Over 200 delegates from 50 countries gather this week in Washington for the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship. The summit hosts entrepreneurs to teach and learn innovative ways to strengthen professional and social relationships between the U.S. and the Islamic world. During his first major address to the Muslim world, delivered in Cairo last June, President Obama pledged to increase engagement through entrepreneurship, exchange programs and multilateral service initiatives.

Volunteer-led development initiatives have begun to act on Obama’s call for citizen diplomacy and private-sector engagement. The Initiative on International Volunteering and Service at Brookings and the Building Bridges Coalition have fueled an emerging legislative initiative that calls for increasing the role of international volunteers in the U.S. diplomatic agenda and development programs. This Service World Initiative has drawn from Brookings research outlining options to advance the president’s call for multilateral service.

As seen last year, for the first time in history, the majority of the world’s population lived in urban areas. And this trend is accelerating at an unprecedented rate. By 2050, urban dwellers are expected to make up about 70 percent of Earth’s total population. These informed 21st century urban citizens demand 24-7 connectivity, smart electric grids, efficient transportation networks, safe food and water, and transparent social services. All these demands place a huge strain on existing city infrastructures and the global environment. Most affected by this rapid urban boom, are the emerging markets. So how do we tackle this development dilemma?

One way is for highly-skilled experts, from a range of countries, to volunteer their time in emerging markets to help improve economic development, government services and stimulate job growth. This type of pro-bono program has many benefits. It benefits the urban areas in these emerging markets by leveraging intelligence, connecting systems and providing near-term impact on critical issues such as transportation, water, food safety, education and healthcare. It benefits the expert volunteers by fostering their teamwork skills, providing a cultural learning experience, and broadening their expertise in emerging markets.

IBM, which chairs the Building Bridges Coalition’s corporate sector, hosts a range of volunteer-led global entrepreneurship programs that improve economic stability for small- and medium-sized businesses, increase technology in emerging markets and open doors for the next generation of business and social leaders. This program connects high-talent employees with growing urban centers around the world and fosters the type of leadership to help IBM in the 21st century.

Recently, IBM sent a group of experts to Ho Chi Minh City as part of its Corporate Service Corps, a business version of the Peace Corps. This was the first Corporate Service Corps mission to be made up of executives, and the first to help a city in an emerging market analyze its challenges holistically and produce a plan to manage them. As a result, the city has now adopted a 10-year redevelopment plan that includes seven pilot programs in areas ranging from transportation to food safety. IBM will also help the city set up academic programs to prepare young Vietnamese to launch careers in technology services. IBM will continue this program throughout the next couple years to evolve the next set of global business and cultural hubs utilizing the volunteer hours of some of its most seasoned experts.

The Presidential Summit this week will further Obama’s call to “turn dialogue into interfaith service, so bridges between peoples lead to action.” The policy initiative of the Building Bridges Coalition, coupled with entrepreneurial innovations such as IBMs, can foster greater prosperity and service between the U.S. and our global partners.

      

       

       

       

       

       

I want to begin by saying how grateful we were at Brookings to partner with the Federal Reserve System on this concentrated poverty project. We like to think that at Brookings we know a lot about this subject, but it was only through this partnership with the Fed that we were able to ground this understanding in the experiences of the 16 communities across the United States that were the focus of the report’s case studies.

The report demonstrates that in addition to managing the macroeconomy, the Fed also possesses a unique and powerful understanding of the U.S. economy from the ground up, which is absolutely necessary for designing smart policy in turbulent times like these.

I want to also give special thanks to my colleagues David Erickson and Carolina Reid at the San Francisco Fed. They played several roles in this project for me: intellectual partners, co-conspirators, mood lighteners, and Fed sherpas. It can be tough for foreigners like myself to navigate this system, and they lightened my load throughout the project. I also want to thank my Brookings colleague Elizabeth Kneebone, who performed a lot of the data analysis for this project.

I want to argue three points, largely policy points, in my remarks this morning.

First, the current economic climate makes the issue of concentrated poverty, and our response, more relevant, not less.

Second, major near-term investments our country makes to resolve the economic crisis can and should provide meaningful opportunities for the most disadvantaged families and communities.

And third, our longer-run efforts to assist high-poverty areas and their residents must take account of the economic challenges and opportunities that manifest at the regional, metropolitan level.

To begin, let’s review where we were when the Fed and Brookings joined forces on this effort in May 2006.

• The unemployment rate was 4.7 percent, a five-year low.
• Payrolls were expanding every month for the third consecutive year.
• The poverty rate, while still above its low in 2000, was dropping.
• The federal deficit was a relatively manageable 2% of GDP.
• The Dow was above 11,000, and on its way up.
• And the 2008 general election promised a storied matchup between party favorites Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.

A lot can happen in 30 months!

In the wake of record house-price declines and financial market fallout, the economic outlook today is grim. The unemployment rate is 6.5 percent and rising. One projection suggests that the downturn could eventually increase the ranks of the nation’s poor by anywhere from 7 to 10 million. And amid declining revenues and increased expenditure needs, the U.S. budget deficit is expected to top $1 trillion this year.

In short, the situation for the lowest-income communities and their residents is not encouraging.

And neither is our starting point.

As Paul Jargowsky’s research has shown, the incidence of concentrated poverty in America dropped markedly during the 1990s, after two decades of increase. Some combination of a tight labor market and policy changes to promote work and break up the deepest concentrations of poverty seemed responsible for that decline.

But as Elizabeth and I found in a recent Brookings report, we may have given back much of that progress during the first half of this decade. The population in what we termed “high working poverty” communities rose by 40 percent between 1999 and 2005. This suggests that America’s high-poverty areas may have never really recovered from the modest downturn we experienced at the beginning of the decade.

Now, with all the turmoil in our economy, it would be easy to lose sight of these places and their residents, who even seem to have missed out on the benefits of recent growth.

But if we are to meet the enormous challenges facing our country—economic, social, and environmental—we simply can’t afford to take a blind eye to the continuing problem of concentrated poverty.

As decades of research and this report have shown, concentrated poverty magnifies the problems faced by the poor, and exacts a significant toll on the lives of families in its midst.

This report greatly enhances our understanding of how high-poverty communities of all stripes bear these costs. Moreover, it suggests that the contemporary circumstances of these communities owe not just to long-term market dynamics, but also to policy choices made over several decades’ time—some deliberate in their intent, and some producing unfortunate unintended consequences.

Today we’re at an important inflection point for policy. With the economy souring, we don’t have the luxury of using an “auto-pilot” strategy of macroeconomic growth to reach the most disadvantaged places and their residents. Quite the opposite—just as these communities are often “last in” for economic opportunity during boom times, they seem to be “first out” when things shift into reverse.

But the specific nature of the current crisis also poses added challenges for high-poverty communities.

That is because many of these areas were ground zero for risky subprime lending over the last several years. In many of the case-study communities in the report, half or more of recent home mortgages were high-cost subprime loans.

Now, they are on the front lines of the fallout. Our calculations of HUD data show that census tracts where the poverty rate was at least 40 percent in 2000—the conventional definition behind concentrated poverty—have an estimated foreclosure rate over 9 percent, roughly double the nationwide average.

This poses both an immediate and a long-term threat to what little stability these communities possess.

Over the short term, these areas face problems associated with heightened property neglect, vacancy, and abandonment. Not only can those conditions breed crime and disorder, but also they can accelerate a process of further disinvestment from high-poverty neighborhoods, which are all too familiar with that cycle of decline.

Over the long run, the public sector will work to return foreclosed properties in these neighborhoods to productive use. But there is a danger that we may once again re-concentrate poverty in these neighborhoods if these assets are not managed and deployed strategically.

In sum, recent trends and a perilous road ahead merit a meaningful policy response to the challenges facing areas of concentrated poverty and their residents.

This brings me to my second point, which is that near-term policy choices can ameliorate the impacts of the current crisis on areas of concentrated poverty.

In less than 50 days, a new administration will take office in Washington, facing economic challenges of a scale not seen in decades.

The president-elect and his advisors have signaled that they are ready to “do what it takes” to stimulate the economy, create and protect jobs, and catalyze investment in new sectors to spur longer-term growth.

I believe that policies advanced by the new administration and Congress in the first few weeks of the new year, if designed and executed well, could matter greatly for the fortunes of the nation’s high-poverty communities.

First, a comprehensive strategy to deal with the foreclosure crisis is sorely needed. This would feature, first and foremost, a broad plan to forestall the rising tide of mortgages, including many in high-poverty communities, headed for default due to falling home prices, economic dislocation, and poor underwriting.

However, even a sweeping, generous approach will not prevent the inevitable. Especially in high-poverty areas, more loans will fall into foreclosure, more people will lose their homes, and fiscally-strapped local governments will be left to manage the consequences of increasing vacancy and abandonment.

