Stanford University

International Development

FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.

They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.

FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.

FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.

Can Bureaucrats be Paid Like CEOs? School Principal Incentives for Anemia Reduction in Rural China

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A large literature examines performance pay for managers in the private sector, but less is known about the use of performance pay for their public sector counterparts. Improving public service delivery may nonetheless depend heavily on aligning the incentives of public sector managers with social objectives. In this paper we study performance incentives for school administrators and how their responses to incentives vary with the amount of resources under their control. Our specific focus is the implementation of new, school-based programs to reduce childhood anemia in rural China. We randomly assigned 170 schools to three levels of performance pay for reductions in student anemia across which we orthogonally assign two levels of block grants. We emphasize three key findings. First, with a smaller block grant, large incentives were effective, but smaller incentives (10% of the size) were ineffective in reducing anemia. Second, absent explicit anemia-based incentives, increasing the size of block grants under the control of school administrators lead to sizeable reductions (but was nearly twice as costly as incentives alone). Third, we find that incentives crowd out the effect of additional resources (or vice-versa). Our evidence suggests that this crowding-out result is attributable, at least in part, to risk avoidance and the nature of existing ‘bureaucratic incentives’ facing school administrators.

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Grant Miller

Encina Commons Room 101,
615 Crothers Way,
Stanford, CA 94305-6006

(650) 723-2714 (650) 723-1919
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Henry J. Kaiser, Jr. Professor
Professor, Health Policy
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Professor, Economics (by courtesy)
grant_miller_vert.jpeg PhD, MPP

As a health and development economist based at the Stanford School of Medicine, Dr. Miller's overarching focus is research and teaching aimed at developing more effective health improvement strategies for developing countries.

His agenda addresses three major interrelated themes: First, what are the major causes of population health improvement around the world and over time? His projects addressing this question are retrospective observational studies that focus both on historical health improvement and the determinants of population health in developing countries today. Second, what are the behavioral underpinnings of the major determinants of population health improvement? Policy relevance and generalizability require knowing not only which factors have contributed most to population health gains, but also why. Third, how can programs and policies use these behavioral insights to improve population health more effectively? The ultimate test of policy relevance is the ability to help formulate new strategies using these insights that are effective.

Faculty Fellow, Stanford Center on Global Poverty and Development
Faculty Affiliate, Stanford Center for Latin American Studies
Faculty Affiliate, Woods Institute for the Environment
Faculty Affiliate, Interdisciplinary Program in Environment & Resources
Faculty Affiliate, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
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Former FBI director targets cybercrimes

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Calling cybercrimes “the threat of the future,” former FBI Director Robert Mueller said federal investigators and businesses need to share information collected online in order to find and thwart hackers trying to disrupt Web-based networks.

“The intelligence that can be and is being collected by the private sector has to be made available in some way, shape or form to the federal government,” Mueller said.  “And that which we pick up has to be made available to the private sector. If we do not get that kind of collaboration, we will replicate what we had before 9/11 when we had stovepipes and inadequate ways of sharing information.”

Mueller – who took over the FBI a week before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and left the job two months ago – made his comments Friday while delivering the Payne lecture at Stanford.

“Terrorism remains today our primary threat,” Mueller said. “But tomorrow, it will probably be cyber and its various iterations.”

He said cybercrimes present a new challenge to law enforcement agencies because perpetrators are often anonymous and their motives are not always clear.

A hacker could be associated with a terrorist organization, an activist group or “an 18-year-old in his garage here in Silicon Valley who has the talent and capability and wants to make a point.”

And if the bad guy can’t be easily fingered, it’s difficult to know who should investigate the crime – the FBI, CIA, NSA or another agency. In order to pool federal resources, Mueller said a task force composed of 18 agencies works to examine cyber threats.

But their efforts to safeguard online financial, government, corporate and educational systems will go only so far without the expertise, knowledge and information gathered by Internet service providers.

“It is going to be the relationships with the private sector that are going to be absolutely critical to any success we can have in addressing cyber attacks,” he said.

Mueller’s lecture capped his weeklong visit at Stanford. He was invited by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Law School to spend the academic year as a consulting professor and as the Payne Distinguished Lecturer.

