Charles Kenny

Books, Papers and Articles

Category: F. Globalization

  • A CGD Note. As part of a general revival of interest in industrial strategy and job creation, some multilateral development bank (MDB) stakeholders suggest there may be a role for MDB-financed procurement to more strongly favor local suppliers through local content rules. This note discusses local procurement rules in general and the (small) role of…

  • A speech at the Oxford Martin School. The world’s richest nations have made considerable global financing promises to developing countries—including a $300 billion annual pledge for climate. But in the last few months aid budgets have been slashed across Europe and in the United States, even as financing is diverted from development and adaptation to…

  • A CGD note. “Two Futures” presents two scenarios—a reasonable best- and worst-case version of the world in 2050 based on the culmination of a wide-ranging CGD research project that forecasts demographic and education trends, sectoral change and the decline of global manufacturing jobs, climate change impacts, and the changing face of development finance and aid—and…

  • A speech at the Oxford Martin School. Richer countries are rapidly ageing and productivity is stagnating. Meanwhile, industry – the motor for rapid economic development in the past – employs ever fewer people worldwide. And yet there is still hope for greater, and shared, global prosperity. Declining working age populations in rich countries are demanding…

  • A CGD Working Paper with Zack Gehan. In absolute dollar amounts official development assistance (ODA) reached an all-time high in 2021. But as a percentage of recipient country GDP, aid (and broader public investment) flows have been declining for some time. This paper looks at the scale of ODA and official financial flows (including multilateral…

  • A CGD Working Paper with  Brian Webster and Ranil Dissanayake. We develop a simple empirical model of sector employment and output shares which, coupled with long-term projections of GDP per capita, provide indicative projections of the evolution and peak of manufacturing in lower income countries to 2050. These indicative projections suggest that cross-country income convergence…

  • A CGD Working Paper with Zack Gehan. We develop scenarios for the shape of the global economy in 2050 building on a simple regression of the historic relationship between current income and lagged income, demographic features, climate, and education, using the coefficients to develop a “central” forecast and error terms to set high and low…

  • A CGD Working Paper. Julian Simon argued that more people were associated with more prosperity: human talents were the “ultimate resource” and the force behind rising living standards. The last 30 years have been consistent with that view. But, globally, we are making fewer workers—and, more importantly, fewer potential innovators. In rich countries, human capital…

  • Technology and trade can ensure water scarcity is not a constraint on progress. In PERC Reports.

  • A CGD note. The long run global estimates of climate impact on GDP are small. That hides the fact that there are big volatility shocks and impacts are concentrated in poorer countries.  And that matters a lot for policy response.