International Development and Globalization Columbia University, New York, New YorkInternational Development and Globalization Columbia University, New York, New York

The forces of globalization affect everyone, but are understood by only a few. Columbia University’s IGERT International Development and Globalization Program is grounded intellectually in a critique and reformulation of standard economic theory and trains students to effectively incorporate the economics of the globalizing world into their research.

Directed by Professor Joseph Stiglitz, the program draws top faculty and students from across the social sciences at Columbia, including the departments of economics, political science, sociology, urban planning, socio-medical sciences, journalism, and sustainable development.

Globalization – the integration of nations and regions through the flows of people, goods, capital, and ideas – has far reaching potential for spurring economic development. Paradoxically, in many developing countries, globalization has been associated with increasing poverty, inequality, and concomitant political and social turmoil, inevitably affecting the US and other developed countries. Debates on development strategies are often confined to a narrow range of options; one of the goals of this program is to investigate why, and to provide a deeper understanding of the impact of globalization on developing countries. This requires models that systematically incorporate the social and political institutions that can modify the impact of markets, as well as the geographic and environmental factors that can shape the course of development. To that end, the program is organized around six research cores:

-global institutions and the international architecture

-role of the state, politics, and civic engagement

-poverty and social development

-global and local networks

-geography and environment

-macroeconomic policy and political economy

Stephan Litschig(Economics)

Miriam Boyer (Sociology)Global Governance through Biotechnology in Latin America

Gabriella Y. Carolini (Urban Planning)The Impact of Public Sector Accounting and Finance Standards on the Ability of Cities to Make Social Investments: A case study of slum upgrading in Sao Paulo

Dan Choate (Economics)Relationship between Transportation Networks and Regional Development in Developing Countries

Ashley Fox (Socio-Medical Science)Explaining Cross-national Trends in the HIV/AIDS Pandemic

Patrice Z. Howard (Political science)Decentralization and the Promotion of Effective Bureaucratic Structures

Elena Krumova (Sociology)Rule Transfer from the Developed Countries of the European Union and Local Adoption by the Less Developed EU Newcomers

Emily Lundberg (Communications)The Use of Wikis to Advance Scientific Knowledge

Benjamin Mason Meier (Socio-Medical Science)Analysis of the Relationship between Global Inequalities and Reduced Life Expectancy, Epidemic Disease, and Starvation

Anisa Khadem Nwachuku (Sustainable Development)Political Dimensions of Health Equity in Mozambique

Laura Paler (Political Science)Economic and Political Determinants of Variation in Personal Income Tax Effort in Developing Countries

Lily Parshall (Sustainable Develpoment)Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Urban Energy Systems

Cuz Potter (Urban Planning)Containerization, globalization, and development

John Powers (Urban Planning)Factors Driving Economic and Technological Learning within Indigenous Firms in Dublin and Beijing

Prasanna Sethupathy (Economics)Making Trade Reforms Successful: The Role of Complementary Policies

Matthew Wai-Poi (Economics)Measuring Income, Wealth and Living Standards

The Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia, headed by Joseph Stiglitz, brings together a global network of almost two hundred of the world’s top economists, polititcal scientists, and policymakers from both North and South to examine alternative policies for globalization and development.

Initiative for Policy dialogue

Under the leadership of Jeffrey Sachs, the internationally-recognized Columbia Earth Institute is undertaking a major initiative on globalization and sustainable development, an initiative that has invigorated the connections between the social and environmental sciences.

The Earth Institute

Shubha Chakravarty (Economics)

Addressing Nutritional Needs of HIV Patients in Resource-poor Settings

The objective of this research program is to evaluate the impact of interventions to improve food security in conjunction with antiretroviral therapy on the socioeconomic status and well-being of HIV-positive households. The interventions being studied include short-term food assistance as described above, as well as free fertilizer provision to farming households. The outcomes of interest include economic variables such as income, expenditures, investments, agricultural yields, social welfare indicators such as investment in education, intra-household resource allocation, and nutrition and health indicators, such as body mass index (BMI), CD4 count, and incidence of opportunistic infection.

