In last Tuesday's NYTimes, Kristol touted the importance of the private sector as a tool for development:
I’m also a believer in aid, particularly health and education interventions. But I also believe that business can raise living standards on a scale that aid never can, and that we need to focus more on building manufacturing in poor countries [...] It’s something that I probably haven’t written enough about, and I’ll try to pursue the issue some more in the next year.Interestingly, just two weeks ago the OECD and Eurostat published the first set of comparable data on measures of entrepreneurial activity such as entry and exit rates, and the rate of formation of high-growth companies. So far the data covers 15 European countries, the U.S., Canada and New Zealand. What I would love to see is a similar study conducted among African states.
[HT: Doing Business]