The Neighborhood Stabilization Program enacted by Congress and the Bush administration during the summer of 2008 represents an initial effort to arm state and local leaders with the resources to tackle the neighborhood impacts of rising foreclosures.

But significant deterioration of the economy in the intervening months suggests that the problem may now be of a much larger scale than was originally anticipated. What’s more, many local governments lack the capacity, expertise, and legal authorities to use existing or additional resources strategically.

So the new administration, and HUD in particular, will need to consider a further round of response—using some mix of fiscal, regulatory, capacity-building, and bully pulpit powers—to help cash-strapped local governments mitigate the impacts of foreclosure on their most vulnerable communities.

Second, there seems to be wide agreement that the economic recovery package should include a series of measures that inject money into the economy right away.

So the package will provide immediate assistance to families, communities, and governments hit hard by the downturn, in the likely form of extended unemployment and increased food stamp benefits, increased state and local aid, and low- to middle-income tax cuts, spending designed to make a real economic impact in the next several months.

A couple of details here are of real consequence to communities of concentrated poverty.

• Income tax cuts included in the package should be refundable, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC. Boosting the EITC, for instance, would provide additional help to workers most likely to be hit hard by the downturn, and target resources to families most likely to spend the additional cash immediately. As the report shows, at least 30 percent, and as many as 60 percent, of families in the case-study communities today benefit from the EITC.
• Unemployment insurance benefits should be extended, but also modernized. As the case studies showed, work among residents of high-poverty communities is often seasonal or part-time, even in a good economy. As a result, many laid-off workers from poor areas in several states may not qualify for benefits due to outmoded eligibility rules. Therefore, in addition to extending weeks of eligibility for UI, Congress and the new administration might also consider providing incentives to states to expand the pool of workers who could benefit from the program during the downturn.

Third, infrastructure will clearly figure prominently among the spending priorities in the recovery package.

Yet there is a significant risk that focusing dollars primarily on projects that states deem “shovel-ready,” as has been discussed, will repeat mistakes of the past. It would primarily subsidize road-building at the metropolitan fringe, and do little to enhance long-run economic growth, or provide better opportunities for low-income people and the places they live.

Infrastructure investments of the magnitude under consideration must not only create jobs, but also promote inclusive and sustainable growth. That means setting strict criteria for federal investment, including a real assessment of costs and benefits that considers economic, environmental, and social impacts. As the report shows, poor infrastructure often acts as a barrier to the economic integration of high-poverty communities into their larger municipal and regional areas.

To that end, we should also consider providing direct support for large, cash-strapped municipal governments that they could use to modernize and preserve roads, bridges, transit, water, sewer, and perhaps even broadband infrastructure. At the same time, we should hold them and grantees at all other levels of government accountable for connecting younger, disadvantaged workers and communities to the jobs that result.

In short, what happens in the first several weeks of the new year here in Washington could, if structured properly, provide meaningful support and opportunity for low-income areas and their residents. At a minimum, this might avert the sort of backsliding these communities suffered during the much milder recession we experienced earlier this decade.

So that brings me to my third and final point, which is that, over the longer term, we must advance policies that actively link the fortunes of poor communities to those of their regional neighbors. As you probably heard or read, our division at Brookings is named the “Metropolitan Policy Program.”

Our mission is to provide decision makers with cutting-edge research and policy ideas for improving the health and prosperity of cities and metropolitan areas.

You might ask, why metropolitan? After all, this is not a term that most Americans use, think about, or even recognize, even though 85 percent of us live in metropolitan areas. A friend of the program once told us that it sounded like a combination of “metrosexual” and “cosmopolitan.” Not exactly what we were going for.

More specifically, what relevance does “metropolitan” have for addressing the challenges of concentrated poverty?

Well, the report points to skills and employability problems that hold back residents of high-poverty communities. If the route to improving the lives of families affected by concentrated poverty runs in part through the labor market, then we must devise strategies and solutions that respect and respond to the geography of that market—which is metropolitan.

The report also points to housing problems, of various stripes, that segregate the poor in these communities and make their daily lives more difficult. Housing markets, too, are metropolitan—and housing dynamics in the wealthiest parts of each metro are inextricably linked to those in the poorest parts.

The fact is, our national economy—and that of most industrialized nations—is largely the aggregate of its individual metropolitan economies. In the United States, the 100 largest metro areas account for 12 percent of our land mass, hold 65 percent of our residents, and generate three-quarters of our Gross Domestic Product. They possess even greater shares of our innovative businesses, our most knowledgeable workers, the critical infrastructure that connects us to the global economy, and the quality places that attract, retain, and enhance the productivity of workers and firms.

And as the report shows, regions—both metropolitan and non-metropolitan—each retain distinctive clusters that shape their individual contributions to the national economic pie. Photonics in Rochester. Hospitality and tourism in Atlantic City and Miami. Manufacturing in Albany, Georgia. Agriculture and business services in Central California. These clusters do not possess equal strength or equal potential, but they define the starting point for thinking about the regional economic future of these areas, and economic opportunities for their residents.

Not only are the assets of our economy fundamentally metropolitan… increasingly, our challenges are, too. In 2006, we found that for the first time, more than half of the poor in metropolitan America lived in suburbs, not cities. While poor suburban families don’t yet concentrate at the levels seen in the communities in this report, they are trending in this direction. Between 1999 and 2005, the number of suburban tax filers living in “moderate” working poverty communities rose by nearly 50 percent.

So what does recognition of our metropolitan reality imply for longer-run policies to help the poorest communities and their residents?

Bruce has argued elsewhere that our nation must embrace a new, unified framework for addressing the needs of poor neighborhoods and their residents. He has termed this, Creating Neighborhoods of Choice and Connection. Neighborhoods of choice are communities in which lower-income people can both find a place to start, and as their incomes rise, a place to stay. They are also communities to which people of higher incomes can move, for their distinctiveness, amenities, or location. This requires an acceptance of economic integration as a goal of housing and neighborhood policy.

Neighborhoods of connection are communities that link families to opportunity, wherever in the metropolis that opportunity might be located. This requires a much more profound commitment to the “educational offer” in these communities and the larger areas of which they are a part. It also requires a pragmatic vision of the “geography of opportunity” with regard to jobs, housing, and other choices.

If we take this vision seriously, then our interventions must operate within, and relate to, the metro geography of our economy. This means viewing the conditions and prospects of poor areas through the lens of the broader economic regions of which they are a part, and explicitly gearing policy in that direction.

A simple example relates to the geography of work. In the Springfield, Massachusetts metro area, roughly 30 percent of the region’s jobs still cluster in the neighborhoods close to downtown, including Old Hill and Six Corners. In the Miami metro area, by contrast, only 9 percent of the region’s jobs lie close to its downtown, implying transportation needs of a quite different scale for Little Haiti’s residents. In response, we should empower metropolitan transportation planners to address the unique nature of these spatial divides, and measure their performance on creating inclusive systems that overcome them.

This metro lens applies to workforce development as well. Labor market intermediaries are some of the most promising mechanisms for bridging the information and skills divide between poor communities and regional economic opportunity. One of the highest performers, the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, works in the home region of one of our case-study communities, Milwaukee. If workforce policies and funding at all levels of government were to emphasize employer partnerships, provide greater flexibility, and reward performance, we could grow more capable institutions like these that serve the needs of low-income communities and regional firms alike.

A metro perspective can apply to school reform as well. We have called for a new focus at the Department of Education on supporting proven, successful educational entrepreneurs—charter management organizations like KIPP, human capital providers like Teach for America, student support organizations like College Summit. The demand for these entrepreneurial solutions extends well beyond the highest-poverty neighborhoods. Federal education policy should consider investing in these entrepreneurs at the metropolitan scale, to aggregate a critical mass of those organizations, serve a significant percentage of the area’s children, and drive positive changes in the entire public education environment.

Finally, our housing policies must embrace metro-wide economic diversity, which is a hallmark of neighborhoods of choice and connection.

This means expanding housing opportunities for middle-income families in deprived neighborhoods. We simply cannot continue to cluster low-income housing in already low-income areas, perpetuating the sort of economic segregation evident in so many of the case-study communities, and thereby consign another generation to a childhood amid concentrated poverty. Likewise, we must guard against the possibility that the current foreclosure crisis leads to a re-concentration of poor households in neighborhoods that were just beginning to achieve greater economic diversity.

But this is a two-way street. It also means creating more high-quality housing opportunities for low-income families in growing suburban job centers. Requiring or providing incentives to metropolitan areas to engage in regional housing planning, alongside regional transportation planning, may be a necessary first step. Those plans could also apply a more rational screen to the development choices that have fueled sprawl, and thereby added to the social and economic isolation of the lowest-income communities.

Let me end where I began.

This is both an auspicious and a challenging moment at which to wrestle with the problem of concentrated poverty in America.

