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Real regime change in Libya means new leaders and new technocrats. The international community must help train them. In November 2011, Dr. Mahmoud Jibril, former Interim Prime Minister and chair of Libya’s National Transitional Council, opened the Harvard Arab Weekend conference on a pessimistic note: “for 42 years, Qaddafi managed to minimize the government.” Talking […]

Abstract: Public policies to boost economic development in low-income countries or communities (LICs) are focused on either outward-oriented strategies (e.g. foreign technology transfer, tax incentives to attract foreign MNEs) or inward-oriented strategies based on expensive R&D expenditures. But such strategies are generally not viable in the context of LICs. This paper proposes an innovation strategy based […]

The following comment was shared with The Citizen by Professor George Borjas in response to criticism of a PhD student’s dissertation: “Jason’s research was sound. None of the members of the committee would have signed off on it if they thought that it was shoddy empirical work. As to what it all means, I am […]

BY CASEY SCHUTTE The law does not trust them to vote. It forbids them from watching certain movies in the theater or signing up for a credit card on their own. Consuming alcohol is certainly off limits, as is smoking cigarettes. Society proscribes certain activities for these people because, the thinking goes, they lack the […]

BY SEAN KATES The millennium could have started better for Americans. We saw the nation voluntarily enter two wars costly in terms both monetary and human. An ineffective government response exacerbated one environmental disaster, while private cupidity and stupidity caused another. Promises of universal home ownership crashed down around us, aided by slick financial creations […]

BY SACHA FEINMAN Andrew Sullivan is a journalist and political commentator. A former editor of the New Republic, he is a widely published author known for his irreverent and fiery political commentary, showcased in his blog, the Dish. He is a graduate of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. KSR The […]

BY JAMES WALSH One of the painful lessons of the Great Recession has been that markets do not operate in a vacuum. They are influenced by a variety of external factors, including socioeconomic dynamics, norms of behavior, and institutions. Conversely, the market also has the capacity to shape our politics and society by creating and […]

BY JOHN VRAKAS Standing in the heart of a village in northwestern Rwanda, a farmer named Eusebe faces a dilemma. Traders have offered him 36,000 Rwandan francs (RWF), or about US $60 per ton, for his plantains. He hesitates; the farmer knows this is a profitable price, but he has no idea if it’s a […]

BY CHRIS GUSTAFSON This article was originally published in the 2012 edition of the Kennedy School Review.   Chris Gustafson is a 2012 Master in Public Policy candidate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he is focusing on health care policy and sarcasm. Photo source here.

BY ALEX REMINGTON A Review of Killing the Messenger: A Story of Radical Faith, Racism’s Backlash, and the Assassination of a Journalist by Thomas Peele (Crown Publishers, 2012) Five years ago, a radical Black Muslim sect in Oakland, CA, gunned down the journalist Chauncey Bailey to prevent him from writing a story about them. Bailey’s […]

BY ABIGAIL BELLOWS As pro-democracy revolutions swept the Arab world last year, citizens in the world’s two largest democracies also rose up. In India, a massive anticorruption movement spearheaded by activist Anna Hazare started in April 2011 and boomed in August. In the United States, Occupy Wall Street and its sister movements sprung up in […]

BY SHERRY HAKIMI After the 1979 Iranian revolution and subsequent Iran hostage crisis, the United States ended its diplomatic relationship with Iran. In the period since, veiled threats and economic sanctions have become the American government’s primary mode of engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. This strategy has further entrenched the Islamic Republic and […]