In collaboration with EADI and King鈥檚 College, London, 黑料社区 has launched Season of the Hierarchies of Development podcast.听The podcast offers long format interviews focusing on enduring global inequalities. Conversations focus on contemporary research projects by critical scholars and help us understand how and why structural hierarchies persist. Join hosts Ingrid Kvangraven (KCL/DE) and Basile Boulay (EADI) for this series of discussions on pressing issues in the social sciences.

The podcast was developed with editing support from Jonas Bauhof. Listen to old episodes and subscribe to get updates on new episodes听(you can choose your preferred platform).

In the first episode is on monetary hierarchies we speak to Karina Patricio Ferreira Lima (University of Leeds, UK) about hierarchies in money and finance, core-periphery dynamics of inflation, the role of the International Monetary Fund in assessing debt sustainability, and much more. Listen on Spotify with the link below.

Although many commentators hoped 2022 would be a ‘return to normal’, this year has been anything but that. On 黑料社区, contributors have been grappling with many fundamental issues, ranging from social reproduction, labour exploitation and unrest, the many failuers of contemporary development policies, decolonisation, the food regime, new debt crises and industrialisation. Among the most widely read posts are those that challenge hegemonic thinking about the crises unfolding this year on both the left and right. For example, Farwa Sial’s interview with Max Ajl, Bikrum Gil and Tinashe Nyamnuda challenges the uncritical use of sanctions by the West in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and G眉ney I艧谋kara’s critique of polycrisis challenges what he deems to be superficial and ultimately inadequate efforts on the left to understand the contemporary crisis of capitalism. Amidst all the hype about returning to normal, contributors on DE also recognize both that pre-pandemic times were also deeply unequal, exploitative, and extractive, which calls for a deeper appreciation of critical scholarship that can help us understand the forces that produce this inequality even in allegedly normal times, and that the crisis responses have been highly unequal across the world.

This year we also launched a new podcast where you can listen to critical scholarship on development and economics in a conversational format. Season 1 is now out and you can listen to episodes on environmental issues, mining, labour, and global value chains.

Here are the top 10 most read posts of 2022:

1. Sanctions and the changing world Order: Some Views from the Global South (Farwa Sial interviews Max Ajl, Bikrum Gil and Tinashe Nyamunda)
2. Race to the bottom: Competition between Indonesian food delivery platform companies for cheap gig workers (by Arif Novianto)
3. (After) Neoliberalism? Rethinking the Return of the State (by Ishan Khurana and John Narayan)
4. Neoliberal capitalism and the commodification of social reproduction, from our home to our classroom (by )
5. Feminist political economy, land, and decolonisation: Rama Salla Dieng in conversation with Lyn Ossome (by Lyn Ossome and )
6. Beating around the Bush: Polycrisis, Overlapping Emergencies, and Capitalism (by G眉ney I艧谋kara)
7. Marx and Colonialism (by Lucia Pradella)
8. Who鈥檚 in control? Wall Street Consensus, state capitalism, and spatialised industrial policy (by Seth Schindler, Ilias Alami and Nick Jepson)
9. On the perils of embedded experiments (by Jean Dr猫ze)
10. Ignorance is Bliss: Why should we study Leontief? (by Thair Ahmad)

This is just a tiny, tiny sample of our around 40 posts on the blog this year, so please have a browse through the rest of the blogs too. You can also follow our active blog series on State Capitalism(s) and Pressure in the City, and delve into all COVID-19 related analysis here, and book reviews here. In 2023, 黑料社区 will continue to provide much-needed critical perspectives on development and economics. Want to join the conversation?: Become a contributor.

It’s a wrap – the tumultous year of 2021 is almost behind us. As usual, it was a year full of critical anlyses on the blog that can help us make sense of the multiple crises unfolding before our eyes. This year, the most read posts were to a large extent those that explicitly challenge orthodox thinking about economics and development and provide alternative ways of framing the complex problems we face as a society. This may well reflect some important churning that is currently taking place in development economics. The top posts expose the limits to mainstream economics and global development discourses, debunk dominant views of the Washington Consensus and Chile as a ‘Free Market Mirace’, and excavate helpful insights from Marx, Sam Moyo, and scholars of imperialism. They also provide concrete ways of understanding contemporary issues such as intellectual monopoly capitalism and the gig economy.

