Emprendimiento y Platón

Comparto con ustedes un muy buen video sobre la Alegoría de la Caverna de Platón y mi clase sobre este tema.

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Clases de Hubert Dreyfus sobre Martin Heidegger

Vean este link. Esta muy bueno.

"FREAKONOMICS" / FUKUYAMA en Charlie Rose -

Comparto con ustedes una entrevista en Charlie Rose a Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner, y Francis Fukuyama.

Una Hora con el Senador Barack Obama

Comparto con ustedes una entrevista de una hora, realizada por Charlie Rose, al precandidato demócrata Barack Obama. La entrevista es del año 2006, y eso la hace aún más interesante.

Entrevista al economista Dani Rodrik

Comparto con ustedes una gran entrevista al economista Dani Rodrik, que encontré en www.webpondo.org. En ella se abordan temas como globalización, políticas industriales, propiedad intellectual, desarrollo económico, instituciones, entre otros.

Se las recomiendo.

A continuación posteo una de las preguntas de la entrevista:

With respect to this same paper1 we are referring to, there was a point that called our attention about it and it’s the fact that you say that the very process of economic development has to do a lot with experimentation and, in that sense, there is some active policy intervention that is necessary. And there are two points with respect to this conclusion which calls our attention. The first one is that you say that there was some kind of more optimal mix in that policy intervention in Asia in terms of “carrots and sticks” (in your terms) and we would like you to explain a bit about that combination. And also, if you are calling for active policy intervention as a consequence of the very process of economic development, what about the imperfections or the potential problems that economists so much worry about in the public sector?

When I talk about experimentation, I have two sorts of experimentation that I have in mind, and I think both are equally important. One, and what you are referring to in the first part of your question, is experimentation in the productive sphere. The other is institutional experimentation. The former is the process of figuring out where your comparative advantage lies, figuring out what you can produce profitably, and this is an activity that’s by and large undertaken by the private sector. This is not an area for the public sector to be doing. But, what I do think is that because this process of experimentation in the productive sphere (what Ricardo Hausmann, my coauthor, and I call “self-discovery”) is a process which is rife with externalities and informational shortcomings, it is also one area where the government potentially has a role to play. And we summarize that role by way of this combination of “carrot and stick” policies. You need the carrot policies so that there is a positive incentive for private entrepreneurs, private investors, to start production and investments in non-traditional activities. That requires a positive inducement. It is not generally going to be undertaken in optimal amounts simply through free market forces, because this is a process which provides tremendous social externalities. The first investor in Colombia that discovered that cut flowers could be profitably exported to the United States, created tremendous social value. And, in fact, this innovation very rapidly dissipated itself to Colombia with many, many more entrepreneurs coming and starting to produce. Economic development is fundamentally a process of this kind where at least early on you need sufficient incentives in place for this investment in new activities to take place. That’s the carrot part of the
policy.

I think the stick part, and I think that’s closely related to the doubts you were raising about the possibilities of useful intervention, the stick part of the policy has to do with ensuring that such incentive policies do not deteriorate into effectively just protecting long. I think generally economists have said that governments cannot do this. I think when economists say that governments cannot do this, they are really, for the most part, really doing amateur political science. Because there is really very little systematic analysis of when and how, or if at all, governments have the capacity to do interventions of this sort.

I think it’s clear that this is not something you can recommend across the board. Typically, you have to look for parts of the government where there is bureaucratic competence, where there is professional expertise with certain amount of autonomy. And I think, where you have those, programs like these can be undertaken. It will never look the same way from one country to another. In some country it might be a public private venture fund; in another country it might be an export processing zone; in a third country it might be tax incentives or investments in new areas. Particularly, this will depend a lot on where the capacity in the system, in the public sector, is really located. But I think it’s just empirically not true that governments cannot do this, or that any attempt to do this is necessarily
doomed to failure.

And I should emphasize one more thing: often people react to such ideas by saying, “the government can never pick winners”. The argument is not that the government has the capacity to pick winners; it is a much weaker argument that says, “the government does not have the capacity to pick winners, often it will pick losers”, but, what we need to do is design institutions that at least give the government the capacity to let go of the losers.

Gobierno anuncia la iniciativa de crear la Agencia de Calidad de Políticas Públicas (Acpp).

En la sección de Economía y Negocios del mercurio de hoy, sale un artículo sobre esta nueva agencia.

La idea está dentro de las promesas de la campaña de la Presidenta Bachelet:
Hacienda anuncia la creación de una agencia para la calidad de proyectos

Jueves 21 de febrero de 2008
La subsecretaria de Hacienda, María Olivia Recart, dice que la Dipres quedó a cargo para llevar adelante esta iniciativa.Foto:MANUEL HERRERA

La iniciativa fue incluida en la agenda de probidad y debía estar lista hace un año. Ahora se enviará al Congreso recién en 2009.


