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.
Growth was at the forefront of the 2016 St. Gallen Symposium - an annual gathering of global leaders in Switzerland. Some 800 present and future leaders debated, "Growth: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," from May 11-13, 2016 in St. Gallen, Switzerland.
The question “What are Alternatives to Economic Growth?” was posed as a topic for the symposium's annual essay competition. The six essay competition finalists were brought together with research...
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...
Harvard’s Center for International Development is looking for an Executive Coordinator, someone who will be an integral part of the Center’s activities and become a liaison between the Center’s faculty, fellows, staff, students, and important contacts from around the world.
One of the highlights of this year’s World Economic Forum was the urgency of a new economic measure, able to capture adequately the economic situation of a country. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is not rising up to the challenges of the 21st century.... Read more about An alternative index for economic development
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...