Matthew Winters(Political Science)

The Impact of Domestic Political Constraints on World Bank Project Lending

This research focuses on what makes multilateral development aid successful, and the research may help lead to the design of more successful aid programs in the future, implying a better use of foreign aid money. Multilateral donors deal with national governments in creating aid projects, but the funds ultimately matter most to a local impoverished population. Using a game theoretic model, statistical analyses and case study evidence, Winters’ research explores how variation in the political capacity of these local populations may explain the level of success in implementing aid projects. When aid projects are targeted at end-users with a greater capacity for political mobilization, we should see lower levels of corruption or elite capture within that project. This research has explored this hypothesis in a newly created cross-country dataset of World Bank projects and also through field research in Indonesia focused on World Bank programs there. Data from Indonesia is also used to explore an alternativeproblem: in aid projects that are not specifically targeted, groups with a greater capacity for political mobilization may be able to steer funding toward themselves and away from more deserving but less powerful groups.

Faculty Affiliati on Specialty Joseph Stiglitz Economics, SIPA, Business;

Director, Initiative for Policy Dialogue

Macroeconomics, finance, economics of information, development econo mics

Peter Bearman Sociology; Director, ISERP Network analysis; economic sociology Coralie Bryant SIPA Policy analysis, development

management, ins titutional development

Shubham Cha udhuri Economics, SIPA Development economics Matthew Conne lly History International and diplomatic history Rajeev Deh ejia Economics, SIPA Development economics David Epstein Political Science, SIPA Political economy Susan Fain stein Urban Planning Globalization, urban development;

tourism Dana Fish er Sociology Civil society, environmen t Geoffrey Heal Business Environmental economics Merit Janow SIPA International trade, law, East Asia Kenneth L eonard Economics, SIPA Development economics, spati al

analysis Edward Luck SIPA United Nations; int ernational

organiza tion Malgosia Madajewicz Economics, SIPA Development economics Helen Milner Political Science Trade, political economy Roberta Miller Director, Center for

International Earth Science Information Net work

Spatial ana lysis, use of remote sensing data

Vic toria Murillo Political Science Labor politics, Latin America Sharyn O’Halloran Political Science, SIPA Political economy Alexander Pfaff Economics, SIPA, CERC Environmental economics Jeffrey Sachs Director, Earth Ins titute;

Economics, SIPA, Public Health

International development; environment, health, and sustainability

Elliott Sclar Urban Planning (Director); SIPA

Trans portation; urban environment

Seymour Spilerman Sociology Stratification, intergenerational transfe rs

David Stark Sociology, SIPA Economic sociology; organizat ions; networks; Eastern E urope

Duncan W atts Sociology Network models, mathe matical sociology

Elke Web er Psych ology; Manageme nt Decis ion the ory; risk; human dimens ions of climate change

Solomon Hsiang(sustainable development)

This research combines detailed knowledge of hurricane structure and climatology with econometric methods to identify economic and welfare impacts of tropical cyclones in the Caribbean Basin.

Capturing Variations in Tropical Cyclone Climates and Identification of Welfare Outcomes and Vulnerability

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Example low-level wind field for a reconstructed tropical cyclone event. Such a reconstruction will be used in future analysis as a more physically robust measure of “tropical cyclone events.”

Institute for Social and Economic Research and PolicyISERP works to produce pioneering social science research and to shape public policy by integrating knowledge and methods across the social scientific disciplines. Most IGERT IDG faculty are ISERP Faculty Fellows.

Stephan Litschig is doing empirical work on local government governance and finance in Brazil. In joint work with the federal internal audit agency in Brazil he provides micro-econometric evidence suggesting that local judiciary presence improves compliance with public sector management regulations in local governments. In another project he documents the manipulation of a major intergovernmental transfer program in Brazil and attempts to distinguish among explanations based on administrative judgement vs. political interference.

Margaret Macleod & Fang He(Sustainable Development & Economics)

Teaching What Teachers Don’t Know:An Assessment of the Pratham English Language Program

Students often need to develop skills that their teachers lack, and the recommended curricula in many developing countries call for teachers to educate their pupils in subjects in which they have little expertise. In India, knowledge of English is an important skill for students to learn, but most teachers do not know the language. Using a large-scale randomized evaluation that included 5,317 students in 97 schools, we assess the efficacy of a software-based education model to assist students in grades two and three in the acquisition of English communication skills as part of the state curriculum. The results prove that the program is extremely effective. Average test scores on an individually administered English exam increased by 0.29 standard deviations ($1.31 per student per tenth standard deviation). The effects are also well distributed across students – children in all socio-economic groups benefit from the program. However, the program seems to hold the largest benefit for third standard children in classrooms that