To countries like Albania, membership in the European Union is presented as the ultimate modernization project that will lift all boats and bring about greater prosperity and democratization.
However, more often than not, transition reproduces hierarchies and inequities that usually underpin relations between a prosperous center and a backward periphery.
Instead of being a cure, a solution to the political primitivism and underdevelopment, the story with...
An Interview with Dr. Milena Harito, Minister of Innovation and Public Administration of Albania
If you were a citizen of the Republic of Albania in need of a moderately complex public service in 2014, you were almost certain to enter a maze of public bureaucracy: dark and messy offices, long lines, vague instructions and procedures, and little opportunity for citizen feedback or tolerance for criticism. It’s no wonder that the uncertainty around these services forced most citizens to use their social and family connections, and in some cases, bribes, to ensure speedy...
About four years ago, at the onset of CID’s engagement in Albania, the country faced two issues that were threatening its macro-fiscal stability: a skyrocketing public debt and an insolvent, publicly-owned electricity distribution system that was plagued by theft and technical inefficiency. These two interlinked issues constrained both short-term economic growth and the ability of the country to develop new drivers of long-term growth. Over the subsequent years, the government was able to successfully respond to these constraints through a now-...
The recent Greek economic crisis hit the population of Albanian migrants in Greece particularly hard, spurring a wave of return migration which increased the Albanian labor force by 5% only between 2011 and 2014.
We study how this return migration affected the employment chances and earnings of Albanians who never migrated. We find positive effects on the wages of low-skilled non-migrants and overall positive effects on employment.
The gains partially offset the sharp drop in remittances in the observed period. The employment gains are concentrated in the...
How important is regional integration for an export oriented development strategy? Ermal Frasheri gave an interview at the 7pa5 morning show at VizionPlus TV where he discussed the benefits of regional integration in the context of the Nis Summit between Serbia and Albania.
Credit market activity in Albania has been sluggish in recent years in spite of low and declining interest rates. The economy lost its growth momentum after 2009. Investment and lending activity slowed down substantially despite low interest rates, relative macroeconomic resilience, and available capacity in the private sector to take on more debt. .This study analyzes the supply (lenders’) and demand (borrowers’) sides of the market.
The reason behind the credit market failure is a supply-demand mismatch. ...
On Sunday, September 18, the Embassy of the Republic of Albania to the US and the Center for International Development at Harvard University hosted a panel discussion, "Albania and Diaspora: A New Communication" with the Honorable Ditmir Bushati, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Albania.
Following the panel, Minister Bushati sat down with CID Events and Outreach Manager Andrea Hayes and discussed the panel, the Albania diaspora, and other foreign policy topics.
Albania is rich in water resources and both inland and marine aquaculture have potential for growth and development. In the past two decades European and Mediterranean countries have seen their freshwater aquaculture decrease while marine aquaculture, especially of European Seabass and Gilthead Seabream, has increased. In 2000, Albanian aquaculture producers started to turn their attention to seabass and seabream production and their cultivation in cages in the Ionian Sea increased dramatically. Albanian production, however, represents only 0...
The Summer Internship Program of the Economic Growth in Albania Project is now recruiting Master's level students to spend summer in Albania.
The Center for International Development (CID) under the direction of Professor Ricardo Hausmann is conducting a four-year project with the Government of Albania. CID helped the government develop an economic growth strategy, based on increasing economic productivity, fostering regional integration, and positioning the government on sound financial footing. Under the supervision of Professor Matt Andrews, CID has put in place government...
Despite their historic and ethnic ties, trade and investment between Albania and Kosovo remains underdeveloped. To be sure, even if fully developed, Kosovo is unlikely to play a major role in Albanian external economic relations. Nonetheless, increased economic integration between the two countries can serve as the basis not only for enhancing the ties between the two countries, but also for spurring the measures that could act as a springboard for Albania’s integration with respect to other countries in the Balkans as well as with the EU.
