Category Archives: Burkina Faso

Effects of establishment of universities in medieval Europe

We had a great informal seminar by Noam Yuchtman of UC Berkeley yesterday, talking about a paper he is completing on the effects of medieval universities in acting as a “supply shock” to economic growth by providing more of the … Continue reading

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The heavyweights… fail

From an article Robinson and Acemoglu posted to their blog, hopefully just a typo: In this essay we provide an interpretation of why Africa is poor.  Our basic approach is, institutional. My basic reaction is, ugh.

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Zimbabwe inflation

An excellent summary by Tim Taylor…. Back in the Paleolithic era when I was learning economics, Germany’s hyperinflation of the 1920s was the classic example of hyperinflation. When I was teaching intro economics classes in the late 1980s, I would … Continue reading

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Invisible Children and Kony panic attack… not what you think.

Apparently the advocacy advertising agency Invisible Children has used Facebook to go viral with a video about Joseph Kony of the Lords Resistance Army, the same week as yours truly watched the really bad TV show about “how to tell … Continue reading

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Matthew Jukes on “What does schooling do?”

I went up to Stanford African Studies Center last Thursday for a talk by Matthew Jukes on a paper he is working on with data from The Gambia (where he taught in a school in the 1990s apparently, fun picture … Continue reading

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Libertarianism… another 20 years in the wilderness?

The big news of the primaries, for intellectuals, is that libertarianism as an actionable political philosophy represented by someone with considerable political experience and success (Ron Paul) cannot even attract 10% of the dedicated “base” of Republicans who vote in … Continue reading

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Are you tugging on your rope?

From Deric Bownds’ mindblog… Jonathan Haidt does a nice job of bringing contemporary relevance to Tomasello and colleagues’ work comparing and contrasting the social behaviors of young humans and chimpanzees. (As these two previous MindBlog posts show (1,2), this laboratory … Continue reading

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Alternance in Burkina suddenly maybe possible?

Lots of encouraging news coming out.  First, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré announced he was resigning as head of CDP, and the speculation is perhaps he is preparing himself to be a candidate for 2015.  Presumably he would only do this … Continue reading

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Répondre à la jeunesse et gérer les ressources naturelles

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Competing on analytics… or blathering away?

A wonderful Amazon.com review by A.J. Sutter of the now almost 5 years old  Competing on Analytics, of little relevance to African economic development except for the mobile phone companies and Western Union/Moneygram! A. FALLACY (and related sins): The most … Continue reading

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What direction for African economies?

Despite all the positive growth numbers coming out of Africa, the future looks bleak indeed over the shorter-term horizon.  Lots of autocracies, more and more weapons, porous borders, massive corruption, multinationals very willing to fund private armies, drug cartels discovering … Continue reading

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