Category Archives: Development thinking

Uganda’s main advantages, for the moment, are cheap cotton and labour, and preferential access to American and European markets. When exporting to the rich world “Africa has an 18-35% duty advantage over any other continent”, says Nick Earlham, a shareholder … Continue reading →

Powerful “history of anthropology” from Ben White. In the same year Geertz wrote a chilling footnote, almost an aside, in the landmark ‘cockfight’ article on Bali, where the killing had been relatively more severe than in any other region: “That … Continue reading →

Well-worth reading.  This discussion should be receiving more attention in the United States. Whether we see universal BIGs in future or not, the current policy debates will hopefully lead us to be less reliant on finely targeted social policies that … Continue reading →

In a class I am teaching, we were reading Diane Wolf’s Factory Daughters, and so much about the op-ed by Chris Blattman and Stefan Dercon “Everything We Knew About Sweatshops Was Wrong” seemed to echo what Wolf had to say … Continue reading →

Africa often brings policy surprises. Two of the most significant political moments in Africa—the street demonstrations that toppled Compaoré in Burkina Faso, and the surprisingly free and fair elections in The Gambia that ended Jammeh’s rule—were wholly unanticipated. Smart and … Continue reading →

I assigned James Fenske’s excellent survey, meta-analysis, and re-analysis for my African Economic Development class.  In some ways, the lesson to draw is how little can be generalized.  There are many reasons for why few studies find a strong positive … Continue reading →

For my African Economic Development class we are reading a paper that uses the randomized control trial methodology to evaluate a program to encourage farmers to produce crops for export.  The presumption is that new crops like french beans, passion … Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

I came across José Amador’s book Medicine and Nation Building in the Americas, 1890-1940 (Vanderbilt University Press, 2015).  Nice chapter on Bailey Ashford’s hookworm eradication campaign in Puerto Rico.  Amador nicely draws out the public health circuits and networks that … Continue reading →

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I think Chris Blattman recent post on “fear” which got a lot of reposts, represents sort of exactly why some people are dubious of the micro-evaluation randomista approach.  The way any normal person reads Chris’s post, is that he is … Continue reading →