Auspicious in that we are approaching the dawn of a new government in Washington that has signaled concern for our nation’s low-income residents and communities, recognition that metropolitan economies are the engines of our prosperity, and a pragmatic commitment to doing what works.

Challenging in that making progress against concentrated poverty, and improving opportunity for those in its midst, is a tall order when the macroeconomy isn’t cooperating.

But the current economic climate is not an excuse to avoid this problem; rather, it’s an imperative to act, strategically and purposefully.

That means doing the big near-term things the right way, so that low-income communities and their residents do not bear an excessive brunt of the downturn, and so that they participate meaningfully in our eventual economic recovery.

And it means getting the long-term vision right, so that policy advances sustainable, metro-led solutions that connect poor neighborhoods and poor families to opportunity in the wider economy around them.

The Federal Reserve System has tremendous, well-earned credibility for understanding and advancing dialogue around the future of our nation’s economic regions. I look forward to continuing to work with the Fed to increase public understanding of concentrated poverty, and to make tackling it a crucial element of strategies to promote regional and national prosperity.

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One of Cleveland's neighborhoods made the Washington scene earlier this month.

Alas, it wasn't up for a multibillion-dollar bailout.

Instead, the Central neighborhood and 15 other communities across the United States were the centerpiece of a new report published by the Federal Reserve System and the Brookings Institution.

These communities share a simple, disappointing characteristic. In 2000 - the peak of the last economic boom - at least 40 percent of their residents lived below the federal poverty line. That was about three times the national average.

No American needs to look very far to find places like these. Concentrated poverty affects manufacturing cities like Cleveland, and Albany, Ga.; immigrant gateways like Miami, Fla., and Fresno, Calif.; and rural areas like eastern Kentucky and northern Montana. About 4 million poor Americans live in these areas of extremely high poverty.

How did this happen? Policy decisions made decades ago - like clustering thousands of the Cleveland region's public housing units in the Central neighborhood - helped shape their trajectory. So too did economic changes, like the long-run loss of decent-paying manufacturing jobs, or - in rural areas - mining and agricultural jobs.

By allowing poverty to concentrate in these places, we've magnified the problems their poor residents face. For instance, many low-income children in these communities start school not yet "ready to learn." On top of that, though, they attend schools burdened with lots of other poor kids who face similar challenges, and deal with higher levels of neighborhood crime that affect their mental health and educational performance.

The challenges of concentrated poverty extend to many other areas: low adult work-force skills and employment, poor-quality housing and a lack of investment by mainstream businesses.

And that's in a good economy. Today, Central - and thousands of other high-poverty communities like it across the nation - faces even more significant challenges as the United States enters what may be its worst recession in decades.

So what should Washington do for these places and their residents in the face of such difficult circumstances?

First, we must not lose sight of them in the economic turmoil. That's especially true because the roots of this crisis, in the subprime mortgage market, grew in many very poor neighborhoods like Central. As a result, home foreclosure rates in high-poverty communities are more than double the national average.

To stabilize these hard-hit communities, Washington must adopt new measures to prevent foreclosure and provide additional resources and guidance for state and local governments to help them cope with the rising numbers of vacant properties.

Second, a forthcoming economic stimulus package from Washington that could amount to half a trillion dollars or more should not bypass these neighborhoods and their residents.

That implies the need for immediate federal aid to sustain basic public services in states like Ohio, where the deficit for this year already tops $1 billion. It also suggests providing direct assistance to struggling workers and their families, through enhanced unemployment benefits and tax credits.

At the same time, the infrastructure dollars in the package - which could amount to more than $100 billion - must be spent strategically. States should not be permitted to go on expanding highway capacity at the metropolitan fringe, to the detriment of poor communities near the urban core. Cities like Cleveland, and metropolitan organizations like the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, should get their fair share of new transportation funds. And funds should be set aside for training programs that provide low-income residents with a pathway to decent jobs.

Third, we have to rethink neighborhood policy over the longer term.

For too long, government has funded housing, schools and economic development in these communities as though they were islands unto themselves.

That's not how the real economy works. These neighborhoods are part of larger regional labor and housing markets. Decisions made across the Cleveland region, such as where firms locate new jobs, or where families buy homes and send their kids to school, ultimately dictate whether neighborhoods like Central can become real neighborhoods of choice and better connected to economic opportunity.

Public policy must leverage that real economy for the benefit of lower-income residents, by building on smart regional strategies like the Fund for Our Economic Future and WIRE-Net in Northeast Ohio. It should diversify housing in poor communities, but also encourage affordable housing development in wealthier parts of metropolitan areas.

Cleveland's Central neighborhood, like other high-poverty communities across the United States, faces a tough road ahead. Short-term opportunities, and long-term strategies, are needed to help its next generation of residents overcome the challenges of concentrated poverty.

      

As the first decade of the 2000s drew to a close, the two downturns that bookended the period, combined with slow job growth between, clearly took their toll on the nation’s less fortunate residents.

Over a ten-year span, the country saw the poor population grow by 12.3 million, driving the total number of Americans in poverty to a historic high of 46.2 million. By the end of the decade, over 15 percent of the nation’s population lived below the federal poverty line—$22,314 for a family of four in 2010—though these increases did not occur evenly throughout the country.

An analysis of data on neighborhood poverty from the 2005–09 American Community Surveys and Census 2000 reveals that:

After declining in the 1990s, the population in extreme-poverty neighborhoods—where at least 40 percent of individuals live below the poverty line—rose by one-third from 2000 to 2005–09. By the end of the period, 10.5 percent of poor people nationwide lived in such neighborhoods, up from 9.1 percent in 2000, but still well below the 14.1 percent rate in 1990.

Concentrated poverty nearly doubled in Midwestern metro areas from 2000 to 2005–09, and rose by one-third in Southern metro areas. The Great Lakes metro areas of Toledo, Youngstown, Detroit, and Dayton ranked among those experiencing the largest increases in concentrated poverty rates, while the South was home to metro areas posting both some of the largest increases (El Paso, Baton Rouge, and Jackson) and decreases (McAllen, Virginia Beach, and Charleston). At the same time, concentrated poverty declined in Western metro areas, a trend which may have reversed in the wake of the late 2000s housing crisis.

The population in extreme-poverty neighborhoods rose more than twice as fast in suburbs as in cities from 2000 to 2005–09. The same is true of poor residents in extreme-poverty tracts, who increased by 41 percent in suburbs, compared to 17 percent in cities. However, poor people in cities remain more than four times as likely to live in concentrated poverty as their suburban counterparts.

The shift of concentrated poverty to the Midwest and South in the 2000s altered the average demographic profile of extreme-poverty neighborhoods. Compared to 2000, residents of extreme-poverty neighborhoods in 2005–09 were more likely to be white, native-born, high school or college graduates, homeowners, and not receiving public assistance. However, black residents continued to comprise the largest share of the population in these neighborhoods (45 percent), and over two-thirds of residents had a high school diploma or less.

The recession-induced rise in poverty in the late 2000s likely further increased the concentration of poor individuals into neighborhoods of extreme poverty. While the concentrated poverty rate in large metro areas grew by half a percentage point between 2000 and 2005–09, estimates suggest the concentrated poverty rate rose by 3.5 percentage points in 2010 alone, to reach 15.1 percent. Some of the steepest estimated increases compared to 2005–09 occurred in Sun Belt metro areas like Cape Coral, Fresno, Modesto, and Palm Bay, and in Midwestern places like Indianapolis, Grand Rapids, and Akron.

These trends suggest the strong economy of the late 1990s did not permanently resolve the challenge of concentrated poverty. The slower economic growth of the 2000s, followed by the worst downturn in decades, led to increases in neighborhoods of extreme poverty once again throughout the nation, particularly in suburban and small metropolitan communities and in the Midwest. Policies that foster balanced and sustainable economic growth at the regional level, and that forge connections between growing clusters of low-income neighborhoods and regional economic opportunity, will be key to longer-term progress against concentrated disadvantage.

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Gentrification – the migration of wealthier people into poorer neighborhoods – is a contentious issue in most American cities. Many fear that even if gentrification helps a city in broad terms, for instance by improving the tax base, it will be bad news for low-income residents who are hit by rising rents or even displacement. But this received wisdom is only partially true.

The Problem of Concentrated Poverty

A recent study published by City Observatory, an urban policy think-tank, and written by economist and former Brookings scholar Joseph Cortright with Dillon Mahmoudi , challenges this prevailing pessimism.  Examining population and income changes between 1970 and 2010 in the largest cities, they find that the poverty concentration, rather than gentrification, is the real problem for the urban poor.  

