This preliminary study started with a blog post I did several months ago entitled “New Jersey, the Sorry State”, a deep dive into Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that my state is hardly generating employment outside the government sector.
The blame for this sorry state of affairs I heaped on NJ’s political culture, which is [...]

Andhra Pradesh was once seen as a state with good governance by Indian standards. In recent years, the problems seen with Satyam, attempts to harass Nimesh Kampani, etc. have led many to question the quality of governance in Andhra Pradesh. Today, John Elliott has an important article in the Financial Times on the difficulties of [...]

The authors of ‘Governance Matters’, Daniel Kauffman, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi, tell us that the World Bank’s rule of law index captures “perceptions of the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police and the courts, [...]

Sanjeev Sanyal in Business Standard : Building cities for 21st century India, Delhi (which leads you to delhinullahs.org), and Calcutta. Also see: The Sustainable Planet Institute.
Why investment banks were fated to be roadkill, [...]

The first message to ever travel between two computers connected via the ARPANET, the computer network that would become the Internet, happened on 29 October 1969.  The Internet just turned 40.  And 40 is the new 20.  It is incredible that Al Gore, born 31 March 1948, was able to invent such an amazing series of [...]

I really got a laugh out of the report from Bloomberg that the Democratic Party of Japan (known in the parlance as DP) won an historic victory in the recent elections, coming to power for the first time in decades with “a pledge to support households battered by two decades of economic stagnation”, whatever that [...]

There seems to be increasing skepticism these days about the worth of democracy. The following quote from a post by John Humphreys on the “Thoughts on Freedom” blog provides a good example of what I mean:
“Democracy has become a new faith. Simply saying the word supposedly makes an argument stronger, as though there is some [...]

The Chinese concept of the Way, or Tao, was current before Confucius lived or taught; the Books of Odes and Rites tell of Heaven, and reveal beliefs in ancestor-spirits and a supreme being with a human face. However, Tzu-kung reports that “one cannot get to hear [Confucius’] views on human nature and the Way of [...]

“Societies need subjective indicators of well-being to aid policy makers and ordinary citizens in making decisions.” This is the opening line of the recently published book, “Well-being for Public Policy” by Ed Diener, Richard Lucas, Ulrich Schimmack and John Helliwell. The first three authors are psychologists (Diener has played a leading role in the field [...]

On Thursday night the government announced it was suspending the Cash-For-Clunkers program. In my twitterstream I reacted as follows:
dhsmith24 Cash for clunkers suspended w/i a week. What the heck are these guys doing? And they want to run #healthcare?
The doubt this #fail creates is real enough, but there is more, and Hugh Hewitt has [...]