Michael Kevane

I ran a variety of economic experiments in Burkina Faso in 2013, and I wanted to show how the distribution of choices changed (or did not) from the first round of the experiments to the second round of the experiments. I thought an overlapping histogram would be a simple and easy way to show this. I first coded in in Stata, which is quite easy to do.

(I use locals for all the labels etc because I do the graphs in both English and French)

twoway histogram contribpub_mai13, barwidth(50) discrete color(gs4) percent ///
histogram contribpub_aout13 ,  barwidth(35) discrete color(gs10) percent   ///
legend(off) xtitle(“`labx3′”) ytitle(“`labx4′”)   ///
subtitle(“`labx6′ = `labx9′, `labx7′ = `labx8′”, si(small)) ///
title(“`labx53′” “`labx55′”) name(comin1, replace)
graph export “$JTLjeuxoutfld\contribpub2013.png”, replace

I then tried to do the same chart in R, and this is considerably harder because I don’t know how to get the two sets of bars aligned.  Finally I used “space” and set the distance between the bars on the second graph by trial and error.  Turned out pretty well.  But if I change the width of the second set of bars, then I have to trail and error again for all the spaces between them.  I’m sure there is a mathematical formula I could write that would take any width and spread the bars out evenly… next task for me someday.

Here is the R chart and code.

contribmai.freq=table(kevanejtl$contribpub_mai13)
cbind(contribmai.freq)
contribaout.freq=table(kevanejtl$contribpub_aout13)
cbind(contribaout.freq)
### create some plots
barplot(contribmai.freq, col = “gray”, border =”black”, ylim=c(0,160)  )
barplot(contribaout.freq, col = “white”, border =”black”,
add =TRUE, width=.8, space=(c(.37, .5, .5, .5, .5, .5)),
names.arg = c(“”),
ylab=(“Number of people choosing amount”), xlab=(“Amount in FCFA”),
main=(“Contributions in public goods game”))
mtext(“May 2013 = gray, August 2013 = white”)

I finally slogged my way through the book, and admit that I must have skimmed the last several hundred pages. It just got to be too much, and the philosophizing at the end, even to the point of a “dear reader” note, just got me down. Was I the reader that Tartt thought needed to be Borised back into the land of the living? Had I let the line of beauty slip away as I wallowed in averageness? I no longer cared, I just wanted to stop reading the book, and I thought maybe there was another odd twist (Pippa finds Theo’s diary and this is her edited version?) at the very end. No, there wasn’t, it just kept going on and on.  Upon reflection I appreciated Tartt’s skill and it is fun for a couple hundred pages to be flattered (as you read this novel you too become part of the New York elite, and who would not want to be part of that crowd, and spend a lot of time worrying about beauty and dress).  But the more I read the more a sour taste infected the novel, and it increasingly became, for me, self-indulgent, bloated, pedantic, elitist, verbose, affected, endless….  Give me Alan Garner and Elechi Amadi and Beppe Fenoglio I kept thinking.  Of course, they are not good for long airplane rides or rainy weekends, and The Goldfinch is fine for those occasions…. Tom Wolfe, at the end of the day.

Fair wages and educator-led education are two of the major points of contention, said Patricia Schechter, a history professor and union officer. Educator-led education means allowing faculty have more control over university decisions, such as which classes to offer or who to promote, she said. The ultimate goal, she said, is to better serve students.”They are paying more tuition for less access to their faculty,” Schechter said.Max Orhai didn’t have as much access to faculty during his first two years at PSU as he would have liked. The math major didn’t have a math professor until his third year in school, he said. The less advanced classes were all taught by graduate students.”We have an administration that is out of touch with the students and faculty,” he said, holding a “Let PSU serve the students” sign above his head.Job stability is another key aspect of the contract for faculty.”Like many faculty I’m laid off each year and rehired,” David Osborn said in a press release. “I have no way of knowing if I’ll have a job in the next year.”

via Portland State University students, faculty rally to support union in contract negotiations | OregonLive.com.

After herding the female students into a classroom, Islamist militants from the group Boko Haram fatally burned or shot dozens of male students in an attack late Monday on a state college in northeastern Nigeria, officials said on Tuesday. It was the fourth school assault attributed to the group in less than a year… At least 29 students, ages 16 to 18, died in what looked to be part of a widening campaign by the group. More than 200 people have been fatally shot in the region’s remote villages and towns in the last four weeks in what officials have called a spree of apparently random massacres by members of Boko Haram. The violence has put the government of President Goodluck Jonathan on the defensive and left the army in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, struggling for a strategy after years of failed counterinsurgency efforts. The assailants seemed to enjoy unfettered access to the college campus chosen for the latest assault, which stirred outrage among residents in the area. In September, 40 students were killed in a similar assault at a nearby state school. Boko Haram deliberately targets state educational institutions as part of its Islamist, antisecular campaign.  After the attackers separated the students, they told the women to read the Quran, go home and find husbands, according to the Yobe State police commissioner, Sanusi Rufai.

via Islamist Militants Blamed for Deadly College Attack in Nigeria – NYTimes.com.

