Our Intangible Riches, a Reason magazine article:

Oil, soil, copper, and forests are forms of wealth. So are factories, houses, and roads. But according to a 2005 study by the World Bank, such solid goods amount to only about 20 percent of the wealth of rich nations and 40 percent of the wealth of poor countries.

So what accounts for the majority? World Bank environmental economist Kirk Hamilton and his team in the bank's environment department have found that most of humanity's wealth isn't made of physical stuff. It is intangible. In their extraordinary but vastly underappreciated report, Where Is The Wealth Of Nations?: Measuring Capital for the 21st Century, Hamilton's team found that "human capital and the value of institutions (as measured by rule of law) constitute the largest share of wealth in virtually all countries."

Click here for full article

For International Extemp... Check out www.GlobalEnvision.org!

Building Cities by New Rules - TED talk by Paul Romer (GlobalEnvison.org link)

Triumph of the City

Manhattan Institute: "Glaeser travels through history and around the globe to reveal the hidden workings of cities and how they bring out the best in humankind. Even the worst cities—Kinshasa, Kolkata, Lagos—confer surprising benefits on the people who flock to them, including better health and more jobs than the rural areas that surround them." (continues...)

"...TRIUMPH OF THE CITY is a masterpiece. Seamlessly combining economics and history, he explains why cities are 'our species' greatest invention.'This beautifully written book makes clear how cities have not only survived but thrived, even as modern technology has seemingly made one's physical location less important." — Steven D. Levitt, co-author of FREAKONOMICS and SUPERFREAKONOMICS; professor of economic at the University of Chicago

Recommended

• Constitutional Engineering and the Transition to Democracy in Post-Cold War Africa by John Mukum Mbaku (Independent Institute).
• Third World Economic Development, by Clive Crook. Click here for notes on past wealth of Ghana in West Africa and defending austerity programs.
• Global Envision Web Site: reducing world poverty with open markets
• Forbes Global: The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has radical ideas about how to end world poverty
• Forbes Global: Florence Wambugu is using GM foods to feed her country (Kenya)

Globalization

• Acton Institute globalization page
• The Return to a Global Economy
• Economic Growth and Freedom in the Coming Millennium
• The Pen is Mightier Than the Plan (Latin America)
• America's Amazing Global Culture

Freedom Index

• Economic Freedom Needed
• Free the World! (FreetheWorld.com)
• Economic Freedom of the World, Annual Report 2002
• Heritage/WSJ 2001 Freedom Index
• Government & the Wealth of Nations

Africa

• Growing up in Kenya: June Arunga's Story
• Book review: Africa in Chaos
• Handouts no answer to Africa's poverty
• Africa Fighting Malaria
• Why Africa Needs Agricultural Biotech
• African Inter Region Economic Network: where a free human mind is capital
• An American in Africa

Middle East

Foreign Aid

• Handouts no answer to Africa's Poverty
• The Road to Hell (Amazon info.)
• Foreign Aid: Why Do It and What Works? (scholars notes from AEI conf.)

Trade & Investment

• Waking Dead Capital
• ISLAM AND MARKETS by Imad A. Ahmad, "The relationship between Islam and trade is not well appreciated in the west..."
• Domes of Trade (a thought experiment)
• Free Trade and Foreign Wars
• Free Trade or Fair Trade?

Environment

• Biotech and LDC crops

Latin America

• An American in Argentina
• The Pen is Mightier Than the Plan