The Gospel of thrift
But the format was more tent revival than accounting seminar, with the first 90 minutes or so mostly devoted to Ramsey’s personal story of ruin and redemption. We heard how, during the second half of...
View ArticleDani Rodrik: Give China a break
Congress and Wall Street and Main Street are for once in agreement: enough of this market manipulation, China needs to let its currency appreciate and balance its trade; US manufacturing is bleeding on...
View ArticleDear graduate students: Don’t lose hope
Someone using the nom de guerre Thorsten Veblen asked me for a comment on his rant against development economics: While I can understand the views of Development Economists, I cannot really remember...
View ArticleExperiments in industrial policy
Readers of this blog know that I think firms are understudied in development. I’ve said before: the path from $2,000 a head to $10,000 a head in GDP is through industrialization. But how to spur firm...
View ArticleThe other Clinton, on development strategies
Over at Foreign Policy, Bill Easterly comments on Hillary’s big development speech yesterday. His basic conclusion: mostly meandering babble, but it’s not her fault. One bit I liked: his comparison of...
View ArticleThe ethics of aid
A lot of people arrive in Africa to assume that it’s a blank empty space and their goodwill and desire and guilt will fix it. And that to me is not any different from the first people who arrived and...
View ArticleHaiti and economics
Why is Haiti so poor? Tyler Cowen asks this question on his blog, and thinks through many possible answers. He concludes: Overall I don’t find this set of possible factors very satisfactory. Is it...
View ArticleCarpe diem
With Haiti’s crisis bursting from the front pages and blogosphere, masses of people confront (again) an inner angst: “Shouldn’t I be doing something?”, “Couldn’t I volunteer?”, “My job seems so...
View ArticleDavid Brooks saves the world in 1000 words
Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life...
View ArticleLibraries for Africa
As far as I can tell, not a single bookstore can be found in all Liberia. You’ll find random books in market stalls (I spotted a copy of Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics in December, right...
View ArticleHaiti and the Charter City
Contrary to what some have suggested, a charter city in Haiti is simply not an option at this time. A charter city can only be created through voluntary agreement. Under the current conditions, the...
View ArticleMicrofinance: The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval?
In response to a glib comment of mine, one reader asks: You seem to be consistently unimpressed with microfinancing efforts. Why? Unimpressed is probably the wrong word. I’d say skeptical, at least...
View ArticleAfrica’s ever-distant green revolution
At a seminar at Cornell University in 2002, a graduate student from Ethiopia approached Borlaug and asked how he and the other engineers of the green revolution in Asia, where preexisting...
View Article“The UN of today is not the UN I entered”
Yesterday I moderated a session with James O.C. Jonah, the former Number Two at the UN (under Boutros Boutros-Ghali). The title is his quote. After dedicating a lifetime to the institution, he is...
View ArticleBecause TPS just ain’t enough
U.S. policy wipes out more than 80 percent of a Haitian’s earning power when it keeps him from coming to the United States. This affects everything from the food he can buy to the construction...
View ArticleChina in Africa: A China-bashing backlash
In 2008, China replaced the US as Africa’s largest trading partner, with the volume of trade reaching $107bn, representing a tenfold increase since 2000. With foreign direct investment rising from...
View ArticleRecommended listening: Spence on development as politics
Russ Roberts interviews Nobel Laureate Michale Spence about being the helm of the Commission on Growth and Development in a new podcast. It has many interesting bits. One example: Spence said he went...
View ArticleQuick: name all the development economists who work in Yemen
Okay. One, Daniel Egel. Two, ah… well. Uhm. Well there’s… wait no. OK. Just Dan Egel. New U.S. fear-territory number one, and he seems to have cornered the economic market. Well done. His job market...
View ArticleTwitter + development + haiku
Equals “wonku”. From Duncan Green, an ianugural poem: Conditional cash transfers. A panacea? Can’t be that easy. I love it. I may even try my hand at a wonku: Despite Nick Kristof’s histrionic...
View ArticleDevelopment blogging: The Survey
Dave Algoso and a handful of other development bloggers are curious: Who reads international aid and development blogs? I am curious too. He and other bloggers have established a joint survey of...
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