Here are the top 10 most read posts of 2021:

1. We Need to Talk about听Economics (by听Paulo L. dos Santos听and听No茅 Wiener)
2. Rethinking the Social Sciences with Sam听Moyo (by Praveen Jha,听Paris Yeros听and听Walter Chambati)
3. The Washington Counterfactual: don鈥檛 believe the Washington Consensus听resurrection (by听Carolina Alves,听Daniela Gabor听and听Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven).
4. Debunking the 鈥楩ree Market Miracle鈥�: How industrial policy enabled Chile鈥檚 export听diversification (by Amir Lebdioui)
5. The Changing Face of Imperialism: Colonialism to Contemporary听Capitalism (by听Sunanda Sen听and听)
6. Monetary policy is ultimately based on a theory of money: A Marxist critique of MMT (by 听and听Nicol谩s Aguila)
7. Intellectual monopoly capitalism and its effects on听development (by Cecilia Rikap)
8. The Uncomfortable Opportunism of Global Development听Discourses (by Pritish Behuria)
9. The partnership trap in the Indonesian gig听economy (by Arif Novianto)
10. From Post-Marxism back to听Marxism? (by Lucia Pradella)

This is just a tiny, tiny sample of the over eighty posts on the blog this year. You can also follow our active blog series on State Capitalism(s) and Pressure in the City, and delve into all COVID-19 related analysis here, and book reviews here (see also our book symposum on Max Ajl’s new book A People’s Green New Deal here).

In 2022, 黑料社区 will continue to provide much-needed critical perspectives on development and economics. Want to join the conversation?: Become a contributor.

We know, we know, most people would rather forget everything about 2020. However, before you go into 2021, we want to remind you of some of the important analyses that emerged this year, including insights that had not been adequately appreciated before. These include insights about the links between ecology and capitalism, the fragility of economies that rely heavily on precarious labor, the role of the state in shaping health systems, and how structural racism is embedded in the economy. We were honoured to be able to host important contributions to these debates on the blog this year, along with other posts on economics, politics and development.

Here are the top 10 most read posts of 2020:

1. A crisis like no other: social reproduction and the regeneration of capitalist life during the COVID-19 pandemic (by Alessandra Mezzadri)
2. The currency hierarchy and the role of the dollar as world money (by Giovanni Villavicencio)
3. Is Degrowth an Alternative to Capitalism? (by G眉ney I艧谋kara)
4. Abolition Will Not Be Randomized (by and Casey Buchholz)
5. The return of State planning (by Andr茅 Roncaglia and )
6. Privatization and the Pandemic (by Jacob Assa)
7. Haemorrhaging Zambia: Prequel to the Current Debt Crisis (by Andrew M. Fischer)
8. Pandemics and the State of Welfare (by Rahul Menon)
9. The Economics of being 鈥業nteresting鈥�: Many kinds of exclusions (by Farwa Sial)
10. Time for a Rethink on the Worth of Work (by Paulo dos Santos)

This is just a tiny, tiny sample of the eighty posts on the blog this year. You can also follow our active blog series on State Capitalism(s) and Pressure in the City, and delve into all COVID-19 related analysis here, and book reviews here. In 2021, 黑料社区 will continue to provide much-needed critical perspectives on development and economics. Want to join the conversation? Become a contributor!

As the year comes to a close, we look back on our most read posts of the year. It’s been a busy year, with over 40 blog posts and two blog series (on financial inclusion and state capitalism) published. The readership of the blog has grown rapidly, the editorial board has expanded, and this year the听blog was included in the for the first time.

Most read posts of 2019:

1. Why so Hostile? Busting Myths about Heterodox Economics (by Ingrid H. Kvangraven and Carolina Alves)
2. The Curious Case of M-Pesa鈥檚 Miraculous Poverty Reduction Powers (by , and Nicholas Loubere)
3. Using Marx as a Pejorative to Defend the Ease of Doing Business: Analysing The World Bank鈥檚 attack on CGD (by Dissenting Voices)
4. The Green New Deal: Whither Capitalism? (by G眉ney I艧谋kara and )
5. Neoliberalism or Neocolonialism? Evaluating Neoliberalism as a Policy Prescription for Convergence (by Rahul Menon)
6. Rethinking the Failures of Mining Industrialisation in the African Periphery (by Ben Radley)
7. An Alternative Economics Summer Reading List, 2019 (by members of )
8. Philanthrocapitalism: How to Legitimize the Hegemony of the Rich with a 鈥淕ood Vibes鈥� Discourse (by Jorge Garcia-Arias)
9. Mind the Gap: Addressing the Class Dimension in Higher Education (by Lorena Lombardozzi)
10. Advocates of the SDGs have a monetarism problem (by Rick Rowden)

鈥淔inancial inclusion is a key enabler to reducing poverty and boosting prosperity.鈥�

–

鈥淸Policies of financial inclusion] serve to legitimize, normalize, and consolidate the claims of powerful, transnational capital interests that benefit from finance-led capitalism.鈥�

– 听.