Cortright and Mahmoudi examine more than 16,000 census tracts[1] – small, relatively stable, statistical subdivisions (smaller than the zip code), of a city – within ten miles of the central business districts of the 51 largest cities. Their key findings are:

1. High-poverty neighborhoods tripled between 1970 and 2010: The number of census tracts considered “high-poverty” rose from around 1,100 in 1970 to 3,100 in 2010. Surprisingly, of these newly-impoverished areas, more than half were healthy neighborhoods in 1970, before descending into “high-poverty” status by 2010. Our Brookings colleague Elizabeth Kneebone has documented similar patterns in the concentration of poverty around large cities.
2. Poverty is persistent: Two-thirds of the census tracts defined as “high-poverty” in 1970 (with greater than 30% of residents living below the poverty line), were still “high-poverty” areas in 2010. And another one-quarter of neighborhoods escaped “high-poverty” but remained poorer than the national average (about 15% of population below FPL )
3. Few high-poverty neighborhoods escape poverty: Only about 9 percent of the census tracts that were “high-poverty” in 1970 rebounded to levels of poverty below the national average in 2010.

The Damage of Concentrated Poverty

Being poor is obviously bad, but being poor in a really poor neighborhood is even worse. The work of urban sociologists like Harvard’s Robert J. Sampson and New York University’s Patrick Sharkey  highlights how persistent, concentrated neighborhood disadvantage has damaging effects on children that continue throughout a lifetime, often stifling upward mobility across generations.  When a community experiences uniform and deep poverty, with most streets characterized by dilapidated housing, failing schools, teenage pregnancy and heavy unemployment, it appears to create a culture of despair that can permanently blight a young person’s future.

Gentrification: Potentially Benign Disruption

So what has been the impact of gentrification in the few places where it has occurred? There is some evidence, crisply summarized in a recent article by John Buntin in Slate, that it might not be all bad news in terms of poverty. A degree of gentrification can begin to break up the homogenous poverty of neighborhoods in ways that can be good for all residents. New wealthier residents may demand improvements in schools and crime control. Retail offerings and services may improve for all residents – and bring new jobs, too. Gentrifiers can change neighborhoods in ways that begin to counteract the effects of uniform, persistent poverty.  On the other hand, gentrification can hurt low-income households by disrupting the social fabric of neighborhoods and potentially “pricing out” families. It depends on how it’s done. We’ll turn to that tomorrow. 

       

Poverty is heavily concentrated in a growing number of urban neighborhoods, which as we argued yesterday, is bad news for social mobility. By breaking up semi-permanent poverty patterns, a degree of gentrification can bring in new resources, energy and opportunities.

Gentrification and poverty: A contested relationship

As we noted yesterday, work by Cortright and Mahmoudi suggests that almost 10% of high-poverty neighborhoods escaped the poverty trap between 1970 and 2010—especially in Chicago, New York, and Washington D.C. Is this good or bad news for the residents of these formerly very poor neighborhoods?

Researchers disagree: the standard fear, supported by a considerable body of qualitative research, is that low-income families will be priced out and displaced out of improving neighborhoods. But there is growing evidence in the economics literature that casts doubt on prevailing views about the risks of displacement. These neighborhoods may become mixed neighborhoods rather than switching from homogenously poor to homogenously wealthy. This could be good news for the poor households who are now living in non-poor areas.

Gentrification: It depends how you do it

Whether gentrification benefits the poor depends in part on the nature of the process. Gentrification is not all the same. Gentrification can mean “walled-up” and gated communities for the wealthy and it can sometimes create damaging disruptions in the tenuous social fabric of neighborhoods, such that there are few beneficial spillover effects of from gentrification.

So while many neighborhoods previously mired in poverty may experience positive impacts from gentrification, others may be directly hurt by it. According to an extensive literature review by the Urban Institute, the impact of living in mixed-income communities for low-income families varies quite widely. Low-income families tend to benefit from improvements in neighborhood services, but the effects on their education and economic outcomes are unclear.   

Some cities, such as Washington DC, have started using their regulatory powers to require developers to preserve or expand modest-income housing alongside higher-priced housing. It is too early to assess the impact of these programs so, but such “smart” gentrification policies may be a good strategy to turn around chronically poor neighborhoods in ways that benefit the original population.

One advantage of the migration of wealthier people into depressed neighborhoods is the restoration and use of dilapidated buildings, which can have positive spillover effects throughout the community. But there are other ways to achieve this, including investments in charter or community schools and other community institutions that then become “hubs” for a range of medical and other services, as well as improved education.

Gentrification certainly comes with attendant dangers for low-income families, which policy makers should be on guard against. But it comes with potential benefits too, so we should be careful about simply “protecting” neighborhoods from the process.  Policies and regulations that insulate impoverished neighborhoods from gentrification could end up condemning these communities to yet another generation of deep poverty and segregation. 

       

       

       

       

The Central African Republic (CAR), a landlocked country roughly the size of Texas, has endured a nearly constant state of political crisis since its independence from France in 1960. In fact, in the post-colonial era, the CAR has experienced only 10 years of rule under a democratically elected leader, Ange-Félix Patassé, from 1993 to 2003. Four of the CAR’s past five presidents have been removed from power through unconstitutional means, and each of these transitions has been marred by political instability and violence. Fragile attempts to build democratic political institutions and establish the rule of law have been undermined by coups, mutinies, and further lawlessness, making cycles of violence tragically the norm in the CAR.

The country’s current crisis (2012–present) stems from political tensions and competition for power between the predominantly Muslim Séléka rebel coalition and the government of President Francois Bozizé, as well as unresolved grievances from the CAR’s last conflict (2006–2007). Since the Séléka’s overthrow of the government in March 2013 and concurrent occupation of large areas of the country, the conflict has evolved to encompass an ethno-religious dimension: So-called Christian defense militias named the anti-balaka emerged to counter the Séléka alliance, but in effect sought revenge against the CAR’s Muslim minority (about 15 percent of the population), including civilians. During a March 2014 trip to the Central African Republic, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay remarked that “the inter-communal hatred remains at a terrifying level,” as reports of atrocities and pre-genocidal indicators continued to surface. Even today, horrific crimes against civilians are still being committed at a frightening frequency in one of the poorest countries in the world: The CAR has a per capita GNI of $588 and a ranking of 185 out of 187 on 2013’s United Nations Human Development Index.

Amid the escalating insecurity in 2013, African Union (AU), French, and European forces were deployed under the auspices of the African-led International Support Mission in Central Africa (MISCA) to disarm militant groups and protect civilians at a critical juncture in December, and their efforts contributed to the relative stabilization of the capital in early 2014. Meanwhile, in January 2014, Séléka leaders relinquished power to a transitional government led by former mayor of Bangui, Catherine Samba-Panza, who was then tasked with preparing for national elections and establishing security throughout the country. In September 2014, the United Nations incorporated the MISCA forces into the larger Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) and then in 2015 extended and reinforced its presence through 2016, in response to the ongoing violence. Despite the international military intervention and efforts of the transitional authorities to address the pervasive insecurity, reprisal killings continue and mobile armed groups still freely attack particularly remote, rural areas in the central and western regions of the country. The unguarded, porous borders have also allowed rebel forces and criminal elements to flee into distant areas of neighboring countries, including Chad and South Sudan, in order to prepare their attacks and return to the CAR.

This paper will explore the origins of the complex emergency affecting the CAR, with a particular focus on the economic causes and potential economic strategies for its resolution. It will begin by providing an overview of the core issues at stake and enumerating the driving and sustaining factors perpetuating the violence. Then it will discuss the consequences of the conflict on the humanitarian, security, political, and economic landscape of the CAR. Finally, it will highlight strategies for addressing the underlying issues and persisting tensions in the CAR to begin building a durable peace, arguing that the national authorities and international partners adopt a holistic approach to peace building that prioritizes inclusive economic recovery given the economic roots of the crisis.

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Policy Brief #175

As the nation strives to recover from the “Great Recession,” job creation remains one of the biggest challenges to renewed prosperity. Small businesses have been among the most powerful generators of new jobs historically, suggesting the value of a stronger focus on supporting small businesses—especially high-growth firms—and encouraging entrepreneurship. Choosing the right policies will require public and private decision-makers to establish clear goals, such as increasing employment, raising the overall return on investment, and generating innovations with broader benefits for society. Good mechanisms will also be needed for gauging their progress and ultimate success. This brief examines policy recommendations to strengthen the small business sector and provide a platform for effective programs. These recommendations draw heavily from ideas discussed at a conference held at the Brookings Institution with academic experts, successful private-sector entrepreneurs, and government policymakers, including leaders from the Small Business Administration. The gathering was intended to spur the development of creative solutions in the private and public sectors to foster lasting economic growth.

