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.

About Charles

  • The Price of Oil

    The Price of Oil: is it Low and is that Bad? co-authored with James Bond, was published in the International Journal of Global Energy Issues 17, 4, 2002.  The long-term price of oil should rest near its long run marginal cost (LRMC). Past price history and both demand and natural supply factors suggest that an oil price in the low teens is closer to the LRMC than the prices experienced over most of the last 25 years. For oil producing countries, this low price might not be as damaging as is often supposed – and might indeed encourage higher long-term growth. For oil consumers, low prices offer the opportunity to reform markets and reduce subsidies, with positive impacts on electricity rollout, development and the environment. For oil companies, low prices suggest the need to create new profit opportunities, but some of the more flexible and competitive players have already begun to show that this is possible.

    Written when the price of oil was well below $20, the paper’s prediction that oil prices would remain low looks a little weak…

  • Should we Try to Bridge the Global Digital Divide?

    Should we Try to Bridge the Global Digital Divide was published in info 4,3, 2002. The standard set of statistics for measuring the "digital divide" involve per capita use of various information and communications technologies (ICTs). Underlying these statistics is an assumption that higher usage per capita would be a good thing, and ubiquitous usage would be a great thing. This article begins by examining poor people’s information needs, and noting that poor countries have to provide information infrastructure both to meet those needs and the communications requirements of business and government. The article argues that there will be a role for the Internet as part of that information infrastructure. However, features both of poor countries, and particularly of the poor people who reside in those countries, suggest that the utility of widespread Internet access may be limited. Given that providing widespread Internet access will also be complex and expensive, this suggests the goal of "closing the digital divide" by attempting to reach ubiquitous Internet use in less developed countries (LDCs) might be a costly mistake.

    I summarized the article in a piece for Foreign Policy.

  • Information and Communication Technologies for Direct Poverty Alleviation

    Information and Communication Technologies for Direct Poverty Alleviation: Costs and Benefits was published in Development Policy Review, 20, May 2002. Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are powerful tools for empowerment and income generation in developing countries. The cost-effectiveness of different ICTs does vary between developed and less developed countries, however. This article reviews the potential efficacy of radio, telephony and the Internet as tools of direct poverty alleviation in the latter. While the requirements for their successful utilisation make radio and telephone far more suitable technologies for the poor, traditional ICTs can act as a sustainable intermediary for them to gain indirect access to the power of the Internet. Governments should concentrate on opening up private and community provision of broadcasting and widening access to telephone services, so that they can effectively play this intermediary role.

  • Prioritizing Countries for Assistance to Overcome the Digital Divide

    Prioritizing Countries for Assistance to Overcome the Digital Divide was published in Communications and Strategies, No. 41, First Quarter, 2001.  In order to provide the right type of assistance to the right countries to overcome the digital divide, some method of prioritization is required. This paper attempts to take a first step in that direction. After a brief literature review, it develops two indicators of the present level and quality of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) access in a country, as well as four indicators (beyond income) of the determinants of access and quality. After testing the determinant indicators to see if they are, indeed, related to the quality and quantity of access, it uses them to suggest priority countries for particular types of donor intervention to overcome to digital divide. The paper then turns to limitations of the proposed approach and conclusions.

  • What Do We Know About Economic Growth

    What Do We Know About Economic Growth Or, why don’t we know very much? was published in World Development 29, 1, 2001, co-authored with David Williams.  The last 10 years has seen an explosion in cross country econometric studies of growth, driven by two factors—new mathematical models of the growth process that lend themselves to econometric testing, and new data sets that make such testing possible. This paper looks at a selective review of these studies. It concludes that the results are disappointing in that no model has proven robust to trial by repeated regression. The paper suggests some reasons for this—including that the tested models tend to be ahistorical and over-simple in terms of their causal accounts. It concludes with possible lessons for econometric work in this area.

    Some of the ideas in the paper are recycled for an article for The Globalist published January 2005, Do we Know How to Develop?

  • Why Aren’t Countries Rich?

    Why Aren’t Countries Rich? Weak States and Bad Neighbourhoods was published in The Journal of Development Studies 35, 5, 1999.  This article challenges a common viewpoint that the policy choices made by state leaders are central to explanations of economic growth. It argues that there are two possible flaws in this viewpoint. First, that state leaders have a free choice in policy decisions; second, that it is policies that in large part determine growth rates. Using a set of variables designed to capture the weakness of the policy autonomy of the state and possible non-policy influences on growth rates, the article concludes that initial conditions are a better determinant of wealth and growth than free policy choice.

    Reprinted in M. Seligson and J. Passe-Smith Development and Under-Development: The Political Economy of Global Inequality Boulder: Rienner (2003).

  • Does Growth Cause Happiness, or Does Happiness Cause Growth?

    Does Growth Cause Happiness, or Does Happiness Cause Growth? was published by Kyklos 52, 1999. Taking lessons from a conception of the nature and causes of happiness that harks back to Adam Smith and the original Utilitarians, this paper argues that increases in absolute income should have little effect on happiness in rich countries and that there might instead be channels linking happiness causally with growth. Using time series evidence from happiness polls in ten wealthy countries, the paper finds no support for a causal link from growth to happiness, weak support for a reverse causation, and further (weak) support for links between national equality and happiness and leisure time and happiness. 

  • Senegal and the Entropy Theory of Development

    Senegal and the Entropy Theory of Development was published in the European Journal of Development Research, 10, 1, 1998.  This analysis uses Senegal as a test case to study the assumptions made by the governance agenda.  After briefly charting the growth of the governance model and the theoretical assumptions on which it rests, the study outlines an alternative view of state action based on legitimacy and survival.  The bulk of the study examines the economic reform process in Senegal, and argues that the governance model of development cannot account for the timing or nature of economic reform efforts there.   Instead, the actions of the state in Senegal were dictated by the need to respond to a continuing lack of legitimacy despite ‘correct’ formal institutional structures.  The study concludes that the economic reform process –such as it was in Senegal– was driven from the outside, and that institutional reform was either irrelevant or harmful to that process.

  • Stock Markets in Africa

    Stock Markets in Africa: Emerging Lions or White Elephants? co-authored with Todd Moss, was published in World Development, 26, 5 (1998). The number of stock markets in African countries has doubled over the last 7 years. Although these markets remain small and illiquid, they are growing rapidly, and will become an increasingly important part of many African economies. Using examples taken from experience in other developing regions and Africa’s recent past, this paper evaluates the common economic criticisms of stock markets and the political pitfalls involved in their operation. It concludes that the positive economic effects of bourses on African economies are far larger than any negative effects, and argues that the political costs can be mitigated while political benefits can also be gained. It finishes by suggesting reforms that can be put in place to reap more benefits and further reduce costs from stock markets on the continent.

    It was reprinted in S. Mensah and D. Seck African Emerging Markets: Contemporary Issues Vol. 1 (Accra: African Capital Markets Forum).