Financial inclusion has been high on the agenda for policy-makers over the past decade, including the G20, international financial institutions, national governments and philanthropic foundations. According to Bateman and Chang (), it鈥檚 the international development community鈥檚 most generously funded poverty reduction policy. But what lies behind the buzzword? How can the two quotes above portray such starkly opposing views?

Why is Financial Inclusion Controversial?

Financial inclusion 鈥� or access to credit and financial services for non-banked communities 鈥� appears benign and straightforward at first sight, but there is much that needs to be unpacked. While 鈥檚 information page on financial inclusion presents the promotion of financial services for the poor as a technical and efficient solution to poverty, sceptics have pointed to a growing body of evidence that financial inclusion initiatives have, at best, failed to live up to their promises and diverted attention from more effective and comprehensive poverty reduction strategies, and at worst, resulted in dramatic explosions in predatory lending to low-income households, and in significant reductions in the welfare of borrowers and their communities (see for a summary of the debate). Susanne Soederberg has gone so far as to argue that there are 鈥渆xploitative relations and speculative tendencies involved in financial inclusion strategies鈥�.

In an overview piece, Phil Mader () has found that the case for financial inclusion as a pro-poor private-sector led development intervention lacks sufficient evidence and justification 鈥� and that the concept should be recognized as a contested and contestable enterprise. In that spirit, this blog series aims to unpack what policies lie behind the concept, what effects such policies have had on the ground, and how the concept relates to other socio-economic issues such as inequality, poverty, financial citizenship, financial education, and other income flows such as remittances. The series includes cases from Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Senegal and and the US. It also includes wider perspectives on the context in which financial inclusion initiatives take place, such as an examination of the international financial architecture and Islamic finance.

These next couple of months, we鈥檒l publish a new perspective on financial inclusion as part of our # series. As a whole, the series will approach the concept from a variety of angles and disciplines.

Overview of the series:

1. 1. Inclusive Finance, Shadow Banking, and the Need for Financial Citizenship (Juvaria Jafri, Department of International Politics, City University, London)听
   2. Financial Education in Malaysia: A Driver of Nation-Building or Inequality? (, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester).
   3. Demonetisation in India 鈥� From Financial Inclusion to Digital Financialisation (Sudeep Jain, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol)听
   4. To Be Poor in Times of the Current Financial Architecture (Anne L枚scher, Department of Economics, University of Siegen)听
   5. Make Microfinance Great Again: A Shift Towards Flexibility (, Business School, Durham University)
   6. Does one size fit all when it comes to financial inclusion? Scrutinising effects of race and gender听(, Department of Economics, Open University)听
   7. Financialising migration? Remittances, algorithms and digital finance听(, School of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London)听
   8. Harvesting data: Who benefits from platformization of agricultural finance in Kenya?听(Gianluca Iazzolino and , Department of International Development, London School of Economics and Political Science)
   9. Islamic Finance and Financial Inclusion (, Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick)听
   10. The Curious Case of M-Pesa鈥檚 Miraculous Poverty Reduction Powers (, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, , Centre for Development Impact, and , Lund University).

The idea for this blog series came at at the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre (IGDC) at the University of York, where scholars gathered from many institutions and disciplines to discuss various aspects of financial inclusion. The event was co-funded by the 鈥檚 Impact Acceleration Account and the .

While many of you may want to forget about 2018, we promise there are some good things that happened that you might want to remember. Here are the听top 10 most read posts of the year. Happy new year and enjoy!

1. An Alternative Economics Summer Reading List (by听Carolina Alves,听,听听and听Ingrid H. Kvangraven)
2. Not just r > g but r + q >> g: Piketty meets Ricardo in the long run of Indian history (by Rishabh Kumar, California State University, San Bernardino)
3. Historicising the Aid Debate: South Korea as a Successful Aid Recipient (by Farwa Sial, School of Oriental and African Studies)
4. Consuming development: Capitalism, economic growth and everyday听life (by Arve Hansen, University of Oslo)
5. The World Bank Pushes Shadow Banking in the Name of听Development (Daniela Gabor, University of the West of England, Bristol, and others).
6. Keynes or New-Keynesian: Why Not Teach Both? (by Rohit Azad,听Jawaharlal Nehru University)
7. Think Positive, Climb out of Poverty? It鈥檚 Just Not So Easy! (by Svenja Flechtner, University of Siegen
8. Revisiting Hirschman鈥檚 Tunnel Effect and Its Relevance for China (by Wannaphong Durongkaveroj,听Australian National University)
9. Why I refuse to rethink development 鈥� again (and again, and again鈥�) (by Julia Sch枚neberg, University听of听Kassel)
10. Marx’s Birthday and the Dismal Science (by听Carolina Alves, University of Cambridge, and Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, University of York)

Want to be a contributor to this blog too next year? Shoot an e-mail to Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven and she’ll guide you through the submission process.