EDUARDO OLIVARES C.

En la creación de una nueva entidad gubernamental trabajan el Ministerio de Hacienda con el Ministerio Secretaría General de la Presidencia (Segpres).

Se trata de la Agencia de Calidad de Políticas Públicas (Acpp), una de las promesas más remotas de la campaña de la Presidenta Michelle Bachelet. Según anuncia Hacienda, esta idea será finalmente elaborada a través de un proyecto de ley, cuyo envío al Congreso debería postergarse hasta 2009.

"Es un trabajo que ha avanzado bastante bien. Hay unas cuatro o cinco personas que están trabajando en esto", cuenta la subsecretaria de esta cartera, María Olivia Recart (ver entrevista). Aunque hay poca claridad sobre el contenido de la iniciativa, la propia Michelle Bachelet -como candidata- dio las pistas: debía evaluar el gasto, los programas y su pertinencia.

"Para construir una administración pública de excelencia, cada decisión de política pública debe estar adecuadamente respaldada por evidencia que asegure su eficacia", dijo en su programa. Una agencia que aborde ello, dotada de capacidades, facultades y recursos, garantizaría la eficacia y transparencia en la aplicación de los recursos públicos, continuó.

Avances

Hay tres avances que involucraría esta entidad, sostuvo. Primero, las evaluaciones se extenderán a proyectos, programas y políticas públicas.

Segundo, sus resultados incidirán en las decisiones presupuestarias y en las mismas políticas públicas. Y tercero, las metodologías incorporarán sistemas participativos, de modo que los afectados por un programa tengan voz en su diseño.

El lunes 8 de agosto de 2005, la entonces candidata Michelle Bachelet propuso, ante el Congreso, la instauración de esta agencia. Incluso esbozó que el proyecto de ley respectivo estaba listo y se enviaría a tramitación parlamentaria tras asumir en La Moneda. No fue así.

Un segundo intento ocurrió con el Consejo de Probidad. En su tercer paquete de medidas, presentadas en noviembre de 2006, decía que Hacienda trabajaba ya entonces en un proyecto legal al respecto, "con miras a ingresarlo en el primer semestre del año 2007". No hubo tal.

Aparentemente, esta idea fue incluida en el programa de la Presidenta Bachelet por Mario Marcel; pero, como él no se quedó en Hacienda, no fue prioritaria.

Además, la Dirección de Presupuestos ha fortalecido sus propios programas de evaluación y de impacto.

>> Subsecretaria Recart: "Esto no será antes de 2009"

-¿Quién está viendo lo de esta agencia en el Gobierno?

"Hay un comité de dos ministerios: Hacienda y la Secretaría General de la Presidencia (Segpres). Durante 2007 se elaboró un documento inicial de trabajo y hay varias tareas que hacer. El documento debiera ser completado durante este año para evaluar qué se hace hoy, dónde se está haciendo, qué cosas pueden unirse para crear sinergias, qué cosas faltan en las mejores prácticas y qué cosas están siendo implementadas en el mundo en este tipo de agencias. Debiera haber, hacia fines de 2008, alguna propuesta más terminada".

-¿Para convertirse en un proyecto de ley?

"Sí. Mi evaluación personal es que esto no será antes de 2009".

-¿Tendrían que unirse muchas atribuciones que hoy tiene la Dirección de Presupuestos?

"No es sólo la evaluación de programas, porque evaluación de programas hay de distinta naturaleza. Hay una evaluación de programas de control de gestión y hay una evaluación de programas de impacto. La que interesa desde el punto de vista más de políticas públicas de largo plazo es para impacto, y lo que uno debiera tener ahí hoy y ya lo estamos implementando, a modo piloto, es evaluar más programas públicos del Presupuesto".

"Con eso debiéramos tener la línea base. Después de que terminan los programas, uno debiera decir 'esto es lo que ha pasado, y, por lo tanto, aquí la política pública está bien o mal focalizada'. Ese tipo de evaluaciones las hace hoy la Dirección de Presupuestos junto con la del control de gestión, pero hay más evaluaciones: de metas ministeriales -que hace la Segpres- o del Sistema Nacional de Inversión -que hace Mideplan-, y esa mirada en conjunto es la que estamos poniendo hoy para diseñar o ver efectivamente qué es lo que contiene esta Agencia de Calidad de las Políticas Públicas".

-¿Quién está viendo esto aquí? ¿La subsecretaría o la Dirección de Presupuestos?

"La Dirección de Presupuestos".

Comentarios sobre Obama en The Economist

Barack Obama

But could he deliver?