The Payne Lectureship is named for Frank E. Payne and Arthur W. Payne, brothers who gained an appreciation for global problems through their international business operations. The position is given to someone with an international reputation as a leader, with an emphasis on visionary thinking; a broad, practical grasp of a given field; and the capacity to clearly articulate an important perspective on the global community and its challenges.

FSI Director Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar called Mueller a “perfect fit for Stanford.”

“His career embodies what I take to be the ethos of this university –practical yet principled; sensitive to complexity but also to the value of clarity and focus,” Cuéllar said.

Mueller will make several visits to Stanford during the year, spending his time working with FSI and law school scholars to develop research agendas on emerging issues in international security. He will hold graduate seminars and deliver a major lecture at the law school and work with students and fellows at the Haas Center, the law school and the Graduate School of Business. He will also mentor honors students at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

As the FBI’s longest-serving director after J. Edgar Hoover, Mueller presided over some of the most drastic changes in the agency’s history.

The Sept. 11 attacks forced the FBI to change its priorities, placing the hunt for global terrorists at the top if its list. The counterterrorism and counterintelligence missions meant hiring more analysts and replacing the FBI’s more traditional targeting of mobsters, murderers and white-collar criminals.

Recalling his first briefing to George W. Bush after the terrorist attacks, Mueller said he began by telling the president what his agents were doing to investigate. He had been on the job for about a week, and started giving a rundown of command centers that were set up, evidence that was being collected and interviews being conducted.

“I’m about two or three minutes into it and President Bush stops me and says, `Bob, that’s all well and good,’” Mueller said. “That’s what the FBI has been doing for the hundred years of its existence. My question to you is: What is FBI doing to prevent the next terrorist attack?”

The question stumped the new director.

“I had not prepared for that question,” he said.

And it’s a question he answered continuously during the Bush and Obama administrations, and one that led to his reorganization of the FBI.

“Over those 12 years, the question has not changed,” Mueller said. “The question from both of the presidents to the FBI, to the CIA, to the community when it comes to counterterrorism is: What have you done to prevent the next terrorist attack?”

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Feed and fishmeal use in the production of carp and tilapia in China

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China dominates the global aquaculture industry, most clearly with its massive production and consumption of low trophic-level carp species and its rapidly rising output and exports of tilapia. Although these fish do not require a high percentage of fishmeal in their diets, their large production volumes contribute to China's leading role in global fishmeal consumption. The magnitude of China's dependence on fishmeal supplies – and hence the pressure it places on wild forage fisheries – remains a contentious issue. In this study, we use primary survey data from three provinces in China to examine the current use of aquafeeds in the carp and tilapia sectors and to assess how future demand for fishmeal will likely be affected by the country's shifting patterns of seafood consumption and production. Our results indicate that virtually all carp and tilapia farmers in our survey regions use manufactured feeds containing fishmeal and that median feed conversion ratios (FCRs) are in the range of 1.4 to 1.9. Feeds are poorly targeted on many farms due to widespread polyculture practices, especially the integration of higher-value species into carp ponds to improve farm-level profitability. Our study also suggests that government statistics underestimate household demand for fish by 20–35% because they do not account for out-of-home consumption. As China's demand for fish continues to rise in the future with per capita incomes and urbanization, the co-culture of high-valued species and the use of aquaculture feeds containing fishmeal are also expected to expand.

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Chris Fedor
Rosamond L. Naylor
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Ran Abramitzky

579 Serra Mall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6072

(650) 723-9276
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Associate Professor of Economics
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Ran Abramitzky is a Professor of Economics at Stanford University and incoming Senior Associate Dean for the Social Sciences. His research is in economic history and applied microeconomics, with focus on immigration and income inequality. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He is the vice chair of the economics department, and the co-editor of Explorations in Economic History. He was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, as well as National Science Foundation grants for research on the causes and consequences of income inequality and on international migration. His book, The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World (Princeton University Press, 2018) was awarded by the Economic History Association the Gyorgi Ranki Biennial Prize for an outstanding book on European Economic History. He has received the Economics Department’s and the Dean’s Awards for Distinguished Teaching. He holds a PhD in economics from Northwestern University. 

