John Authers - Bloomberg

...Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government has made it his life’s work to understand why some economies grow faster than others, and therefore which countries are likely to grow next. He believes the answer lies in economic complexity. To paraphrase, countries that develop complex industries with transferable skills are able to grow much faster. Countries that do nothing more than extract raw materials and don’t diversify (like Hausmann’s native Venezuela), have little chance of growth. Those that develop know-how...

John Authers - Bloomberg

...Which countries will manage to notch the fastest growth over the next decade? Nobody can know for certain, but Harvard’s Center for International Development has gone to great lengths to try to find out. Its key insight is that growth hinges on economic complexity. The more different skills a population has developed, and the more adaptable its economy, the better its chances of expansion. The more dependent it remains on one industry, the harder it is to achieve growth. It measures this phenomenon in a fascinating and public...

By Timothy Cheston 
Visualizations by: Nil Tuzcu

Indonesians head to the polls for presidential and legislative elections on April 17, in what is traditionally billed as a clash of titans in the world’s third largest democracy. This time around, voters will find familiar names on the presidential ballot, as Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, faces Prabowo Subianto in the same billing as the 2014 election, with the one exception of Jokowi now having the incumbency of the presidency behind him. If current polls hold, the election appears less of a rematch than a watered-...

Ricardo Hausmann - Harvard Gazette

Thousands of angry demonstrators in Venezuela took to the streets again this week to protest the government of President Nicolás Maduro, two weeks after he was sworn in for a second term following an election that many critics say was rigged. The protests were organized by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly, who has declared himself acting president.

Once one of the richest countries in Latin America with the world’s largest oil reserves, Venezuela has been in political, economic, and...