2017 was a dramatic year in many ways. But before it completely flies by, let’s not forget the important contributions made to the development debate on this blog this year! Here are the top 10 most read posts of 2017:

1. Kicking Away the (Statistical) Ladder (Jacob Assa, UN)
2. An Economic Strategy for The Gambia? (Sanjay Reddy, The New School)
3. Is 鈥業mperialism鈥� a Relevant Concept Today? A Debate Among Marxists (Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, The New School)
4. 80 Economic Bestsellers before 1850: A Fresh Look at the History of Economic Thought (Erik Reinert, Tallinn University of Technology)
5. Re-centering Inequality in African Economic History (Alden Young, Drexel University)
6. e-Book Launch: Can Dependency Theory Explain Our World Today? (editorial)
7. The Financialization of Africa鈥檚 Development (Richard Itaman, SOAS)
8. Towards a Critical Pluralist Research Agenda in Development Economics: Some Bricks from Berlin to Build Upon (Svenja Flechtner,听Freie Universit盲t Berlin, Jakob Hafele, Vienna University, and Theresa Neef, Freie Universit盲t Berlin)
9. 200 Years of Ricardian Trade Theory: How Is This Still A Thing? (Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, The New School)
10. Advancing a Research Agenda of Scarcity, Abundance, and Sufficiency (Adel Daoud, University of Cambridge)

There are many blog posts that did not make the top 10 ‘most read’听 that are still absolutely worth revisiting. For example:

• The Power of the Market (Desmond McNeill, The University of Oslo)
• Thinking politically about capital controls: a class perspective (Ilias Alami, The University of Manchester)
• Unequal Inequalities Revisited (Joshua Greenstein, Hobart and William Smith Colleges)
• A Critical Review on the documentary 鈥淧overty, Inc.鈥� (Jos茅 G. Caraballo, The University of Puerto Rico at Cayey)
• A Soft Law Mechanism for Sovereign Debt Restructuring (Martin Guzman, Columbia University)
• What Can We Learn from Alternative Theories of Economic Development? (Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, The New School)
• Emerging Market Downgrades: Panic at the Disco? (Ilan Strauss, The New School)
• The BRICS and a Changing World (Sanjay Reddy, The New School)
• Poor Behavior, Good Behavioral Policies? Double Standards for the North and South (Svenja Flechtner,听Freie Universit盲t Berlin)
• The long run evolution of the rich in India 1937-2012 (Rishabh Kumar, California State University)
• Toward an Economic Theory of Imperialism? (Mohamed Obaidy, The New School)
• How Racist Rhodesia Did It And 鈥業ndependent鈥� Zimbabwe Is Getting It Wrong: Comparing Currency and Finance Under Sanctions (Tinashe Nyamunda, University of the Free State)
• Small and Medium Enterprise Development: A Case of Hamlet without the Prince (Kagiso Zwane, Wits University)
• Hazards of a Boom (Robert Wade, LSE)

Want to contribute to the blog? Contact Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven.

It is the season for compiling lists! We鈥檝e collected the most interesting 2016 lists that we鈥檝e seen so far on topics related to economic development. We also compiled a list of the top five posts from this blog.

Best Books

• by the Financial Times (including Guy Standing, Wolfgang Streeck, and more)
• from a Marxist perspective on Michael Robert鈥檚 blog (includes Ben Fine, Robert Gordon, Anwar Shaikh, and more)
• (includes Branko Milanovc, David Harvey and the new book by Amartya Sen, and more)
• by Africa Is A Country (a useful list during the holidays when we find ourselves with time to read fiction)

If you want to avoid getting too bogged down in the newest hype, it鈥檚 also worth checking out the Real World Economics Review list of (compiled through a poll earlier this year).

Best papers, blogs, and misc.