Feb 14th 2008
From The Economist print edition


It is time for America to evaluate Obama the potential president, not Obama the phenomenon

EPA


THIS has been an extraordinary week for the man who could become America's first black president. Barack Obama has now won all eight of the primaries and caucuses held since Super Tuesday on February 5th, which ended, more or less, in a dead heat with Hillary Clinton. He has won by much larger margins than most people expected, trouncing his rival not just in heavily black states, such as Louisiana, but in ones that are almost completely white, such as Maine. On February 12th he took all three prizes in the “Potomac primary”—Washington, DC, Maryland and, by a socking 29-point margin, Virginia.

Mr Obama now has more pledged delegates than his rival—and he is likely to remain the front-runner for at least another three weeks (see article). Revealingly, Mrs Clinton made her Virginian concession speech from Texas—a state which votes alongside Ohio on March 4th and is already being billed as her last stand. Mr Obama is raising money at the rate of $1m a day, twice as fast as she is; indeed, she has been forced to lend her campaign $5m of her own cash and fire the two people who run her campaign (although her husband has a big say).

Whatever happens, Mr Obama is already that rare thing—a political phenomenon. It is not just that he has managed to survive the Clintons' crude onslaught with grace. He has persuaded huge numbers of people around the world to reconsider politics in an optimistic way. To many Americans, a black man who eschews both racial politics and the conservative-liberal divide is a chance to heal the country's two deepest divisions. To many foreigners, he represents an idealistic version of America—the hope of a more benevolent superpower. Although Mr Obama's slogan “Yes We Can” has been turned into a pop video, the theme of his campaign echoes the Clintons' old tune—“Don't stop thinking about tomorrow”.

Optimism is a powerful emotion, but as that song warned, “tomorrow will soon be here.” That is why the real questioning of Mr Obama should begin now. With the brief exception of those four heady days after the Iowa caucuses, he has never been a front-runner; now he will be more fully scrutinised. The immediate focus will be on the horse race: can he win? But the bigger issue, which has so far occupied too little attention, is this: what would a President Obama, as opposed to Phenomenon Obama, really mean for America and the world?



Yes, you can; but not immediately
Begin with the horse race. Mrs Clinton is in a bad way—and deservedly so. The Clintons have fought a leaden and nasty campaign; at present, the prospect of a “Billary presidency” (even before you take into account the dynastic Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton aspect) is hardly enthralling. But Mrs Clinton is tough and smart, and now her rival will be under the media microscope. In debates she trumps Mr Obama on mastery of detail—and the race could well be a long, grinding one, perhaps decided in the end by the 796 “super delegates” from the Democratic Party's establishment. These people have tended to be loyal to the Clintons—though many might defect if polls still showed Mr Obama doing better against John McCain.

Mr McCain, whose lock on the Republican nomination looks stronger than ever following his own triple victory in the Potomac primary, is another part of tomorrow Mr Obama's euphoric supporters might think about. The Republicans are a mess, and the elderly Arizonan senator has plainly failed to stir up his party's supporters in the same way as either of the main Democrats. But Mr McCain is a brave man, with huge experience of international affairs and a much longer record of reaching out to his opponents in politics. Why should independent voters, who have often backed Mr McCain in the past, turn to the less proven man?



Of magnets and magic dust
That question is partly answered by Obama the phenomenon. His immediate effect on international relations could be dramatic: a black president, partly brought up in a Muslim country, would transform America's image. And his youthful optimism could work at home too. After the bitterness of the Bush years, America needs a dose of unity: Mr Obama has a rare ability to deliver it. And the power of charisma should not be underrated, especially in the context of the American presidency which is, constitutionally, quite a weak office. The best presidents are like magnets below a piece of paper, invisibly aligning iron filings into a new pattern of their making. Anyone can get experts to produce policy papers. The trick is to forge consensus to get those policies enacted.

But what policies exactly? Mr Obama's voting record in the Senate is one of the most left-wing of any Democrat. Even if he never voted for the Iraq war, his policy for dealing with that country now seems to amount to little more than pulling out quickly, convening a peace conference, inviting the Iranians and the Syrians along and hoping for the best. On the economy, his plans are more thought out, but he often tells people only that they deserve more money and more opportunities. If one lesson from the wasted Bush years is that needless division is bad, another is that incompetence is perhaps even worse. A man who has never run any public body of any note is a risk, even if his campaign has been a model of discipline.

And the Obama phenomenon would not always be helpful, because it would raise expectations to undue heights. Budgets do not magically cut themselves, even if both parties are in awe of the president; the Middle East will not heal, just because a president's second name is Hussein. Choices will have to be made—and foes created even when there is no intention to do so. Indeed, something like that has already happened in his campaign. The post-racial candidate has ended up relying heavily on black votes (and in some places even highlighting the divide between Latinos and blacks).

None of this is to take away from Mr Obama's achievement—or to imply that he could not rise to the challenges of the job in hand. But there is a sense in which he has hitherto had to jump over a lower bar than his main rivals have. For America's sake (and the world's), that bar should now be raised—or all kinds of brutal disappointment could follow.