I’m excited to announce that my article “The Great Escape from Global Poverty: The Economic and Moral Case for Good Management” was published in the latest issue of Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business Review. From the introduction:
Poverty has been a moral issue at the center of philosophical, theological, and social thought for millennia. However, over the last two centuries, much of the world has experienced what Nobel economist Angus Deaton calls “the great escape” from economic deprivation. As a 2013 issue of The Economist explained, one of the main targets of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) was to halve extreme poverty between 1990 and 2015. That goal was accomplished years ahead of schedule and the credit largely lies with one thing: “The MDGs may have helped marginally, by creating a yardstick for measuring progress, and by focusing minds on the evil of poverty. Most of the credit, however, must go to capitalism and free trade, for they enable economies to grow—and it was growth, principally, that has eased destitution.”
If this economic narrative is to be believed, then managing well is even more important in the fight against poverty. Research over the last decade finds that management—the day-in, day-out processes of everyday business—matters. As this article will show, economic growth has lifted billions of people worldwide out of extreme poverty via pro-growth policies (especially trade, property rights, and moderate government size). Good management, in turn, plays a significant part in this growth by increasing total factor productivity (TFP) and could therefore be considered a pro-growth policy. In short, those in management positions have the potential to improve the well-being of the global poor by learning to manage well.
Check it out.