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	What incentives and assistance could be made available to “gazelles” and to small business more generally? What policies are likely to work most effectively? In the near term, government policies aimed at bolstering the recovery and further strengthening the financial system will help small businesses that have been hard hit by the economic downturn. Spurred by the interchange of ideas at a Brookings forum on small businesses, we have identified the following more targeted ideas for fostering the health and growth of small businesses (and, in many cases, larger businesses) over the longer run: Improve access to public and private capital. Reexamine corporate tax policy with an eye toward whether provisions of our tax code are discouraging small business development. Promote education to help businesses struggling with shortages of workers with particular skills, and promote research to spur innovation. Rethink immigration policy, as current policy may be contributing to shortages of key workers and deterring entrepreneurs who wish to start promising businesses in our country. Explore ways to foster “innovation-friendly” environments, such as regional cluster initiatives. Strengthen government counseling programs.

The term “small business” applies to many different types of firms. To begin, the small business community encompasses an enormous range of “Main Street” stores and services we use every day, such as restaurants, dry cleaners, card shops and lawn care providers. When such a business fails, it is often replaced by a similar firm. The small business community also includes somewhat bigger firms—in industries such as manufacturing, consulting, advertising and auto sales—that may have more staying power than Main Street businesses, but still tend to stay relatively small, with under 250 employees. While these two kinds of small businesses contribute relatively little to overall employment growth, they are a steady source of mainstream employment. If economic conditions do not support the formation of new businesses to replace the ones that fail, there would be a significant net destruction of jobs and harm to local communities.

Yet another type of small business has an explicit ambition for rapid growth. These high-growth companies are sometimes known as “gazelles.” According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses account for two-thirds of new jobs, and the gazelles account for much of this job creation. The most striking examples—such as Google and eBay—have tended to be in high-tech industries and were gazelles for a significant time before they graduated to be very large businesses. However, gazelles exist in all industry types and in all regions of the country, and the large majority are not grazing in the nation’s technology-dominated Silicon Valleys. According to one expert, the three largest industry categories for high-growth companies are restaurant chains, administrative services and health care companies. One non-high-tech example is Potbelly Sandwiches, a restaurant chain that began in Chicago. Another is the San Francisco-based Gymboree Corporation, a provider of child development programs and children’s clothing.

 

Fostering the Development of High-Growth Companies

High-growth small businesses represent only about 5 percent of total startups, making it important to determine how to spot and foster them. A key common characteristic is that growth is critically dependent on the entrepreneurs who start these companies; they are people on a mission, charismatic leaders who can inspire creativity and commitment from their staffs.

The age of these firms is highly correlated with when their growth is highest. Generally, the most dramatic growth occurs after at least four years of existence—and coincidentally lasts about four years—before it slows again to a more typical pace for small businesses. Of course, some firms such as Google defy this pattern and continue to experience high growth for many years.

Although dynamic small businesses can be found nearly everywhere and in many industries, some regions spawn more of them than others. These regions may have especially supportive features, such as a critical mass of potential workers with relevant skills, a social climate and network that encourage idea generation, locally available venture capital, or some combination of these factors.

Unfortunately, attempts to anticipate which companies or even industries are likely to produce gazelles are prone to error. Thus, excessive emphasis on national industrial policies that favor specific industries are likely misplaced. Without knowing how to target assistance precisely, broad strategies, such as assistance with funding, knowledge, contacts and other essential resources, may be the best approach to fostering high-growth businesses. Such support has the added value of also aiding Main Street businesses.

Many of the most promising policies focus on removing obstacles that hinder entrepreneurs with solid business plans from launching and expanding their businesses.

Funding

As a result of the burst of the dot.com bubble in early 2000 and the recent financial crisis, small businesses have found the availability of venture capital funds drastically diminished. The crisis has also made it more difficult to obtain funding from banks and other conventional means. These trends particularly affect the “missing middle” of small businesses—roughly, those with between 10 and 100 employees.

The venture capital market. Historically, venture capital has financed only a relatively small portion of small businesses, but those financed have tended to be the ones with the greatest growth potential. In recent years, firms that eventually grew to where they could issue initial public stock offerings generally relied more heavily on venture capital financing than the average small business.

The dollar value of venture capital deals funded today is only about one-fifth the size it reached at its peak. While the peak amount may have been too large, today’s value is probably too small. With their capital heavily invested in a small range of industries and locales, it seems likely that venture capital firms have missed a high proportion of potential investment opportunities. Further, “once burned, twice shy” funders have increasingly focused on larger, later-stage ventures. Consequently, mezzanine financing, which new companies need to survive and thrive in the critical early stages, is scarce.

The funding problems partly stem from venture capital firms today having less money to invest. Some investors who formerly contributed to such firms have become more risk-averse, and worse performance figures have discouraged new investors. Lack of venture capital affects some industries more than others, and even some green energy companies—viewed by some as one of the nation’s more promising industry sectors—have moved to China, where financial support is more readily available.

Bank lending. In contrast to large businesses, which can turn to capital markets for funding, many small businesses are dependent on banks for financing. Although the worst of the 2008–09 credit crunch is behind us, many small businesses still find it difficult to obtain bank loans. Community banks, a key source of small business financing, have been hard hit by losses in commercial real estate, which have limited their lending capacity. Further, many small business owners who historically would have used real estate assets as collateral for expansion loans can no longer do so because of declines in real estate prices. In addition, small businesses that have, in the past, used credit cards to purchase equipment and supplies have been hindered by reductions in credit limits.

Overall economic conditions

The high degree of uncertainty currently surrounding the economic and financing climate may have prompted many entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs to hold off on growth plans. Despite their reputation as high-flying risk-takers, good entrepreneurs take only calculated risks, where the benefits outweigh the dangers. Uncertainties about the future trajectory of the economy merely increase risk without raising potential rewards.

Government policies

Government policies affect the climate for small businesses in many ways. For example, small businesses face substantial hurdles when entering the complicated world of federal grants and contracts. At the state level, severe budget shortfalls mean that even well-designed initiatives to boost small businesses may founder.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) assists the full continuum of small businesses through a variety of means. These include: an $80 billion loan guarantee portfolio; specialized counseling and training centers; specialized business development programs targeting the socially and economically disadvantaged; oversight to ensure that at least 23 percent of federal government contracts go to small businesses (with certain preferences for minority and women-owned businesses); and the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Investment Companies programs.

The Obama administration is attempting to broaden support for small businesses by bringing the SBA into multi-agency initiatives that tackle common problems. For example, the Departments of Energy, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Education, and Labor, along with the National Science Foundation and the SBA, are supporting a five-year, nearly $130 million Energy Regional Innovation Cluster.

Strength of “social capital”

Through the 1990s, the United States was a worldwide leader in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship and reaped the reward of employment growth. Current international comparisons suggest that we are now closer to tenth place among some 70 nations in our ability to support innovation. Much of what has kept our nation from remaining in the top spot appears to relate to insufficient cultural support for entrepreneurship.

Strong social networks in specific geographic regions appear to substantially bolster the growth of innovative businesses. These networks are built around entrepreneurial dealmakers who serve as the nodes of the network, forming connections among researchers, entrepreneurs and investors. Unfortunately, many regions and industries lack strong networks.

Access to decision-making information. Entrepreneurs need an array of information and advice about how to tackle the problems that arise at different stages in business development. The SBA reports that companies that have taken advantage of their long-term counseling programs, for example, have higher growth than companies that have not.

Opportunity for all. Social networks are self-selecting, and some people have to work extra hard to gain entry to a region’s network of entrepreneurs. While various organizations exist to help women and people of color access entrepreneurial skills and information, these efforts may not suffice. Under-representation of any group presumably would filter out a number of potential high-growth companies.

Workforce issues

A long-time strength of the American workforce, worker mobility has declined. This trend has been attributed in part to an aging population and in part to the current difficulty people have in selling their homes. Businesses report difficulty finding employees with the right training, especially at the technician level, where straightforward vocational training could help.

Global competition

Increasing global competition for good projects, entrepreneurs and capital is a positive trend from an international perspective, but runs counter to the national goal of promoting rapid growth in U.S. industry and employment. Today, many entrepreneurs can choose among starting a business here, in their home country, or even in a third, more hospitable nation. At the same time, current U.S. immigration policy hinders entrepreneurs from coming here to launch their companies. A recent report from The Brookings- Duke Immigration Policy Roundtable concluded that “educated workers with the knowledge and skills to innovate are critical” to the United States and recommended increasing the annual number of skilled visas.

 

Policy Goals for Small Business

Measuring Results

More work is needed to identify key policy goals and priorities related to small business success. Critically, what would constitute “improvement” in public policy regarding small business employment, and how would we measure it? Clearly, increasing the total number of jobs created each year (by both small and large businesses, net of job destruction) would be a positive outcome, all else being equal. Another potential goal would be improving the “quality” of the jobs created, as measured by average compensation or by job creation in new industries or geographic areas where unemployment is high. Creating “good jobs” that bring generous compensation would seem to be always desirable, but this outcome could conflict with other social goals, for example, if the jobs created required skills out of the reach of groups that are traditionally difficult to employ.

