How Well Does Each State Do at Producing High-Achieving Students?

In concurrence with the release of a new report, this Webinar featured two of the report’s authors who presented a summary of the findings and took questions from the audience for discussion.

A report released on November 10, 2010 provides new information on the percentage of high-achieving students in the U.S. high school graduating class of 2009 in each of the 50 states, as compared to the percentage of high-achieving students in 56 other countries.... Read more about U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective

Mr. CHEN Yuan, Chairman of the China Development Bank
RSVP to Jesse Ledin at jesse_ledin@hks.harvard.edu or 617-495-7825

At this Ash center-sponsored seminar, Mr. CHEN Yuan will offer remarks about the role of development financial institutions in economic and social development. Ash Center Executive Director Julian Chang will moderate a Question and Answer session at the conclusion of the event.

Mr. CHEN Yuan is the chairman of the Board of Directors of the China Development Bank Corporation, which is one of the leading long-term financing institutions in the world.... Read more about The Role Played by Development Finance Institutions in Economic and Social Development

How South Korea Lifted Itself Out of Poverty and Dictatorship to Affluence and Democracy
Stein Ringen, University of Oxford

About the Seminar
There are two great mysteries in the political economy of South Korea. How could a destroyed country in next to no time become a sophisticated and affluent economy? And how could a ruthlessly authoritarian regime metamorphose with relative ease into a stable democratic polity?

Korean economic development has been, as is well known, state led. However, to make sense of that established wisdom, we need to understand in some detail how that state has worked and what kind of leadership it has provided. While authoritarianism was imposed with revolutionary means – two, arguably three, coups d’état – it ended without counter-revolution. Democracy did not require a dismantling of the state that had been built up during the dictatorship. There must be something in the structure of that state that enabled democratic rulers to take it over and readily work with it.... Read more about The Korean State

Demetrios Papademetriou, Migration Policy Institute

About the Seminar
The international migration system now implicates practically every country. The only projection one can make about the next two decades is that there will be more, rather than less, such migration. What is less certain is where most of the additional growth will take place – with middle-income countries being good candidates for much of that growth. But if the future is a bit uncertain, today’s reality is not: Wealthy countries have absorbed most of the growth in international migration for the past three decades.

This lecture will explore whether this is likely to continue or we have reached an “inflection point” on the type, direction, and size of migration, at least as far as the wealthy countries are concerned. It will then focus on the fundamental ways that recent migration has challenged the way receiving societies have organized themselves to incorporate the newcomers and their offspring.... Read more about Immigrant Inclusion: Governance Dilemmas Then, Now, and in the Next Two Decades

Innovations at the Intersection of Health Care, Democracy, and Civic Engagement
Rishi Manchanda, MD MPH, Founder & Chair, Rx Democracy 

About the Seminar
Health is essential to full participation in democracy and health care represents roughly one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Dr. Manchanda’s upcoming seminar is based on experience exploring and building the relationship between participatory democracy and health, including his work as the founder of a national nonpartisan network of health care providers called Rx Democracy, which advances civic engagement and registered over 26,000 voters in doctors’ offices and clinics in 2008. During the seminar, we will discuss challenges and innovations at the intersection of health care and democratic governance and consider next steps for research, practice, and policy.

Disease and disparities in health are the result of interactions between biological phenomena, poor living and working conditions, unhealthy behaviors, and limited access to quality health care, including routine primary care and prevention.... Read more about Rx Democracy