Microcredit may have won a Nobel Prize, but evidence is mounting that savings-based programs are more effective tools for providing a pathway out of poverty.

In this week's New America/Politico Live Chat, Jamie M. Zimmerman, New America's deputy director of the Global Assets Project, will be taking questions at Noon ET Tuesday on the role of savings in international development, from the United States to Mexico to Uganda. For background on this issue and some promising pilot programs, please see the video from last week's event, "Savings as a Tool for International Development."

UPDATE: This online discussion has concluded. A complete transcript is available below..

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Past Chats

Previous New America/Politico chats have their full transcripts archived:

This new TV ad agsint Prop 2, the California ballot initiative to regulate farm animal confinement., suggests darkly that passage of the initiative would lead to the importing of food from Mexico. Egg farmers, who say their businesses could not survive tighter regulation (chickens would have to be able to stand up and walk around), have been waging a campaign against the measure with arguments that food will be more expensive and less safe if Prop 2 passes. Those are fair arguments, but this new ad goes too far. 

Californians already eat all kinds of food produced in Mexico. We eat food from all over the world. But the ad only mentions Mexico, a tactic that appears designed to capitalize on uninformed stereotypes about eating and drinking south of the border.

Despite a likely recession in the United States, the Mexican economy is growing beyond expectations and the Mexican Stock Market, Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BVM), is one of the few markets up in 2008. This unexpected divergence from the U.S. has come as a surprise for many analysts. Although 80% of Mexico's exports are destined for the United States, these goods are mostly related to industrial production - a sector of the U.S. economy that has performed relatively well given the fall of the U.S. dollar and rising exports. This buffer gives the Banco de Mexico, Mexico's central bank, additional room to tighten monetary policy and fight inflation.

Morgan Stanley - Three Anomalies
Bloomberg - Mexico Inflation Rate Jumps to Highest in 17 Months
Financial Times - Mexican Waves