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
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“Protest Soundscapes in the Middle East”

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Abstract:

The Tahrir and Gezi Park protests were, amongst many other things, moments of energetic artistic creativity, in the sound world as well as other domains. Though well documented, and clearly a vital component of the political energies and transformations of the moment, they have proved difficult to think about. This talk, a musicologist's perspective, will explore them in the light of some recent thinking about crowds and social movements. 

Bio:

Martin Stokes  is King Edward Professor of Music at King's College, London. He is an ethnomusicologist, working primarily on the questions of ethnicity, identity, emotions, globalization in the context of the Middle East. His most recent book,  The Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy in Turkish Popular Music (University of Chicago Press, 2010), has received the Merriam Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology. Among his other publications are Celtic Modern: Music on the Global Fringe (Scarecrow 2004), Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place (Berg 1994), and The Arabesk Debate: Music and Musicians in Modern Turkey (Oxford 1992).

  

Co-sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum, the CDDRL Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, Department of Music, and Department of Anthropology

 

 

Encina Hall West - Room 208

Martin Stokes King Edward Professor of Music at King's College Speaker London
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HUNGER, PEACE & JUSTICE CONVERSATION WITH KAVITA SRIVASTAVA

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Kavita Srivatsava, one of India's leading activists will be joining us for an informal conversation on activism around hunger, peace and justice in India.  Kavita is Secretary of People's Union for Civil Liberties, that has been at the forefront of the struggle for civil, political and socio-economic justice in India.  She is the petitioner in the internationally renowned ‘Right to food’ litigation in the Supreme Court of India, one of the most impactful socio-economic litigations in India.  She has also played a prominent role in women's movements in Rajasthan and has worked on numerous cases of violence against women. 

In addition these core issues, Kavita has also worked on issues such as communal violence, landmines in the Indo-Pak border, election monitoring in Kashmir, supporting Dalits networks an on practically every major social issue in North India.  Come join us for an informal conversation on hunger, peace and justice with this versatile activist.

Time: 3 pm

Date: 12 Nov, 2013 (Tuesday)

Location: E008 Encina Hall (East)

Supported by:

Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

Center for South Asia

San Jose Peace and Justice Center

E 008, Encina Hall (East)
616 Serra St., Stanford University

Kavita Srivastava Secretary Speaker People's Union for Civil Liberties
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Encounter 2013: An Evening with Korean Authors Kim In-suk and Kang Yŏng-suk

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The Korea Colloquium on History and Culture

 

Authors Kim In-suk and Kang Yŏng-suk and translator Bruce Fulton will appear at several American universities in November 2013 for a series of bilingual readings and discussions.  The tour begins at Stanford University and also includes literary events at Claremont McKenna College, the University of Wisconsin, and Brigham Young University, and in New York City.  During these visits the American reading public will have the opportunity to meet two of contemporary Korea’s most prominent fiction writers, hear samples of their works read in Korean and in English translation, engage in a dialog with the writers, and purchase copies of the authors’ works in translation.
 
Kim In-suk (김인숙) was born in 1963 in Seoul and studied journalism at Yonsei University.  A published writer at the age of 19, she issued her first story collection, Bloodline, in 1983, and her first novel, Flowers of Fire, in 1985.  She is the recipient of the 2003 Yi Sang Literature Prize for “Sea and Butterfly,” and the 2005 Hanguk ilbo Literature Prize for The Long Road, one of the very few Korean fictional works involving the Korean diasporic experience in Australia. Today, building on a three-decade career in letters, she is one of Korea’s senior writers, but an author whose literary sensibility and wide-ranging world view belie her age. Her most recent works are the story collection So Long, Elena, for which she received the 2009 Tongin Literature Prize; the historical novel Sohyŏn (2010); and the novel Could You Lose Your Mind? (2011), which conflates natural and human disaster.  She is represented in English in Koreana; the novella The Long Road (2010), the anthology Reading Korea: 12 Contemporary Stories (2008), and in an ASIA Bilingual Edition of her story “Stab.”.
 
