Talk to focus on success of Indian reservations

Talk
to focus on success of Indian reservations
…………………………………………………………………

BY ELLEN CHANG
Rice News Staff

American Indian
tribes can thrive economically if they are allowed to govern
themselves and be accountable for their decisions, said
Joseph Kalt, a Harvard University professor.

Kalt will speak
about “Culture, Institutions and the Wealth of Nations:
Lessons from American Indian Tribes” at 7:30 p.m. April
5 in the Howard Keck Hall auditorium on the Rice campus.

Kalt is a professor
of international political economy at the John F. Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University and co-director
of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
and the Native Nations Program for Leadership, Management
and Policy.

He and University
of Arizona professors Steve Cornell and Manley Begay studied
and researched tribes and tribal organizations for 15 years
to determine what policies and ideas have worked to create
economic and socially sustainable Indian reservations.

“The central
result of our research is that a tribe can have natural
resources and financial capital, but if there is not a stable
institution of tribal government and a rule of law, then
its resources will be wasted,” Kalt said. “The
successful tribes are set about much like countries in Eastern
Europe — they are rebuilding court systems, tax systems
and regulatory systems.”

One type of
government does not appeal to or produce positive results
for all tribes, he said.

Success in economic
development comes about if reservations establish and balance
their social needs. For instance, at the Mississippi Choctaw
reservation, the welfare rate is about one-fifth of the
U.S. rate, the unemployment rate is almost nonexistent and
the tribe has protected its culture and heritage by investing
in school programs that promote native languages.

Kalt is faculty
chair of Harvard’s Native American program and co-editor
of “What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions
in American Indian Economic Development.”

He received
his bachelor of arts degree in economics from Stanford University
in 1973 and his master of arts in 1977 and doctorate in
1980 in economics from the University of California–Los
Angeles.