Fredy Massamba – Nkembo (Clip Officiel)

From my colleague, friend and neighbor… highly recommended! From Stanford University Press:

Outside of Shiraz in the Fars Province of southwestern Iran lies “Aliabad.” Mary Hegland arrived in this then-small agricultural village of several thousand people in the summer of 1978, unaware of the momentous changes that would sweep this town and this country in the months ahead. She became the only American researcher to witness the Islamic Revolution firsthand over her eighteen-month stay. Days of Revolution offers an insider’s view of how regular people were drawn into, experienced, and influenced the 1979 Revolution and its aftermath.

Conventional wisdom assumes Shi’a religious ideology fueled the revolutionary movement. But Hegland counters that the Revolution spread through much more pragmatic concerns: growing inequality, lack of development and employment opportunities, government corruption. Local expectations of leaders and the political process—expectations developed from their experience with traditional kinship-based factions—guided local villagers’ attitudes and decision-making, and they often adopted the religious justifications for Revolution only after joining the uprising. Sharing stories of conflict and revolution alongside in-depth interviews, the book sheds new light on this critical historical moment.

This article by Franklin Nyamsi and some preceding back and forth, lays out the case very plainly… Clearly Blaise hopes to make a good argument for another term.  He’d rather win on the argument, but given his history I am sure he is planning other ways to win too, just in case.

Première raison : Toute la crème de l’opposition sociodémocrate et libérale est issue du CDP dont elle partage nécessairement le bilan aux yeux du peuple. Comment critiquer le CDP sans s’accuser soi-même en pareil cas ? Comment continuer de vivre des crédits bancaires obtenus avec la caution morale du parti au pouvoir alors même qu’on le voue publiquement aux gémonies ? En d’autres termes les succès comme les échecs de la présidence Compaoré seront tout aussi bien imputables au travail de ses proches collaborateurs que furent les Roch Kaboré, Salif Diallo, Simon Compaoré ou même Zéphirin Diabré qui fut un important conseiller économique du président du Faso…  Seconde raison : le peuple burkinabè, à travers son pouvoir référendaire inviolable par les oukases de l’opposition, a toutes les raisons de requérir encore du président Blaise Compaoré une meilleure organisation de l’avenir politique de son pays, au regard de la rapacité et de l’ingratitude extraordinaires que manifestent ceux-là mêmes qui s’empressent de s’engouffrer à Kosyam pour être au pouvoir pour le pouvoir. Ce que l’opposition radicale a clairement montré par sa manière de vouloir instrumentaliser la rue pour bloquer les procédures constitutionnelles pourtant légales, c’est sa peur bleue de la voix du peuple burkinabè. En voulant empêcher coûte que coûte une consultation populaire dans laquelle les abstentionnistes de projet auraient l’occasion de montrer ce qu’ils valent face au pouvoir CDP, l’opposition a clairement montré son peu de confiance dans les institutions qu’elle a pourtant massivement participé à bâtir avec le président Compaoré.  … Troisième raison : On ne se débarrasse pas d’un Chef d’Etat efficace, efficient et efficace comme on se séparerait d’un garçon de courses. Car un tel homme incarne la stabilité même de son pays et doit être accompagné dans la transition vers l’après-lui. Le président Compaoré a impulsé, depuis 1990 notamment, après le bilan critique de la révolution de 1983-1987, une transformation sans précédent du Burkina Faso qui s’est accompagnée d’une révélation concomitante de sa propre stature magistrale d’homme d’Etat.

via Le Président Blaise Compaoré, l’opposition burkinabè et l’avenir – leFaso.net, l’actualité au Burkina Faso.

Nobody really knows… Four “eminent personalities” (one the brief and ineffective interim president Jean-Baptiste Ouedraogo who served in the interregnum in 1982-83, the other three religious leaders, one of whom has already resigned) came forth to organize talks between re-energized opposition after defections from CDP and the presidential party CDP.  But now the talks (nobody knows what is really on the table) have broken down as opposition leaders say: “Who are we really talking with?” Opposition has demanded that President formally say, “you are talking with me, these are my negotiators.”  But he won’t do that (I would be very surprised). So now the talks will drag on until some kind of face-saving compromise can be arrived at for who is actually talking.