• according to Noah Smith on Bloomberg View
• (as a counterweight you might also want to look at the older list of top compiled by Lars P. Syll)
• (by followers)
• by Tim Harford on The Undercover Economist

听Finally, the top 5 most read articles on this blog this year

1. Female Economists and the Blogosphere 鈥� Do We Dare Mention Sexism? (as relevant as ever, considering the male dominance of all the above-mentioned lists)
2. How to Justify Teaching the Worst of Economics to Non-Economists
3. Development Economics: A Study of Economies, Systems, or Methods?
4. The Case Against the Universal Liberalisation Model for Economic Growth
5. The Market or the State: Why Polanyi Still Matters

The process of selecting a new World Bank president has started. Pundits are already criticizing the process for being rushed, closed, and favoring the re-selection of the current President Jim Kim. This serves as a reminder of how political the international financial institutions are, although they often present themselves as being technical and apolitcal.

Last week’s that The World Bank’s presidential selection process has started stirred up controversy, as the selection process doesn’t seem to be open, transparent, and merit-based. Ironically, this institution that preaches good governance abroad, does not live up to basic good governance standards, such as transparency and merit-based appointments, at home. The selection of Jim Kim in 2012 was in keeping with the gentlemen鈥檚 agreement that an American leads the World Bank and a European leads the IMF, although the institutions claim to have moved on from this seemingly outdated agreement to a .

Although the Bank鈥檚 Executive Directors allegedly 鈥渦nanimous support for an open, merit-based and transparent selection,鈥� they gave member countries only three weeks to submit their candidates 鈥� with a deadline of September 14^th. have rightly pointed out the absurdity of this short deadline, as Kim鈥檚 term does not end until June next year. As the Head of the World Bank Staff Association Daniel Sellen put it: 鈥淚t takes us six months to hire a junior economist. Why are we taking just a month to hire a president?鈥�

Although the nomination period is similar to that of the IMF earlier this year (), there鈥檚 that the process has been accelerated in order to ensure the re-selection of Jim Kim before the next President of the United States take office 鈥� in case the President is Donald Trump, who might not automatically pick Jim Kim.

The World Bank Staff Association has even to the Executive Directors of the Board of the Bank, calling for an open process for selecting the World Bank President and an end to backroom deals. There is really no good reason that this process should not be open to candidates across the world, as reappointments are uncommon at The World Bank (only two of twelve presidents have been reappointed, namely Robert McNamara and James Wolfensohn).

Although the Bank itself claims the selection of Jim Kim in 2012 was open, transparent and merit-based, at the Bank report of overwhelming support for Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Minister of Nigeria, and political tactics by the US to secure an American candidate. , US officials at the time argued that Obama could not afford to either 鈥渓ose鈥� or 鈥済ive away鈥� a traditionally American position at the time, but that 鈥榥ext time鈥� the selection process could be more open.

There has been much discussion on the blogs already and the open maintained by the has been revitalized. Here’s a selection of blog entries:

(September 1^st 2016, worldbankpresident.org). Coordinator of the Bretton Woods Project, Luiz Vieira, picks up where this blog left off in 2012. Looks like this blog won’t be used for actual debate on the relative merits of various candidates from around the world this time around either, but instead much-needed critique of the selection process.

(September 1^st 2016, worldbankpresident.org). Director of Eurodad, Jesse Griffiths, points out that apparently Eurodad鈥檚 selection of interns is more rigorous than the selection of the head of the World Bank.

(Center for Global Development, August 30^th 2016). Lant Pritchett points out that The World Bank has yet to be led by a woman. He suggests a few women who he considers to be qualified candidates to lead the Bank.

(DEVEX August 25^th 2016) Interesting reporting by Michael Igoe with several inside sources. The World Bank reacted very negatively to this article (scroll to the bottom to see their comments).

(Center for Global Development, August 17^th 2016). Lant Pritchett points out that there is no reason for this selection process to not be open, merit-based, and transparent. Although Obama may not have been able to afford to give away a traditionally American position at the time, US officials had argued that next time the process could be more open and transparent. This time is that next time.

Pieces from the last round that resurfaced:

(Foreign Affairs March 5, 2012). Funny article by Bill Easterly expressing his gratitude for not being nominated to lead the World Bank because of how fundamentally he disagrees with its purpose and practice.听

(Center for Global Development, February 15^th 2012). This post by Nancy Birdsall at CGD, resurfaced this week as pundits were discussing whether this position is actually of much significance. She points out that the World Bank management actually has a lot of power in the Bank.

Photo: Regardless of your opinion on Jim Kim’s merits as the leader of the World Bank, I think we can all agree he’s a pretty听 (Kim enters the stage at 2.00).