Some of the assumptions built into the mainstream international aid and development movement are puzzling. Among them is the faulty assumption that the comparison that matters most is how the developing world is doing in relation to the developed. Not surprisingly, this kind of comparison tends to make the gains in developing countries seem small, inscrutable, or nonexistent, and end up reinforcing the myth that progress is never achieved.

Read more on Walk, Pedal, Drive…

As we’ve noted before, the Planet Money team is on the ground in Haiti getting a hands-on look at the economic situation after the disaster. Today they broadcast a moving story of an entrepreneur who lost all her capital in the earthquake. Now she totes a 30+ lbs. bin of chicken necks to make a few dollars a day.

Read more on Micro-Finance and Major Disaster…

Thomas P.M. Barnett has written a good, concise, piece on the consolidation and deepening of globalization, specifically Wal-Mart’s tapping into local producers in developing countries. (HT: Real Clear World)

As far as I can tell, there are no Wal-Mart’s in Italy, but having spent the last three weeks at my parents’ home in Flint, Michigan and shopping at places like Wal-Mart and Target, I can clearly see how far behind the curve Italy is.

Read more on Promises and perils of globalization…

Cardus’ Robert Joustra rightly pillories “fair trade” along with the logic of foreign aid in a challenging article, “Fair Trade and Dead Aid: ‘My Voice Can’t Compete with an Electric Guitar.’”

Read more on Critiquing Fair Trade and Dead Aid…

A recent NBER working paper, “Internationalization of U.S. Doctorate Education,” takes a look at trends in doctoral degrees awarded by American institutions in the physical sciences, engineering, and economics.

From the abstract, “The representation of a large number of students born outside the United States among the ranks of doctorate recipients from U.S. universities is one of the most significant transformations in U.S. graduate education and the international market for highly-trained workers in science and engineering in the last quarter century.”

Read more on U.S. Doctoral Degree Prestige in Science, Engineering, Economics…

Zenit reports a new initiative by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe of Naples, Italy: “he is donating a year’s stipend and part of his personal savings to initiate a diocesan bank that will offer micro-credits to the poor.”

Read more on A Micro-Lending Prelate…

By now you’ve read one or more stories about the increasing levels of piracy on Africa’s east coast, brought into the spotlight by the recent capture of a Saudi oil tanker.

Read more on Pirate Morality…

Last week presidential candidate John McCain distanced himself from economic adviser Phil Gramm, after Gramm’s comments that America had become a “nation of whiners” and that the current concerns over a lagging economy amounted to a “mental recession” rather than any real phenomena.

Read more on Free Trade Follies…

The Wall Street Journal ran a long article yesterday on a dispute between France and Great Britain over how to proceed with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union which consumes about 40 per cent of the EU budget, i.e. $75 billion every year.

Read more on Britain 1, France 0 — On Free Trade and Agriculture…

The recent dramatic rise of food prices reflects the worst agricultural crisis of the last 30 years, especially for developing countries whose citizens inevitably spend a larger portion of their incomes for basic needs. The list of countries facing social unrest as a result is long and growing: Cameroon, Egypt, Niger, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Indonesia, Mexico, Argentina, and the Philippines.

Read more on Catholic NGOs Miss the Boat on the Food Crisis…