DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH INSTITUTE (DRI)

The Development Research Institute is devoted to research on the economic development and growth of poor countries, defined to include all those besides the industrialized nations. The Institute includes both macroeconomic and microeconomic research, and both theory and empirics. It is devoted to high standards of research, including publication in peer reviewed journals, scientific methodology, and creative and skeptical inquiry.

The Institute also includes research on the relationships between rich and poor nations, and between international organizations/aid agencies and poor nations. A particular focus of DRI is development and growth on the African continent. The pace of economic and political development in most African states continues to be painstakingly slow. The goals of DRI include formulating practical and politically feasible solutions to some of the most difficult problems with which African states cope, and devising effective strategies for international institutions that have an ongoing commitment to working with developing states such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Recent Initiatives:

Conversations
on Economic Development

The DRI recently held a major conference on foreign aid at NYU on October 17-18, 2003. Co-sponsored with the C.V. Starr Center at New York University, and entitled, "Reinventing Foreign Aid", the conference featured prominent researches from UC Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, NYU, University of Tokyo, University College London, and the World Bank. The event highlighted current controversies about the role and effect of aid in a turbulent international environment, and it had a particular reference to Africa. Participants called for major changes to the way political institutions in the developed world think about foreign aid. Conferees called for recognizing the importance of sound scientific tests whether aid initiatives work, the problems of dysfunctional bureaucracies on both the giving and the receiving end of aid, and the need to scale back expectations to match what is actually feasible. The conference did not attempt to offer a single big ëquick fixí on foreign aid; rather, the event outlined a concrete set of ideas about how to make incremental, gradual progress toward more effective aid, rescuing foreign aid from both its supporters and detractors. The conference proceedings are going to be published in a book by MIT Press.

DRI developed in 2003/2004 a web site series that is proving to be a meeting place for scholars of development both inside and outside NYU. The web site includes a comprehensive database, links to key papers and online resources about economic development, links to NYU researchers on development, links to international development agencies, and an electronic DRI working paper series with papers by NYU faculty. A major activity of the 2004/2005 academic year has been the Conference on the Handbook of Economic Growth, co-sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center at NYU. Taking place December 13-15, 2004, and organized in advance of the formal publication of the Handbook, this event brought together the leading scholars on economic growth to NYU to present their chapters on the current state of knowledge about economic growth and development.

Other important initiatives sponsored by the DRI in coming years include:

1. A project to test effects of foreign aid by giving cash grants in a randomized controlled experiment at a designated location.

2. Cooperation with the Africa Initiative at NYU, including recruiting African students for an innovative Joint Economics and Africana M.A.

3. Initiation of a project on determinants of racial segregation in the US, South Africa, Brazil, and other countries, possibly leading to a conference on "Economic Development and Racial Segregation".

4. Research towards a new publication, "The Hubris of the West trying to Develop the Rest".

5. Research project on the economics of bureaucracy in foreign aid agencies. NYU has already assembled one of the most talented faculty groups in the country on issues of economic and political development in Africa. Additional faculty hires, distinguished global professors, and post-doctoral fellows will further enhance this impressive group.