Slowing job destruction could be as important as increasing the creation of new jobs, but discouraging layoffs without increasing performance would do more harm than good. The trick is to raise the quality of marginal firms so that their improved performance allows them to retain employees they would otherwise have to let go.

A final key factor in setting policy goals that would support small businesses is measuring the cost to taxpayers of the initiatives that flow from the goals. This includes the subsidy cost contained in the federal budget, as well as costs and tradeoffs in society at large.

Changing Key Policies

Small businesses face both short-run and long-run challenges. With regard to the former, many small businesses have been hard hit by the recession and appear to be lagging behind larger businesses in their recovery. The cyclical struggles of this sector in part reflect the dependence of many small firms on the still-strained banking system for their financing; they also reflect the high toll that our extremely soft labor markets have taken on demand for Main Street goods and services. Thus, government policies aimed at broadly bolstering the recovery and further strengthening the financial system will yield important benefits to small businesses.

The government, in conjunction with the private sector, can also take steps that will foster an economic environment that is supportive of entrepreneurship and economic growth over the long run. Specific policy steps that might help small businesses (and, in many cases, large businesses) include:

Improve access to public and private capital. Implementing serious financial reform will reduce the likelihood that we will see a repeat of the recent credit cycle that has been so problematic for the small business sector. When credit market disruptions do occur, policymakers should be attentive to whether temporary expansions of the SBA loan guarantee program are needed to sustain lending to creditworthy borrowers. The SBA should also consider expanding the points of access to its loan programs through an expansion of its lending partners. Finally, the SBA (or a similar entity) might encourage venture capital funds to broaden their investments beyond familiar areas by systematically bringing these investors together with entrepreneurs from neglected geographic regions and business sectors.

Reexamine corporate tax policy. More thinking is needed about whether provisions in our tax code discourage small business development in a way that is harmful to the broader economy and that places the United States at a relative disadvantage internationally. For example, Congress might consider whether it would be beneficial, on net, to lower employment taxes as a way of spurring hiring at businesses with high-growth potential. In addition, some analysts believe there would be gains from increasing tax credits for research and development and further lowering taxes on capital equipment. A design priority in all cases should be simplicity, as complicated rules can limit take-up among smaller firms that do not have extensive accounting or legal expertise.

Promote education and research. Entrepreneurs report difficulty in finding workers with the skills they need for manufacturing, technology and other jobs that do not require four-year college degrees. Access to such educational opportunities, including tailored vocational training, should be affordable and ubiquitous.

At the university level, improvements are needed in the way academic research is brought to the commercial market. Continued public and private support for basic research might be wise, particularly if we are in a trough between waves of innovation, as some analysts believe. The large investments by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and other ambitious public and private programs laid the groundwork for many of the high-growth businesses of today. It may be worth exploring whether support for research in “softer” areas than the sciences might do an equal or better job of inspiring innovations.

Rethink immigration policy. A reconsideration of limits on H1-B visas might help entrepreneurs struggling with shortages of workers with particular skills. In addition, current immigration policy discourages immigrants who want to establish entrepreneurial businesses in America. Any efforts to expand immigration are frequently perceived as “taking jobs away from Americans,” but studies have shown that new businesses create jobs for Americans.

Explore ways to foster “innovation-friendly” environments. Some regions of the United States clearly do a better job of encouraging innovation. Silicon Valley is the classic example, but there may be as many as 40 such clusters scattered around the country. While clusters often arise organically, typically near major universities, some states have made an explicit commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship. Examples include the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative and California’s Biological Technologies Initiative, involving community colleges statewide. Federal, state and local policymakers should keep a keen eye on ways of adapting best practices from these initiatives as information becomes available about which elements are most effective.

Strengthen government counseling programs. The SBA might do more to expand and tailor its already successful growth counseling programs to better meet the needs of both Main Street and potential high-growth businesses, as well as firms at different developmental stages. Any effort to expand small businesses’ opportunities for federal grants and contracts should be accompanied by significant streamlining of the application process.

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INTRODUCTION

With fewer than three years until the planned end-date of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), attention is rapidly turning to what will follow. The elaboration of the next global development agenda is a complex, multi-pronged process that is academic, political and practical, involving experts from a myriad of social and economic sectors and representing a cross-section of constituencies. While the formal U.N. process is still in the early stages, the ongoing discourse (predominantly occurring in the global north, but not exclusively) has introduced several potential frameworks for this agenda. This paper describes the leading frameworks proposed for the post-2015 global development agenda and discusses how education and learning fit within each of those frameworks. While many within the education community are working to develop a cohesive movement to advance an “access plus learning” agenda, it remains equally important to engage proactively with the broader development community to ensure that education fits within the agreed upon overarching organizing framework.

The frameworks described below represent a snapshot of current thinking in 2012. On the road to 2015, the education community will need to refine and sharpen its thinking with respect to how learning is incorporated into the prevailing framework. The seven frameworks that will be addressed in this paper are:

1. Ending Absolute Poverty
2. Equity and Inclusion
3. Economic Growth and Jobs
4. Getting to Zero
5. Global Minimum Entitlements
6. Sustainable Development
7. Well-Being and Quality of Life

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Recent reports have highlighted how mobile-based financial services are transforming banking and payments in Kenya, Bangladesh, and Peru, and all the hype about how they are about to explode everywhere else. For all of the promise that digital financial systems have for lowering costs and helping people all over the globe, it is unfortunate that their development is hampered by regulation that protects the interests of the largest providers. These regulations create significant barriers and raise the total costs to achieve universal financial inclusion.

It is indeed conceivable that purely digital financial transactions could be handled at vanishingly small unit costs, from anywhere. But the cost that won´t go away is that at the interface between the new digital payment system and the legacy payment system – hard cash. Cash in/cash out (CICO) points are like tollgates at the edge of the digital payments cloud.

Cash is Still King

Even in areas with flourishing mobile banking usage, people tend to cash in every time they want to make a mobile payment, and to cash out immediately and in full every time they receive digital money. Rather than displacing cash, digital platforms have made local cash ecosystems more efficient. Without full backward compatibility with cash, digital payment systems could not take root.

The bigger issue is not the size of the CICO toll, but the fact that small players cannot expect to have the transaction volume to sustain a widespread CICO network. The incumbent banks and telecommunications firms have built in competitive advantages. They can quickly form agreements with brick and mortar shops, attract users from the current customer base, threaten new entrants, and aggregate enough transactions to induce CICO outlets to maintain sufficient liquidity on hand.

Therefore, the competition in digital financial services will not be determined primarily by what happens within the digital payments market itself, but rather by what happens in the contiguous cash market. The power of digital services is their ability to transcend geography, and yet success in the digital payments space will go to whoever has the best physical CICO footprint.

Regulators treat the digital payments service and the CICO service as conjoined twins: each digital financial service provider must have its own base of contractually bound CICO outlets. When the two services are bundled it is not surprising that the tough economics of CICO —and, therefore, the incumbent— dominates.

A Two Market Regulatory Approach

In a recent paper, I argue it is necessary to split up these two markets, from a regulatory point of view. The market for effecting electronic payments (issuing payment instructions and debiting and crediting electronic accounts accordingly) is logically distinct from the market for exchanging two forms of money (hard cash versus electronic value).

Most regulators approve of stores receiving electronic money from customers in exchange for packs of rice on a store shelf. But, if that same electronic money was exchanged for cash then it would violate the law in many countries.

In the latter case, the store is presumed to be an agent of the customer’s financial service provider, and the store cannot offer the CICO service without an agency contract from that provider. But why? The cash that was offered was the store’s as is the account that would receive the electronic payment, and the transaction would have occurred entirely through a secure, real-time technology platform that banks offer all their clients.

A Regulatory Fix

Of course, purely financial transactions are usually held to higher consumer protection standards than normal commercial transactions. My proposal is not to deregulate CICO, but to create a new license type for CICO network managers. Holders of this license would carry certain consumer protection obligations (such as ensuring that tariffs are explicitly posted at all CICO outlets, and that they have a call center to handle any complaints that customers may have on individual CICO outlets) – entirely reasonable expectations for retailers, even if we normally don´t ask them of rice sellers.

But once you have a CICO license, then you could sign up any store you wanted and crucially, offer CICO services on the platform of any financial institution in which you have an account. In other words, you wouldn’t have to beg the incumbent to give you a special agent contract. All you would need to do is to open a normal customer account with them, which the incumbent couldn´t deny you.

This one little change would completely shift the competitive dynamics of digital financial services. Under the current direct agency model, incumbent firms have no incentive to make it easier for competitors to create CICO outlets. Whereas under the independent CICO network manager model, all licensed CICO networks would have the incentive to offer CICO services for all providers, no matter their size: with a full suite of available services, they will find it easier to sign up stores to work for them, and these stores will find it easier to convince more users to walk into their stores.