Dès 10 h, les membres des différentes délégations se sont enfermés dans une des salles du Centre d’accueil Marie Immaculée de Ouagadougou. Rien ne filtre de ce qui se dit. Après 3h 20mn d’échanges, ils ressortent. C’est la pause-déjeuner. … Mais visiblement, tout ne baignait pas. Quelque chose se cachait dans ces refus de commenter les travaux. …  Puis le communiqué : « En préalable aux négociations, l’Opposition a exigé que la Majorité présente un mandat du Président du Faso l’investissant du pouvoir de négocier. En réponse à cette exigence, la Majorité a estimé d’une part, que sa délégation était conforme à la lettre d’invitation de la Médiation adressée aux partis de la majorité présidentielle et d’autre part, qu’elle n’avait pas besoin d’un mandat du Président du Faso pour discuter avec l’Opposition dans le cadre de cette médiation », dit en substance le communiqué.  Face à cette requête, la médiation a promis de prendre les initiatives nécessaires pour faire valider et appliquer les résultats qui seront obtenus par la médiation. « Les deux délégations n’ayant pas pu s’accorder, elles ont demandé à la Médiation de prendre ses responsabilités afin de résoudre le problème posé », précise le communiqué.

via Situation nationale : Mésentente et blocage au 3e round des négociations – leFaso.net, l’actualité au Burkina Faso.

Alphonse Bonou and others had started a political party that appeared to be catering to Bwaba voters of the southwest.  But they got totally trounced by the CDP in the elections of 2012.  Now many of the party organizers have quit.  The perennial problem: it was organized around a personality rather than around real interests.

1. La complaisance avec laquelle le président de l’AND/PJS, Alphonse Bonou a établi les listes des candidats aux dernières élections couplées de 2012 où il ne s’est aucunement gêné à y faire figurer son enfant, ses cousins, des oncles et ses nièces, oubliant déjà que ce sont ces mêmes pratiques mafieuses qui ont justifié le départ en 2007 des anciens camarades du P.A.I de Soumane Touré ;

2. Depuis la création de l’AND/PJS en avril 2007 Alphonse Bonou a géré les ressources financières du parti avec une opacité indicible : c’est lui qui encaisse et comptabilise les recettes, c’est encore lui qui assure les dépenses en lieu et place du trésorier (René Traoré qui a fini par démissionner du parti en 2012) sans jamais en rendre compte…

3. Alphonse Bonou, a pris seul la lourde responsabilité d’engager le parti dans les élections sénatoriales sans qu’aucun membre du bureau n’en soit informé ;

4. Le même Alphone Bonou a décidé de son propre derechef de prendre part aux réunions préparatoires qui préfiguraient la création du Front républicain…

via AND/PJS : Toundoun Sessouma et ses camarades quittent le parti d’Alphonse Bonou – leFaso.net, l’actualité au Burkina Faso.

After his election to the papacy 11 months ago, Francis seemed to immediately grasp the significance of the divisions among the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. He has chosen inclusive language, has played down the importance of following the hierarchy and has warned against the church locking itself up “in small-minded rules.” The poll reflects previous ones in finding that the vast majority of Catholics appreciate his approach…. Pope Francis appears particularly eager to engage with divisions around sex, marriage and gender and has called a rare “extraordinary synod” this fall on “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family.” For that, he has asked bishops to survey Catholics about their views of cohabitation, same-sex parenting and contraception, among other things.

via Pope Francis faces church divided over doctrine, global poll of Catholics finds – The Washington Post.

I was in high school at the same time as Fortuño.  He definitely did the right things in successfully shrinking government and correcting spending.  But if I had known he was ideologically libertarian, rather than a committed pragmatist, I think I would have taken a harder look at what he was doing and his critics.  Someday I hope to be able to.

Standard & Poor’s downgraded the debt of Puerto Rico to junk status on Tuesday, intensifying a cash squeeze for the commonwealth, whose financial condition is of outsize importance to the rest of the United States because its debt is widely held by individual investors through mutual funds.

S.&P., which lowered its rating to BB+ from BBB-, said it had decided that Puerto Rico was no longer qualified as investment grade because its government was losing its ability to raise cash through the Government Development Bank. It said it did not expect the cash squeeze to ease soon and was keeping all of Puerto Rico’s debt on negative watch, which means more downgrades could follow.

The implications of slipping into junk territory are greater than a one-notch downgrade might suggest. A good portion of Puerto Rico’s debt was issued with promises to make cash payments if it fell below investment grade, and ready cash is precisely what Puerto Rico lacks. S.&P. estimated that the downgrade would initiate cash calls totaling $940 million, including the acceleration of debt service and the posting of additional collateral on interest-rate swaps.  Some of those commitments call for Puerto Rico to produce the cash within 30 days.

via S.&P. Lowers Puerto Rico Debt to Junk Status – NYTimes.com.

The lyrics are here.

S&P cut a slew of Puerto Rico bonds to junk territory ahead of a press conference by Gov. Padilla today after the market closes, according to the rating agency’s website.

via Reorg Research Intelligence Alert