women’s rights in the Arab Spring? “For a major player like Glencore to take an undisclosed position on rising wheat prices, and then to warn one of the world’s largest wheat producers that its security of supply could be at risk unless it suspends wheat exports… that is really pretty dodgy.” Glencore, a tailor-made bad guy for food campaigners Good summary + comments by Martin Wolf on this year’s World Development Report on conflict, security and development Two nice pieces from the Aid Thoughts blog: The politics of Malawi’s iconic fertilizer subsidy (background on subsidy here). And celebrating the wonderful ODI fellowship scheme (which among other things, acts as a cadre formation system for a lot of my Oxfam colleagues). But why is it only for economists? Martin Ravallion summarizes the evidence on microfinance (development impact of). The poll on this blog ended up 2:1 in favour of microfinance as a development intervention, by the way – thanks to all voters Liberia’s street youth subvert a randomized control trial – love it. And they’re back: Keynes v Hayek rap battle, round two. Unbeatable [h/t Calum and Sam]. Full lyrics here.See here for round one. ]]>