Work­shops pro­vide a more inter­ac­tive, hands-on space for par­tic­i­pants to learn how to use new and rel­e­vant devel­op­ment tools and strategies.

Work­shop #1: The Atlas of Eco­nomic Com­plex­ity: Map­ping Paths to Prosperity

The Atlas of Eco­nomic Com­plex­ity: Map­ping Paths to Pros­per­ity attempts to mea­sure the amount of pro­duc­tive knowl­edge that each coun­try holds. This mea­sure of pro­duc­tive knowl­edge can account for the enor­mous income dif­fer­ences between the nations of the world and has the capac­ity to pre­dict the rate at which coun­tries will grow. A cen­tral con­tri­bu­tion of this Atlas is the cre­ation of a map that cap­tures the sim­i­lar­ity of prod­ucts in terms of their knowl­edge require­ments. This map pro­vides paths through which pro­duc­tive knowl­edge is more eas­ily accu­mu­lated. We call this map the Prod­uct Space and use it to locate each coun­try, illus­trat­ing their cur­rent pro­duc­tive capa­bil­i­ties and the prod­ucts that lie nearby.

Work­shop par­tic­i­pants will rep­re­sent China, Colom­bia, Mex­ico, Pak­istan, South Africa, or India. With the help of Atlas co-authors and the CID team, par­tic­i­pants will use the Prod­uct Space, and col­lab­o­rate with team mem­bers to deter­mine which indus­tries will likely suc­ceed, which need fur­ther diver­si­fi­ca­tion, and the capa­bil­i­ties of the coun­try. The inter­ac­tive tools will allow par­tic­i­pants to deter­mine devel­op­ment growth for a coun­try and present their find­ings to the group at the con­clu­sion of the exercise.

In the news:

The Econ­o­mist: Com­plex­ity mat­ters
CNN: African growth? It’s complicated

Other Cen­ter for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment (CID) pre­sen­ters include:

Sebas­t­ian Bus­tos (Research Fel­low, co-author of the Atlas); Jas­mina Beganovic (Research Fel­low); Juan Pablo Chau­vin (Doc­toral Fel­low); Dany Bahar (Doc­toral Fel­low); and Daniel Stock (Research Assistant).

Work­shop #2: Pro­gram Evaluation

As devel­op­ment prac­ti­tion­ers, we often find it use­ful to esti­mate the impact of a par­tic­u­lar pol­icy inter­ven­tion on aggre­gate out­comes, such as aver­age income or mor­tal­ity rates, for a given coun­try or province of inter­est, and com­pare such out­comes to those of geo­graphic enti­ties unaf­fected by the pol­icy inter­ven­tion. The idea behind the syn­thetic con­trol approach is that a com­bi­na­tion of regions often pro­vides a bet­ter com­par­i­son for the region exposed to the inter­ven­tion than any sin­gle geo­graphic entity alone. Given that many pol­icy inter­ven­tions take place at an aggre­gate level and often affect only one region, the poten­tial applic­a­bil­ity of syn­thetic con­trol meth­ods to com­par­a­tive case stud­ies is very large, espe­cially in sit­u­a­tions where tra­di­tional regres­sion meth­ods are not appro­pri­ate. Work­shop par­tic­i­pants will learn tech­niques to cal­cu­late syn­thetic con­trols which they can then apply to their own pol­icy inter­ven­tions of interest.

Work­shop #3: Food Wars in Africa? Work­shop on Food Secu­rity and Con­flict in Soma­lia, Mali and Beyond

What’s behind last year’s famine in Soma­lia and the cur­rent cri­sis in Mali? This work­shop explores the con­nec­tion between food secu­rity, con­flict and eco­nomic devel­op­ment. An engag­ing and inter­ac­tive dis­cus­sion will be led by Will Mas­ters, Pro­fes­sor of Food Pol­icy in the School of Nutri­tion at Tufts Uni­ver­sity, and Ishac Diwan, Lec­turer in Pub­lic Pol­icy at HKS. Spe­cial guest to include an expert from Tuareg region.