Suerpfast: Is It Worth A Subsidy? is a working paper written with my brother, Robert Kenny, at Communications Chambers. Governments around the world are investing multiple billions to support the roll-out of fiber. These subsidies are based on the premise that fiber to the home brings substantial externalities. However, the evidence that basic broadband has contributed significantly to economic growth is decidedly mixed, and points to low returns for (expensive) superfast upgrades. This is especially the case given that many of the applications used to emphasize the supposed benefits of fiber to the home can be delivered by basic broadband or by superfast to business and government rather than to homes. In addition, other high speed broadband infrastructures are often simply ignored when making the case for fiber, and fiber rollout is credited with bringing benefits that would in fact require major systems and social change in other parts of the economy. Given the benefits of fiber have been considerably overstated, governments should think very hard indeed before supporting fiber rollout to the home. The paper casued a bit of excitement in Australia, and attracted some critics. Here is our response. The paper was published in info (vol 13, No. 11). We published a short version in The Journal of the Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (gated, here).
Charles Kenny
Books, Papers and Articles
Charles Kenny writes about global development — what’s working, what isn’t, and how the world can do better. An economist who spent fifteen years at the World Bank, he is now a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC.
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This review of Linda Polman's The Crisis Caravan: What’s Wrong With Humanitarian Aid? was published in the November/December Washington Monthly. It's an under-researched polemic by a brave author on an interesting subject.
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We Don't Need No Universal Education? was published online by the Harvard International Review. The piece notes that there are multiple links in the chain between building schools and an economic impact to education, and argues that some of those links are often very weak, indeed. It concludes that we might want to spend more time on improving the quality of education before we worry overmuch about its universal extent.
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Best Decade Ever is in the September/October issue of Foreign Policy. It argues that the "Naughty Aughties" (pls. blame editors :-)) have been the finest ten years in history.
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Bomb Scare was published in the May issue of Foreign Policy. It suggests that Malthusianism has been and remains wrong, worldwide. It is based on the arguments from Is Anwhere Stuck in a Malthusian Trap?, which has been revised and published in the May edition of Kyklos (Vol. 63, no. 2). I spoke about the article on KERA's Think.
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Publishing Construction Contracts and Outcome Details is a World Bank Working Paper. Construction governance failures can lead to the construction of the wrong infrastructure, poor quality construction, and excessively high prices for work. There is some evidence from both other sectors and the construction sector itself that improved transparency, especially when combined with oversight, can improve development outcomes through its impact on the quality of governance. This paper reviews that evidence, discusses costs and benefits of greater transparency in particular with regard to the contracting and delivery process in construction, and briefly discusses an initiative to improve governance in public construction — the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative. Shorter, updated versions were published as a CGD working paper and in the ICE Journal.
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Red Flags of Corruption in World Bank Projects is a World Bank working paper. "Red flags" are indicators of potential issues regarding governance failure, collusion or corruption in projects. While some specific red flags can be powerful indicators of issues to be addressed, the hypothesis of this paper is that many proposed red flags are potentially too ubiquitous and randomly distributed to be useful as indicators of significant governance failure. The paper examines project documentation from a small sample of World Bank water and sanitation projects in an attempt to collect data on the presence or absence of 13 commonly accepted red flags. This paper finds that: (i) almost every contract reviewed raised at least one of 13 red flags analyzed; (ii) potentially tainted contracts did not exhibit notably more red flags than control contracts; and (iii) the occurrence of multiple red flags in the same contract was rare enough to suggest that joint occurrence was largely by chance, not as a result of a strongly causal inter-relationship between flags. The ubiquity and apparent randomness of these red flags suggests that their roll-out as a monitoring tool requires additional thought as to interpretation, context and use. The paper examines an alternate tool for uncovering potential problem projects — supplier concentration. Across a very small sample, there does appear to be a relationship between such concentration and potential problem projects.
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Learning About Schools in Development is an unpublished short paper. It briefly discusses a number of links in the chain between school construction and improvements in the quality of life –between construction and enrollment, between enrollment and learning, and between schooling and both economic growth and health outcomes. Given what is suggested by the evidence regarding strength of those links, it asks ‘is education for all a good idea?’ and ‘can we improve the quality of education?’ While it suggests the answer to these two questions is ‘yes,’ that is dependent at the least on a significant, potentially politically complicated, focus on the question of quality.
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Revolution in a Box was published in the November issue of Foreign Policy. The article notes the continuing global spread of television sets and an explosion of viewer choice driven by cable, satellite and digital technologies. It suggests this is a good thing, pointing to evidence that access to competitive television can improve womens' standing in the home, increase girls schooling, reduce fertility rates, lower drug use, improve governance and (possibly) help foster global peace. I spoke about the piece on NPR, Australia's ABC and on blip TV. It was picked up by Fast Company and the London Times. I didn't speak about the article to the UK's Daily Star –but this didn't stop them making up an inteview. British journalism at its best!
Charles Kenny 