets.

His fiction concluded, “The result was the worst recession since the Depression.”...

Ultimately, the record bubbles in the stock market after 1994 and the housing market after 2000 were responsible for the crisis we are in now. And these bubbles were in turn driven by a view of the world born of complacency about crises, driven by views about the real source of economic wealth, the efficiency of markets and the importance of speculation in our lives. It was these mental processes that pushed the economy beyond its limits, and that had to be understood to see the reasons for the crisis.

-It Pays to Understand the Mind-Set, Robert Schiller

The art of cutting budgets

Governor Corzine Discusses New Jersey State Budget Proposals (podcast)

Related;
The FY 2010 Budget Address;

The global recession took a further toll on our revenues, so we have cut almost $4 billion in baseline spending from this year's budget. But before we cut, we made a value-based judgment to take some things off the table...

Now, let's lay out the numbers in basic terms. This fiscal year, which runs through June, the state will take in about $30 billion - about $3 billion less than we originally planned. In the coming FY 2010, we're projecting base revenues of only $28.5 billion.

Even with important help from the federal government -- the declining revenue meant we had to make deep cuts in spending to balance the 2010 budget. With respect to budget cuts, there are two ways to compare the numbers: in absolute terms - as I just outlined - or in terms that reflect baseline growth. In absolute terms, we need to cut $3 billion to bring this budget into balance. In baseline growth, we need to find a "staggering" $7 billion in spending and revenue solutions. As you all can appreciate, baseline growth is a more practical measure of the state's budget gap.

Baseline numbers include increases that are mandated by statute, contract, and the courts - contractual wage increases, for instance. A baseline comparison also includes increases in health care and energy costs, supplemental school funding, debt service and court-mandated actions that increase child-welfare expenses.

A family sitting around the kitchen table understands the real pressures in baseline growth. Their health care costs are going up every year their energy costs soared in 2009 and the cost of nearly everything else - from food, to child care, to college tuition - continues to rise. The state budget is no different....

That still leaves a $5 billion gap in the budget, which we have attacked with $4 billion in cuts to programs, rebates, pension payments, and state worker salaries, In all, over 850 line items in the budget have been cut. The largest cuts will come from reductions in a scaling back of homestead rebates by $500 million, and reducing by another $500 million payments to the pension fund....

With the talent, the work ethic, and the strong character of our people, New Jersey will lead the way. I believe in our common desire to do what is right. I hope and expect to see that spirit reflected in the final budget, a budget that values children, seniors, and the most vulnerable, and asks a little more from the rest of us.

For Discussion: What do you think of the budget speech? What does he mean by baseline growth?

Animal Spirits come to IMF and World Bank

Some popular titles at IMF and World Bank;

Animal spirits : how human psychology drives the economy, and why it matters for global capitalism / George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller.

Private sector investment in infrastructure : project finance, PPP projects and risks / by Jeffrey Delmon

Event history analysis with Stata
Blossfeld, Hans-Peter.

Wars, guns, and votes : democracy in dangerous places / Paul Collier.

Trade shocks in developing countries / [edited by] Paul Collier and Jan Willem Gunning and associates.

Value at risk : the new benchmark for managing financial risk / Philippe Jorion

Effective Habits from the Budget Man

A profile of Peter Orszag in NYT;

“He’s made nerdy sexy,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff.

Mr. Orszag, who grew up in Lexington, Mass., has always worked himself punishingly hard — a legacy, he says, from a math-professor father who glanced at test scores of 98 and asked about the 2 other points. “It was always, ‘When I was your age, I was a tenured professor,’ ” he said.

When he won a Marshall scholarship, his father congratulated him by admitting that the award was “not trivial.” Later he discovered that his father had once been turned down for the prize, which finances graduate study in Britain. (Mr. Orszag earned master’s and doctoral degrees at the London School of Economics.)

In classic political fashion, Mr. Orszag trained for Washington rivalry through family rivalry, not just with his father but also with his economist brothers. Peter, Michael and Jonathan Orszag have worked and written papers together and still compare electronic gadgets and their Princeton grade-point averages...

Friends say his dinner parties are notable for the meticulously chosen wines and the senators who attend. (Mr. Orszag, a divorced father of two, is so cozy with the Capitol Hill crowd that Senator Ron Wyden and his wife, Nancy Bass Wyden, found him a girlfriend.)...

So far, his main project has been the budget, drafted in meetings that began before the inauguration. For weeks after Mr. Obama took office, Mr. Orszag sat directly across the table from him in the Roosevelt Room. He began each session with a series of PowerPoint slides, defined the president’s options and constantly jotted down requests on notecards.

For someone with two BlackBerrys — work and personal — clipped to the small of his back, Mr. Orszag seems governed by little cards: the ones in his breast pocket for notes, another that lists his meetings, a tiny hand-lettered one that materializes to summon him to the Oval Office....

His own health care conversion occurred when a doctor told him several years ago that he was at risk for cardiovascular problems. Mr. Orszag changed his diet. Each day he eats the same egg whites for breakfast and salad topped with chicken for dinner, all from the White House mess.

He also began training for marathons, sometimes startling colleagues by appearing in their offices at day’s end in head-to-toe spandex.

Now he keeps two books on his desk: the teachings of Epictetus, a Greek Stoic philosopher who espoused dispassion and self-discipline, and “The Strenuous Life,” by Theodore Roosevelt, an ode to pushing oneself as hard as possible.