Karol Boudreaux

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Karol Boudreaux

  • Mercatus Center Senior Research Fellow
  • Lead Researcher, Enterprise Africa!

Karol Boudreaux is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center and lead researcher for Enterprise Africa, a research project that is investigating, analyzing, and reporting on enterprise-based solutions to poverty in Africa.  She is a member of the faculty of the George Mason University School of Law, and served on the Working Group on Property Rights of the U.N.'s Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor.

Ms. Boudreaux's main areas of interest include property rights and development, human rights, and international law. The current focus of her research is contemporary Africa and the ways in which particular institutional arrangements have either helped or hindered human flourishing and economic development on the continent.

Before joining the Mercatus Center, Ms. Boudreaux was assistant dean at the George Mason University School of Law. Additionally, she taught for four years at Clemson University in the legal studies department after which she served as director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington-on-Hudson, NY.

Ms. Boudreaux earned her BA in English literature from Rutgers University (Douglass College) and her JD from the University of Virginia's School of Law.

PUBLISHED RESEARCH

Journal Article
Land Conflict and Genocide in Rwanda image

Land Conflict and Genocide in Rwanda

Karol Boudreaux | Jul 11, 2009
In his 2005 best-selling book Collapse, Jared Diamond argues that some societies “choose to fail or succeed.”  One of the cases he explores in his book is the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which he calls a modern day Malthusian crisis.  However, the arguments he employs to explain why Rwandan society was unable to peacefully and effectively manage rising population pressures overlook a host of political factors that limited the ability of people to respond to increased competition for land in pre-genocide Rwanda.
Journal Article
Cautiously Optimistic: Economic Liberalization and Reconciliation in Rwanda’s Coffee Sector image

Cautiously Optimistic: Economic Liberalization and Reconciliation in Rwanda’s Coffee Sector

Karol Boudreaux, Puja Ahluwalia | Jun 2009
In the lead article of this volume of the Denver Journal of International Law & Policy, Enterprise Africa! Lead Researcher Karol Boudreaux and Stanford law student Puja Ahluwalia examine mechanisms for reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda. The article focuses on both formal legal institutions and informal means, particularly in the coffee sector.
Mercatus Policy Series
South Africa: Increasing Opportunities for the Poor image

South Africa: Increasing Opportunities for the Poor

Johan van der Walt, Karol Boudreaux | Apr 01, 2009
In this Country Brief, Enterprise Africa! lead researcher Karol Boudreaux and program associate Johan van der Walt focus on three domestic policy issues that they believe are important to expanding opportunities for South Africa’s poor: employment, education, and security. In addition, they also focus on three foreign policy issues that they believe are significant to leveraging South Africa’s unique position in international affairs: regional integration, good governance, and public and cultural diplomacy.
MORE PUBLISHED RESEARCH

WORKING PAPERS

Land Reform as Social Justice: The Case of South Africa

Karol Boudreaux | Oct 2009
In his 1976 work Law, Legislation and Liberty, F.A. Hayek discusses the concept of social justice, pursued by redistributing resources acquired through an unplanned and impersonal market order, to increase the material equality or equality of outcome of the members of that order.  But, how would these prescriptions translate into actual policy making? What kinds of policies would correct past injustice but not work a new injustice?

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Conflict Reduction in the Post-Genocide Rwandan Coffee Industry

Jutta Tobias, Karol Boudreaux | Jun 2009
Entrepreneurship is widely acknowledged as a catalyst for poverty reduction and economic development. This paper presents evidence from a field survey conducted during the summer of 2008 among a sample of Rwanda’s emerging specialty coffee workers and reports on significant correlations between economic satisfaction and life satisfaction, as well as meaningful work contact with members from the other group with an attitude of reconciliation.

POLICY BRIEFS

Land Tenure Security and Agricultural Productivity image

Land Tenure Security and Agricultural Productivity

Daniel Sacks, Karol Boudreaux | Sep 2009
Achieving land tenure reform is by no means an easy or quick process. However, the benefits over the long term can lead to substantial gains for smallholder farmers’ competitiveness.
South Africa Election: Policy Recommendations for a New Government image

South Africa Election: Policy Recommendations for a New Government

Johan van der Walt, Karol Boudreaux | Mar 2009
As South Africa faces a new round of parliamentary elections in April 2009, the country confronts a host of difficult political challenges. This Mercatus on Policy provides recommendations for any new government on how to address some of the domestic and international challenges.
Starving for Change image

Starving for Change

Daniel Sacks, Karol Boudreaux | Nov 2008
The United States government spends over two billion dollars a year on food aid, suppos­edly to help poor, hungry people around the world fight off starvation. However, much of this money is not helping the hungry, but instead supports U.S. farmers, shipping companies, and food manufacturers.
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MEDIA CLIPPINGS

AllAfrica.com

Empower Women Financially and Develop Communities

Karol Boudreaux | Dec 04, 2009
Karol Boudreaux discusses the role of women's empowerment in relation to the achievement of the UN's Millennium Development Goals in an article on AllAfrica.com

Karol Boudreaux on Fraser Fast Track

Karol Boudreaux | Jul 2009
Lead Researcher Karol Boudreaux recently appeared on Fraser Fast Track discussing whether foreign aid helps or hinders developing countries
The Australian

Bad policies, not weather, create famine

Karol Boudreaux, Julian Morris | Nov 17, 2009
Enterprise Africa! researcher Karol Boudreaux discusses hunger in Ethiopia and the land tenure policies that could help to alleviate it in The Australian.
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