Welcome

Spring 08 ESR Review is Now Available The Economic Self-Reliance Center at Brigham Young University is pleased to present the latest issue of the ESR Review. This practitioner-oriented publication features many valuable articles converging on the Center's overall mission to "bring practitioners, researchers, and the community together to help families throughout the world become economically self-reliant." The ESR Review attracts scholarly contributions from leading academics, executives, practitioners, and philanthropists who are changing the way the world allocates scarce resources and alleviates poverty.

What is Economic Self-Reliance?

Current thinking about economic development has not bettered global livelihoods. Speaking at the 2007 annual meeting of the American Economics Association, Professor Simon Johnson of MIT invoked a powerful metaphor to highlight the failure of existing models; he noted that sustained progress in health and sanitation came only after ýpublic health had the germ theory of disease. Economics has made great progress, but itýs still waiting for its ýgerm theory of disease.ýý Without a solid model, economic development models produce hit-and-miss successes. Read more...

Mancur Olsonýs bold assertion speaks directly to a question at the heart of economic self-reliance (ESR): Why do some people succeed economically while others do not? The concept that ýFor as he thinketh in his heart, so is heý (Proverbs 23:7, King James Version) provides foundational logic for the idea that ESR is rooted in thinking; and it also lays the foundation for us to investigate how increasing ESR requires society to ýwise upý economically. In our research on entrepreneurial thinking we have investigated thinking-based enablers and disablers of ESR, looking for best practices. Read more...