Incumbents would still be free to establish their own proprietary CICO networks, as today. But they would have to compete with independent CICO networks that are now able to aggregate business from all financial service providers, creating true competition.

All players could then claim a comparable physical presence as the incumbent. They would all benefit from the same branded competition between CICO networks. They could compete strictly on the basis of the quality of their digital financial services offering.

Unbundling the regulatory treatment of digital financial services would help competition reach every segment of the business; the current integrated model only serves the interests of the largest telecommunication companies and banks in the land.

      

Editor’s Note: This blog post is part of a series on the 2015 Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) Report and Scorecard, which were launched at a Brookings public event on August 26. Previous posts have highlighted five key findings from the 2015 FDIP Report and explored groundbreaking financial inclusion developments in India. Today’s post will compare financial inclusion outcomes and opportunities for growth across several Asian countries included in the 2015 Report and Scorecard.

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Of the 21 countries ranked in the 2015 Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) Report and Scorecard, no countries in Asia placed in the top 5 in the overall ranking. However, all of the FDIP Asian countries have demonstrated progress within at least one of the four dimensions of the 2015 Scorecard: country commitment, mobile capacity, regulatory environment, and adoption of traditional and digital financial services.

This blog post will dive into a few of the obstacles and opportunities facing FDIP countries in central Asia, the Middle East, and southeast Asia as they move toward greater access to and usage of financial services among marginalized groups. We explore these countries in order of their overall score: Turkey (74 percent), Indonesia (70 percent), the Philippines (68 percent), Bangladesh (67 percent), Pakistan (65 percent), and Afghanistan (58 percent). You can also read our separate post on financial inclusion in India, available here.

Turkey: Clear economic advantages, but opportunities for enabling regulation and greater equity remain

Turkey is one of the few upper-middle income countries in the FDIP sample, ranking in the top 5 in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) measured in US dollars. Turkey’s fairly robust banking infrastructure contributed to its relatively strong adoption rates: As of 2013, the International Monetary Fund’s Financial Access Survey found that Turkey had about 20 bank branches per 100,000 adults (the 4^th highest density rate among the 21 FDIP countries) and about 73 ATMs per 100,000 adults (the 2^nd highest density rate among the FDIP countries).

According to the World Bank’s Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) database, about 57 percent of adults in Turkey had an account with a mobile money provider or formal financial institution as of 2014. Turkey’s performance on the adoption dimension of the 2015 Scorecard contributed to its tie with Colombia and Chile for 6^th place on the overall scorecard.

With that said, Turkey received lower mobile capacity and regulatory environment scores, ranking 16^th and 17^th respectively. Although Turkey’s smartphone and mobile penetration levels are quite robust, a limited mobile money provider landscape, combined with a lack of regulatory clarity surrounding branchless banking regulations (particularly agent banking), constrained Turkey’s scores in those categories.

Nonetheless, there is promising news for Turkey’s financial inclusion environment. In 2015, Turkey assumed the G20 presidency and has renewed its focus on financial inclusion in association with this transition. Turkey’s 2014 financial inclusion strategy is one example of the country’s commitment to advancing inclusion.

To date, financial inclusion growth in Turkey has been limited, as evidenced by the results of the 2011 and 2014 Global Findex. However, if the country’s stated commitment translates into concrete initiatives moving forward, we can expect to see accelerated financial inclusion growth. This will be critical for facilitating access to and usage of quality financial services among the nearly 60 percent of women in Turkey without formal financial accounts. Reducing the approximately 25 percentage point gap in account ownership between men and women — one of the highest gender gaps among the 21 FDIP countries — should be a key priority for the country moving forward.

Indonesia: High mobile money potential, but enhanced awareness needed to drive adoption

Recent changes to Indonesia’s regulatory environment have facilitated a more enabling digital financial services ecosystem, although there is still room for improvement in terms of reducing supply-side barriers. Increasing mobile money awareness could help leverage Indonesia’s strong mobile capacity rates to increase access to and usage of formal financial services. However, moving from a heavily cash-based environment to greater use of digital financial services will take time: A 2014 InterMedia survey in Indonesia found that although 93 percent of bank account holders could access their accounts digitally, 73 percent preferred to access their accounts via an agent at a bank branch.

The differing mandates of Indonesia’s new financial services authority, Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK), which focuses on branchless banking (specifically agent banking) and Bank Indonesia, which focuses on electronic money regulation, may have created some confusion regarding the regulatory environment. Solidifying the country’s financial inclusion strategy and clarifying the roles of the various financial inclusion stakeholders could provide opportunities for greater coherence in terms of financial inclusion objectives.

OJK’s recent branchless banking regulations have led to several positive changes within the regulatory environment. For example, these regulations enabled financial service providers to appoint individuals and business entities as agents and to provide simplified customer due diligence requirements. The 2015 FDIP Report highlights in greater detail some possible improvements to the branchless banking and e-money regulations.

On the mobile capacity side, Indonesia tied for the second-highest score on the 2015 Scorecard. Indonesia is one of the few countries where mobile money platform interoperability has been implemented, allowing different mobile money services to “talk” to one another in real time. Indonesia also boasted the third-highest 3G network coverage by population among all the FDIP Asian countries, as well as the third-highest unique subscribership rate among these countries. However, only about 3 percent of adults were aware of mobile money as of fall 2014, according to the InterMedia survey.

In terms of adoption, the 2014 Global Findex found that women in Indonesia actually had slightly higher rates of account ownership than adults in general, although there is still significant room for growth across all adoption indicators. Given Indonesia’s strong mobile capacity ranking, increasing awareness of mobile money services could drive growth in the digital finance sector. Clarifying existing regulatory frameworks and removing some remaining restrictions regarding agent exclusivity and other agent criteria could further boost financial inclusion.

Philippines: Strong commitment, but geographic barriers have inhibited scale

The Philippines tied with Bangladesh to garner 15^th place for adoption, which contributed to the country’s overall ranking (also 15^th place). In both Bangladesh and the Philippines, about 31 percent of adults had an account with a mobile money provider or formal financial institution as of 2014. According to the 2014 Global Findex, the percentage of women with formal financial accounts was about 7 percentage points higher than the overall percentage of adults with accounts — a rarity among the 21 FDIP countries, which generally exhibit a “gender gap” in which women are less likely to have formal financial accounts than men.

The Philippines’ efforts to foster financial inclusion earned it the second-highest country commitment and regulatory environment rankings among the FDIP Asian countries. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Philippines’ central bank, has issued a number of circulars providing guidance regarding electronic money and allowing non-bank institutions to become e-money issuers. The BSP also has the distinction of being the first central bank in the world to create an office dedicated to financial inclusion. Most recently, the BSP launched a national financial inclusion strategy in July 2015.

On the mobile side, according to the GSMA Intelligence database, as of the end of the first quarter of 2015 the Philippines had the highest unique mobile subscribership rate among the FDIP Asian countries, as well as the second-highest rate of 3G network coverage by population among these countries.

In terms of mobile money, the Philippines is home to two of the earliest mobile financial services products, Smart’s Smart Money and Globe’s GCash. It also boasts the second-highest rate of mobile money accounts among adults in all the FDIP Asian countries, according to the 2014 Global Findex.

There is still significant room for improvement in adoption of traditional and digital financial services in the Philippines. The country’s geography has posed a challenge with respect to advancing access to financial services among the dispersed population. While the extent of banking infrastructure has improved over time, as of 2013 610 out of 1,634 cities and municipalities did not have a banking office, and financial access points remained concentrated in larger cities. Expanding agent locations and facilitating interoperability could enhance mobile money adoption, mitigating the consequences of these geographic barriers.  

Bangladesh: Rapid growth, but high unregistered use and low adoption overall

While Bangladesh performed strongly on the country commitment and mobile capacity dimensions of the 2015 FDIP Scorecard, it received one of the lowest adoption rankings among the FDIP Asian countries. According to the Global Findex, about 31 percent of adults age 15 and older had an account with a formal financial institution or mobile money provider as of 2014. Indicators pertaining to the country’s rates of formal saving, credit card use, and debit card use all received the lowest score.

Bangladesh has a robust mobile landscape, with fairly strong unique mobile subscription rates — as of the first quarter of 2015, it was tied with Indonesia for the third-highest unique mobile subscribership rates among the FDIP Asian countries, after the Philippines and Turkey. This mobile coverage is combined with a multiplicity of mobile money providers (although a 2014 InterMedia survey noted that nearly 90 percent of active mobile money customers used the bKash mobile money service).

Awareness of mobile money as a service in Bangladesh is very high, although understanding of the concept is less prevalent — in 2014, about 91 percent of respondents in an InterMedia survey were aware of at least one mobile money provider, although only about 36 percent were aware of mobile money as a general concept.

