Women and power: overcoming barriers to leadership and influence

Around the world, women now have more power than ever before. Men still dominate decision-making -- but the number of women is on the rise in parliaments and cabinets, judiciary and police forces, formal employment and education.

Increasing the number of women in political and public positions is important, but does not mean that they real power. Women in public life are often subject to sexism and prejudice. Women are less represented in the sectors and positions with the most power.

Five myths about poverty, growth and inequality

Today, development experts from a range of organisations and universities, including the World Bank, are gathering at ODI to discuss how we can end extreme poverty. 

'Pro-poor' or 'inclusive' growth - ensuring that growth benefits the poor  more than the average  -  is a popular mechanism for achieving this. For example, the Sustainable Development Goals and the World Bank both have targets that aim to promote income growth for the bottom 40% of every country’s population.

The Lunch Question

At an event in Beijing last November, I had the good fortune to meet the French economist Thomas Piketty, who has sold 1.5 million copies of his book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century,since it was first published in 2013. Pacing up and down in front of a packed auditorium, Piketty explained that because the rate of return on capital is now higher than the growth rate of the global economy, the proportion of the world's wealth that is owned by a small elite will likely keep increasing; in other words, we should expect to see a divergence of wealth as the rich get much richer. As his book says, "capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based."

No strategic forecaster can afford to ignore this alarming prediction — or the enthusiastic response it got from the audience in Beijing. In the 20th century, the two world wars were the only force powerful enough to reverse the concentration of wealth in the elite and the mounting class conflict; in the 21st century, we seem to be falling back into a comparable world of revolution, political extremism and mass violence.

Bloomberg: Emperors of Banking Have No Clothes

In Hans Christian Andersen’s famous tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” two tailors offer to provide the emperor with beautiful and very special clothes. They claim the clothes will be invisible to people who are stupid or unfit for their jobs. The emperor orders a full set.

The American Conservative: Revolt of the Rich

illustration: Miguel Davilla

It was 1993, during congressional debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement. I was having lunch with a staffer for one of the rare Republican congressmen who opposed the policy of so-called free trade. To this day, I remember something my colleague said: “The rich elites of this country have far more in common with their counterparts in London, Paris, and Tokyo than with their fellow American citizens.”

US military to allow women on the frontline

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has decided to lift the military's ban on women serving in combat, a move that could open thousands of frontline warfighting jobs to female service members, a senior US defence official said.

Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, "are expected to announce the lifting of the direct combat exclusion rule for women in the military," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters on Wednesday.

NYT: Rise of the Robots

Paul Krugman

Catherine Rampell and Nick Wingfield write about the growing evidence for “reshoring” of manufacturing to the United States. They cite several reasons: rising wages in Asia; lower energy costs here; higher transportation costs. In afollowup piece, however, Rampell cites another factor: robots.

The most valuable part of each computer, a motherboard loaded with microprocessors and memory, is already largely made with robots, according to my colleague Quentin Hardy. People do things like fitting in batteries and snapping on screens.

As more robots are built, largely by other robots, “assembly can be done here as well as anywhere else,” said Rob Enderle, an analyst based in San Jose, Calif., who has been following the computer electronics industry for a quarter-century. “That will replace most of the workers, though you will need a few people to manage the robots.”