Charles Kenny

Books, Papers and Articles

Charles Kenny is the author of Getting Better: Why Global Development is Succeeding and How We Can Improve the World Even More (Basic Books: 2011); The Upside of Down: Why the Rise of the Rest is Great for the West (Basic Books: 2014) and The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease (Scribner 2021). He spent fifteen years as an economist in the World Bank and now works at a Washington DC think tank, the Center for Global Development, where he researches and advocates for policies governing investment, trade, technology and migration that would be good for both developing and industrialized countries alike. In addition, he is a widely cited researcher on the economics of happiness. Kenny was a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine and was a columnist for Bloomberg Business¸ where he wrote on global development and its impact on the US. He has also written for outlets including the Economist, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Politico, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Time, the Guardian, Salon and CNN. He has presented at the World Economic Forum, Aspen Institute and Legatum Institute events. He has given talks at numerous colleges and universities. He has appeared on PBS, Al Jazeera, CCTV, Vox, Reuters TV and Bloomberg TV. On radio he has been a guest on NPR and the BBC as well as numerous podcasts. Charles has a history degree from Cambridge University, Masters degrees from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a PhD in Development Studies from Cambridge. The product and beneficiary of transoceanic romances, he thinks globalization is an immense force for good. He can be contacted at charlesjkenny at gmail.

recent posts

  • Strengthening the Addis Accord

    Just in time for the Addis Financing for Development conference, an essay [/collection of blogs] on making the Addis Accord better…  Some of the ideas have already been incorporated, sort of, a bit.

  • A Lesson From Greece: Beware the Prophets of Boom

    Bloomberg column suggesting Greece is one more piece of evidence it is a mistake to let the same people forecast growth who are agreeing debt deals.

  • Suggested Proposals for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development

    The Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa in July represents one of President Obama’s last major opportunities to secure his development legacy. This catchily titled  CGD policy brief co-authored with Beth Schwanke offers 14 proposals for commitments the United States Government should consider advancing for the Conference on Financing for Development.  [Bets in advance on a hit rate of 0.5/14].

  • Blame the Rich World for the Global Refugee Crisis

    Well, mostly, anyway.  For @BW.

  • Finding Cash for Infrastructure in Addis: Blending, Lending and Guarantees in Finance for Development

    A CGD Policy Working Paper.  The total scale of incremental investment requirements in infrastructure in developing countries has been estimated at around USD 1 trillion a year, with a range of related studies suggesting numbers between $815 billion to $1.3 trillion. While all such numbers are open to considerable debate, and were not designed to measure the cost of delivering the specific SDG infrastructure targets, they suggest the likely scale of the financing challenge for an SDG agenda which includes universal coverage to adequate housing, water, sanitation, modern energy and communications technologies. The complexity of infrastructure finance in developing countries suggests that external private investment will remain a minor player in the financing of infrastructure for development. Nonetheless, reforms of development finance institutions and multilateral development banks alongside infrastructure pricing in recipient countries could considerably increase financial flows, and the Addis Financing Conference later this year could help provide the authorizing environment for such reforms.

  • Student Volunteers Heading Abroad: Consider Staying Home Instead

    Slightly misleading headline.  Go, just remember you'll be pretty useless, and see it as a learning experience –the start and motivation for a life of advocating or working for development.  For @BW.

  • Technology, Development and the Post-2015 Settlement

    This CGD Policy Paper focuses on invented or created technologies of the type that could (theoretically) be subject to patents and the potential for international agreements including the Addis Financing Conference to better create and share such technologies. It discusses the nature of invented technologies and the standard policy tools used to support its development. It then addresses two separate questions related to inventions and development: ‘what is invented’ and ‘how it diffuses.’ With this background, it goes on to discuss the role of policy tools including patents, tiered pricing, research support, advance market commitments, and prizes in creating development-friendly technology. It concludes with some recommendations for language to be inserted in the Addis Declaration

  • What the World Needs Now Are Better Bribes

    The FIFA scandal is a reminder that the size of bribes pales in comparison with the economic damage they inflict –for @BW.

  • The Meaninglessness of Ending ‘Extreme Poverty’

    By 2030 we may have managed to eradicate being poor by the average definition two or three decades ago of the poorest 15 countries with available statistics updated by more or less reliable inflation and purchasing power numbers since then…. That's what happens when you have to change the method of calculating extreme poverty because your boss said it could be eradicated.  For @BW.

    [That said, should note that means in the last few years I've suggested (a) it may be possible to end extreme poverty defined as $1.25/day, which would be good; (b) that it wouldn't be good enough (c) if the SDGs are going to have the goal of ending extreme poverty we should fix the goal posts and (d) fixing the goalposts means that 'extreme poverty' will be increasingly removed from any country's actual definition of poverty…] 

  • Aiming High

    A piece on Addis, Paris, New York, post-2015 and financing for development for the IMF's Finance and Development.