The two things that stood out the most to me about this look into CCT was that the Mexican program gave the money to the mother of the household and they're hint at future discussion of whether conditional cash transfers are more/less effective than unconditional cash transfers. As some of my peers have said in their posts, as well as discussions we have had in class, when the maternal powers are given control of the household finances, historically the result is higher levels of education and healthier diets. I think this is an important facet of the CCT program because it helps to ensure that the additional income with go towards the intended causes. If the income were spent on other, insignificant goods with lower levels of return or even goods and services with relative short run return, we may not seem the same levels of significant long term positive outcomes. As for the debate between cash transfers being conditional versus unconditional, I think my gut reaction is conditional makes more sense because giving families additional income, while important, may not result in the same levels of education attained for the children. I do see the argument that higher levels of income will result in higher levels of education and future income, but I think there could be a significant difference between those results if the child was still ensured to attend school. I would be interested to hear more about the difference.

The topic of missing women is a development economic topic that I find incredibly interesting. The numbers are astonishing but the reasons are also fascinating. Some numbers that stood out are 6 million women a year, 23% are never born because of selective abortion, 10% more are dead during early childhood through domestic decisions (i.e. preferential treatment of education, food, and health services to boys over girls), 21% are lost during their reproductive years through issues of maternal mortality rates, and lastly 38% are represented by women over the age 60. The ideological framework I was reading this paper with was Sen's development framework of economic development can be represented by increasing choices. The two way relationship talked about is very interesting. It mentions that economic development and women's empowerment defined as improving the ability of women to access the constituents of development. These areas of development are health, education, earning opportunities, rights, and political participation. The most interesting part of this is that some governments choose to focus on only one end of the relationship. They will work towards equality without also working to improve the economy or they will choose to focus on economic development which will increase all's quality of life but doesn't necessarily work to remove the inequality of men and women. Using Sen's development framework I believe that education is the most important thing to improve women's economic and equality. With increasing quality and opportunity of education, women will have the tools to not only pull themselves out but also their children.

It was cool to hear about the history of public school and land grants. Learning that the founding fathers, even before basic micro theory, were able to acknowledge that publicly funded schooling was a benefit to society and would help all as individuals as well as the general public. It was interesting to see that for a while the education was assumed to end after grade school and only in the middle of the 19th century was it expanded to high school. And still now the education is assumed to end after 12th grade with only some grants for higher education. The transition then toward agricultural schools and under Lincoln the expansion of land grants. Towards the end of the paper, Epplin makes sure to emphasize the importance of identifying successful schools and successful markets as well as recognizing potential failures.

This paper is a lot different than the other papers we have read so far this semester. I like how it takes a more historical approach to Development Economics and compares the theories used from mid 1900's to current theory. He mentions how economies seemed to follow economic theory for about 10-15 years before the theory would no longer be able to accurately describe what was being seen in the real world. One of the most startling parts of this paper was the introduction of the fact that models and economic modeling was introduced in the middle of the 20th century. Since econ 100 I have been learning simple models such as basic supply and demand, all the way to more complete for-ex models and IS-LM. He then goes into the complications of creating an accurate model. And discusses the problems of trying to keep up with the actual real world and there is inevitably some lag between theory and actual world experiences.

The part of this paper I found my interesting was the country descriptions and analyses of what made some countries surge ahead in development and which areas were cause for concern fo the countries that were failing to meet their economic development goals. The fast and steady growing Asian countries like Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea compared to the countries failing to keep up like the Philippines as well as comparing them against giant boomers like India and China, was an interesting part to see how differences can arise in countries that are similar in culture, location, and background. This just paints an even clearer picture of the effects that institutional issues such as corruption and failure to govern can have on an economy. One of the most stark differences found between these countries was the growing economies commitments to achieving global growth through manufacturing and exporting. We saw examples of this global initiative in Singapore and South Korea where the shift towards forward thinking production and increased technology raised the wages of the manufacturers through the use of capital and no longer labor intensive production models. Taiwan is another example where the shift towards manufacturing exports helped sustain long term growth. I believe that struggling countries in Africa and South America should want to be able to mirror this behavior. Starting with governmental reforms and effective policies.

Sachs writes a very interesting article discussing the new plan being put forth by the UN where they are transitioning from the Millennium Development Goals to these new Sustainable Development Goals. Sachs offers his own input that there are three main areas these new goals should focus; economic development, environmental security, and social inclusion. Before he goes into further details about this Triple Bottom Line, he begins by commenting further on the MDGs and the areas in which they saw success and the parts where failure occurred. As a whole, the MDGs were very successful. Many countries met most of their goals, with some meeting all of their goals years before many thought possible. However, it was not all positive results as some countries found themselves further left behind from the rest of the world surging forward in Globalization. He accounts these failures to the countries themselves but also certain wealth countries who failed to hold up their end of the promised agreement. The main difference for Sachs between the MDGs and the SDGs is sustainable growth not just blind development. With the world population set to hit 8 billion in 2024, Sachs stresses the idea of climate change and the soon approaching food instability issue. He notices countries like China and India with massive populations and growing income per capita which will result in an even larger global demand for food, especially grain and meat. Before the end of this analysis, Sachs also makes sure to make note of some of the global shortcomings being seen in developing countries. He warns of educational disparities and the generational effects those can have. As well as gender biases and gaps widening in rural areas. He finishes up his article strongly by saying these new guidelines can work and be beneficial to all but they will require good governance and dutiful oversight by rich and poor countries alike.