State, Governance and Development in Africa

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Roger Myerson, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics, will join Northwestern University political scientist Richard Joseph on Thursday, March 6, in a panel on “State, Governance and Development in Africa” at Northwestern University.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 5:15 p.m. in Room 212 of Scott Hall, 601 University Place, on Northwestern’s Evanston campus.

Myerson will discuss his new paper, “Democratic Decentralization and Economic Development,” and his ideas on governance and development in Africa. He and Joseph will be joined on the panel by Celestin Monga. A top researcher at the World Bank who works closely with Joseph Stiglitz, Monga is co-editor of the new “Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics.”

The three will discuss the prospects for transformative growth in Africa from the perspective of economics and political science. The panel is part of an effort by Joseph, the John Evans Professor of Political Science in Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, to engage Northwestern and other academics and policymakers in debates on major African policy issues.

Shortly after taking part in the panel, Joseph will leave for Accra, Ghana, where he will discuss the same issues with faculty, students and researchers at the University of Ghana and the Ghana Center for Democratic Development.

Joseph also will confer with Patrick Awuah, the dynamic new leader of Ashesi University. Inspired by his own undergraduate experiences at Swarthmore College, Awuah left a lucrative job with tech giant Microsoft to create a university in his native country of Ghana. Its mission is to produce a new generation of African leaders committed to the highest performance, including ethical standards.