Monthly Archives: September 2016

Dounko shared this picture… kids in the library reading Où est ma poule, book I did with Ezequiel Olvera…

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African real per capita income over time, compared with countries of southeast Africa

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The Hamar in southern Ethiopia

I am teaching African Economic Development this quarter, and I like to have students watch films and read novels to get a more humanistic understanding of the people behind the numbers.  If you have never spent any time in any … Continue reading

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On Voix d’Amerique (VOA- Afrique) français today

Gaby Dorcil called, and who can resist his voice, to ask me to speak on the OPEC decision to limit production and effectuate an increase in oil prices.  Volontiers, of course, though I cringe when I hear my American-inflected French.  … Continue reading

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Constitutional conference in Burkina Faso

Alpha Blondy was also in Ouagadougou meeting with the President.  Opération coup de poing banned in the new constitution? Le président burkinabè Roch Marc Christian Kaboré a installé jeudi à Ouagadougou les membres d’une Commission constitutionnelle qui doivent produire dans … Continue reading

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One of the strangest stories of West Africa: Yacouba Isaac Zida se fait discret

Very similar to ATT’s disappearance after the Mali coup d’état.  Hard to even get a handle on how an important public personality can suddenly turn everything off.  Is he reading a French translation of Trollope’s The Way We Live Now? … Continue reading

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Randomized control trials and participant responses to treatment probabilities

As more and more development economists conduct randomized control trials (RCT), rather than inferring the answer to an economics question from observational data, some researchers are drawing attention to unmentioned assumptions underlying interpretations of RCT results.  One such implicit assumption … Continue reading

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Sango Malo by Bassek ba Kobhio

Spoilers in this review. Sango Malo by Bassek ba Kobhio is one of my favorite films from Africa to use for introducing African economic development issues.  The film was released in the heady days of 1991 when a new generation … Continue reading

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Fairly recent viewing on Netflix

Look Who’s Back – Excellent first hour, as Hitler suddenly reappears in contemporary Germany.  It grinds on as commentary on the media. Victoria – Two hour film, all one take, of a robbery gone awry. Technically it is wonderful to … Continue reading

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Micro-biotics in Burkina Faso

Thanks Andrew Passet for the link! A 2010 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences compared the microbiots of children living in rural Burkina Faso in West Africa to the microbiots of urban, city-dwelling children in Italy. … Continue reading

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Did a FAVL librarian just challenge my French Scrabble word?

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Rencontre des bibliothécaires a Béréba dans le Tuy

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Puerto Rico’s fiscal oversight board named

I kept waiting for the call, but someone must have told them my expertise was rural libraries in Burkina Faso, not really the skill-set needed? The White House said it had chosen seven experts in finance and the law to … Continue reading

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