Kang Yŏng-suk (강영숙) was born in 1966 in Ch’unch’ŏn, Kangwŏn Province, and studied creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.  Since her debut in 1998 she has issued half a dozen story collections and novels and garnered several literary awards, including the 2006 Hanguk ilbo Literature Prize for her first novel, Rina, and the 2011 Kim Yu-jŏng Literature Prize.  In 2009 she took part in the University of Iowa International Writing Program.  Her 2011 story collection The Night He Lifts Weights, honored with a Book-of-the-Year award from the Korean Library Association, is strongly colored by urban noir, the stories set in locales within and without Korea.  She is represented in English translation in Azalea 4.
 
Bruce Fulton is the co-translator, with Ju-Chan Fulton, of numerous volumes of modern Korean fiction, including the award-winning women’s anthologies Words of Farewell: Stories by Korean Women Writers (Seal Press, 1989) and Wayfarer: New Writing by Korean Women (Women in Translation, 1997), and with Marshall R. Pihl, Land of Exile: Contemporary Korean Fiction, rev. and exp. ed. (M.E. Sharpe, 2007).  The Fultons’ most recent translations are River of Fire: Stories by O Chŏnghŭi (Columbia University Press, 2012) and How in Heaven’s Name: A Novel of World War II by Cho Chŏngnae (MerwinAsia 2012).  The Fultons have received several awards and fellowships for their translations, including a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, the first ever given for a translation from the Korean; and a residency at the Banff International Literary Translation Centre, the first ever awarded to translators from any Asian language.  Bruce Fulton is the inaugural holder of the Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation, Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia.
 
The International Communication Foundation (ICF), primary sponsor of Encounter 2013, was inaugurated in April 1982 as a non-profit foundation under the Ministry of Culture and Public Information. The ICF contributes to globalization through promotion of international exchange while supporting research and publication activities that introduce Korean culture to the world.  Since 1997 it has offered Korean Literature Translation Fellowships to graduate students translating from Korean into English, Russian, and Chinese.  ICF endowments created the Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation at the University of British Columbia and the Sunshik Min Fund at Harvard University for the translation and publication of Korean literature.  Since 1999 the ICF has provided major funding for annual author tours of North America, introducing many of contemporary Korea’s most important fiction writers to North American readers.
 

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Kim In-suk author Speaker
Kang Yŏng-suk author Speaker
Bruce Fulton translator Speaker
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The Korea Colloquium on History and Culture

Stanford Human Rights Summer Fellowship now accepting applications

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The Program on Human Rights at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, in partnership with the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, is offering up to three summer fellowships to talented Stanford undergraduates interested in gaining practical experience at human rights organizations around the world. The fellowship will award grants of up to $5,000 for students undertaking a human rights project for a minimum of eight weeks during the summer. The deadline to apply is Dec. 9, 2013. 

Students have the opportunity to focus on issues that include freedom of speech; discrimination against women; the rights of children, elderly and minorities; and access to food, health, education and housing. Past fellows have identified and worked with a number of different organizations based in the U.S. and abroad that promote, monitor, evaluate, or advance human rights work.
Photo Credit: Adrian Bonifacio

Former Human Rights Fellows include computer science major Firas Abuzaid (’14), who spent the summer of 2013 in Amman, Jordan working with Visualizing Justice, an organization that is dedicated to empowering people worldwide to create visual stories for social justice and human rights. In 2011, Adrian Bonifacio (’13) worked with the Asian Pacific Mission for Migrants, a non-governmental organization based in Hong Kong, China that promotes and defends the rights of migrant workers. Garima Sharma (’15), an economics major, spent this past summer working with Apne Aap: Women Worldwide, an anti-trafficking NGO based in Forbesganj, India.

In order to apply to the fellowship, students must submit a proposal that identifies a partner organization, a project that would contribute towards the organization’s mission and a tentative budget. The application period for the summer fellowship is now open to Stanford undergraduates through Dec. 9. To view profiles of the four 2013 fellows please click here. Additional information about the fellowship - including the application - is available here.

For more information, please contact Joan Berry, the executive director at the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society at joanberry@stanford.edu or Ana Bracic, the fellowship mentor at the Program on Human Rights at bracic@stanford.edu. 

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