Unregistered use of mobile money accounts is high. While about 37 percent of adults had a mobile money account or bank account or both as of 2014, according to the InterMedia survey, only about 5 percent had registered mobile money accounts, while 4 percent had active, registered mobile money accounts (meaning an account that is registered and has been used in the previous 90 days).Transitioning to registered accounts will help enable individuals to connect with more extensive financial services, such as receipt of government payments.

Overall, adoption of mobile money and the expansion of agent locations have been increasingly rapid in Bangladesh — as of 2014 Bangladesh was one of the fastest growing markets in terms of total accounts globally. Over 60 percent of respondents in a 2013 InterMedia survey stated that they “fully” or “rather” trusted mobile money. Moving forward, increasing financial capability might help individuals feel more at ease registering their accounts and using them independently of an agent.

Pakistan: Public and private sector initiatives advance inclusion

Pakistan ranked 7^th in terms of the percentage of adults with mobile money accounts among the 21 countries, achieving the highest percentage of all of the Asian FDIP countries. Yet there is significant room for growth — as of 2014, only about 6 percent of adults had a mobile money account.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has clearly expressed its commitment to advancing financial inclusion, which earned the country a commitment score of 100 percent. The SBP developed Branchless Banking regulations in 2008, with revisions in 2011. These regulations were explicitly intended to promote financial inclusion. More recently, the country’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy was launched in May 2015. In terms of quantitative assessments of financial inclusion, the SBP tracks supply-side information on branchless banking in its quarterly newsletters.

Recent public and private sector initiatives may help advance mobile money adoption. For example, a re-verification initiative for SIM cards was mandated by the government and initiated earlier in 2015. Mobile network operators have been promoting registration of mobile money accounts since the biometric re-verification process is more intensive than the identification requirements needed to register a mobile money account.

Earlier, in September 2014, the EasyPaisa mobile money service decided to eliminate fees related to money transfers between Easypaisa account customers and cash-out transactions for a set period. As of April 2015, the number of person-to-person money transfers had increased by about 2500 percent.

Still, barriers to financial inclusion remain. A 2014 InterMedia survey noted that while distance was less of a barrier to registration than previously, distance did affect the frequency with which users engaged with mobile money services. Therefore, expanding access points could further facilitate use of mobile money. Increasing the number of registered accounts could also provide individuals with more opportunities to engage with financial services beyond basic transfers — the InterMedia survey found that as of 2014, about 8 percent of adults were over-the-counter mobile money users, while 0.3 percent were registered users.

Afghanistan: Commitment to improving infrastructure and adoption

Instability and systemic corruption in Afghanistan over the past several decades have damaged trust in formal financial services and limited the development of traditional banking infrastructure. In addition to having one of the lowest levels of GDP among the 21 FDIP countries, as of 2013 the Financial Access Survey found Afghanistan had the lowest reported density of commercial banks per 100,000 adults. Even among individuals who can access banks, adoption of formal accounts is constrained by a lack of trust in formal financial services.

On the mobile side, Afghanistan has fairly widespread 3G network coverage (over 80 percent of the population, according to the GSMA Intelligence database), which helped boost its mobile capacity ranking to 2^nd place. However, Afghanistan received the lowest score possible for each of the 15 adoption indicators. According to the 2014 Global Findex, financial account ownership as of 2014 was at about 10 percent of adults, and financial account ownership among women was at only 4 percent. Tracking gender-disaggregated data at the national level could help the government better identify underserved populations and target financial solutions toward their needs.

The government has made an effort to promote financial inclusion and digital financial services. For example, Da Afghanistan Bank committed to the Alliance for Financial Inclusion in 2009, and the Republic of Afghanistan is a member of the Better Than Cash Alliance. In 2008, the Money Service Providers Regulation was issued, with amendments instituted a few years later pertaining to e-money. The Afghanistan Payments Systems, which is still being fully operationalized, aims to allow payment service providers such as mobile network operators to connect their mobile money systems.

While several mobile money options are available, adoption of these services is low. According to the 2014 Global Findex, about 0.3 percent of adults had a mobile money account. Implementing interoperability across platforms might help increase the utility of mobile money services for consumers, and as in Turkey, developing specific agent banking regulations could provide clarity to the sector and drive innovation.

By expanding financial access points, educating consumers about traditional and digital financial services, and monitoring providers to ensure consumer protection, Afghanistan’s regulatory entities and financial service providers may be able to better reach underserved populations and inculcate trust in formal financial services.

       

       

       

       

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been promoting the increased participation of women in the Japanese economy, a policy popularly known as womenomics, as a pillar of his campaign for economic revitalization. While significant strides have been made with regard to increasing female workforce participation, corporate efforts to introduce flexible working practices, and spurring the promotion of women on the corporate ladder, womenomics will be incomplete if it remains confined to the established corporate structure. Unleashing the creative potential of half of Japan’s population will require an equally sustained effort to promote female entrepreneurship. This is a tall order for Japan where female entrepreneurs face a two-fold challenge: the modest development of venture capital and a host of legal and cultural hurdles to individual entrepreneurship; plus the additional hurdles for women in gaining access to the assets widely perceived as essential to success such as business networks, financing, technology, and access to markets at home and abroad. However, entrepreneurship offers Japanese women significant benefits through the opportunity to bypass rigid corporate hierarchies, custom tailor their workloads to better achieve work-life balance, and offer new and innovative products and services to the Japanese consumer.

On February 8, the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings hosted a distinguished group of policy experts and entrepreneurs for a discussion on the current state of female entrepreneurship in Japan and concrete strategies to promote female-run businesses in the country. They compared Japan and the United States, both in terms in differing results but also on-going common challenges, and discussed their own personal experiences.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #Womenomics

Video

• Womenomics 2.0: The potential of female entrepreneurs in Japan
• The importance of mentors for female entrepreneurs
• Female entrepreneurs: Different options and different styles
• Female leadership creates opportunities

Audio

• Womenomics 2.0: The potential of female entrepreneurs in Japan

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• Kurihara Presentation for website
• 20160208_womenomics_japan_transcript

       

Over 200 delegates from 50 countries gather this week in Washington for the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship. The summit hosts entrepreneurs to teach and learn innovative ways to strengthen professional and social relationships between the U.S. and the Islamic world. During his first major address to the Muslim world, delivered in Cairo last June, President Obama pledged to increase engagement through entrepreneurship, exchange programs and multilateral service initiatives.

Volunteer-led development initiatives have begun to act on Obama’s call for citizen diplomacy and private-sector engagement. The Initiative on International Volunteering and Service at Brookings and the Building Bridges Coalition have fueled an emerging legislative initiative that calls for increasing the role of international volunteers in the U.S. diplomatic agenda and development programs. This Service World Initiative has drawn from Brookings research outlining options to advance the president’s call for multilateral service.

As seen last year, for the first time in history, the majority of the world’s population lived in urban areas. And this trend is accelerating at an unprecedented rate. By 2050, urban dwellers are expected to make up about 70 percent of Earth’s total population. These informed 21st century urban citizens demand 24-7 connectivity, smart electric grids, efficient transportation networks, safe food and water, and transparent social services. All these demands place a huge strain on existing city infrastructures and the global environment. Most affected by this rapid urban boom, are the emerging markets. So how do we tackle this development dilemma?

One way is for highly-skilled experts, from a range of countries, to volunteer their time in emerging markets to help improve economic development, government services and stimulate job growth. This type of pro-bono program has many benefits. It benefits the urban areas in these emerging markets by leveraging intelligence, connecting systems and providing near-term impact on critical issues such as transportation, water, food safety, education and healthcare. It benefits the expert volunteers by fostering their teamwork skills, providing a cultural learning experience, and broadening their expertise in emerging markets.

IBM, which chairs the Building Bridges Coalition’s corporate sector, hosts a range of volunteer-led global entrepreneurship programs that improve economic stability for small- and medium-sized businesses, increase technology in emerging markets and open doors for the next generation of business and social leaders. This program connects high-talent employees with growing urban centers around the world and fosters the type of leadership to help IBM in the 21st century.

Recently, IBM sent a group of experts to Ho Chi Minh City as part of its Corporate Service Corps, a business version of the Peace Corps. This was the first Corporate Service Corps mission to be made up of executives, and the first to help a city in an emerging market analyze its challenges holistically and produce a plan to manage them. As a result, the city has now adopted a 10-year redevelopment plan that includes seven pilot programs in areas ranging from transportation to food safety. IBM will also help the city set up academic programs to prepare young Vietnamese to launch careers in technology services. IBM will continue this program throughout the next couple years to evolve the next set of global business and cultural hubs utilizing the volunteer hours of some of its most seasoned experts.

The Presidential Summit this week will further Obama’s call to “turn dialogue into interfaith service, so bridges between peoples lead to action.” The policy initiative of the Building Bridges Coalition, coupled with entrepreneurial innovations such as IBMs, can foster greater prosperity and service between the U.S. and our global partners.