Southeast Asia’s Economic Poster Child Is Stalling

How the Communist Party is fiddling while Vietnam burns.

BY BEN BLAND | NOVEMBER 20, 2012

"Long live the glorious Communist Party of Vietnam," proclaims one of the many red-and-yellow official banners that loom over central Hanoi.

Like citizens of other one-party states, most Vietnamese have developed a handy ability to block out propaganda as they buzz through the streets on their ubiquitous scooters in search of subsistence, stability, or greater riches. "Is the Party really attempting to send a message to the people, or merely trying to reassure itself?" quips one Vietnamese academic, unwilling, like most in this police state, to speak openly about the future of the country's self-appointed rulers.

Most Poor Children Live in Households with Major Hardships

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, this is an appropriate time to look at some new figures on hardship.  New CBPP analysis of monthly Census data finds that more than half (58 percent) of poor children last year lived in households that faced one or more of the following:

Lasting effects of childhood health in developing countries

Janet Currie, Tom Vogl, 15 November 2012

The global decline in ill health has not been met with greater prosperity. What are we to make of healthier and larger populations undercutting per capita economic progress? This column argues that early-life health changes do, in fact, have a huge effect on economic outcomes over the lifecycle. However, the jury is out on how we can best manage – and measure – the apparent play off between better health, higher populations, and poorer per capita economic outcomes.