Michael Kevane

I participated on a dissertation defense for Valeda Dent, who has been one of a handful of researchers interested over the years in rural libraries in Africa.  She nicely defended her dissertation today: “An Exploratory Study of the Impact of the Rural Ugandan Village Library on the Academic Achievement of Secondary School Students.”  It has a terrific literature review and a great qualitative analysis of some focus groups with secondary school students.  The quantitative analysis of certain key effects/impact of library on reading turned out to be largely insignificant, not surprising given the small sample size.  The qualitative analysis of her focus group interviews was very interesting, as she “generated” some useful constructs for thinking about (and in future measuring) some of the non-academic impacts of libraries.  Congratulations Valeda!

I mean, this code works, but it gives you the number, not the *table*, which would greatly reduce the cutting and pasting…

allchildren = read.csv(“C:\\Data\\Econ 135 Gender\\ps_1__all_children.csv”)
names(allchildren )
allchildren$recent <- as.numeric(decadeborn >75)
chsizenew  <- chsize
chsizenew[chsize>= 5] <- 5

attach(allchildren )
options(digits=3)
library(doBy) # you have to first install the package doBy
summaryBy(agediffm  ~ recent+ isboy, data=allchildren , FUN=c(mean),na.rm=TRUE)
summaryBy(agediffm  ~ recent+ firstb, data=allchildren , FUN=c(mean),na.rm=TRUE)
summaryBy(agediffm  ~ recent+ atlst1bn , data=allchildren , FUN=c(mean),na.rm=TRUE)
summaryBy(chsizenew ~ recent+ gender , data=allchildren , FUN=c(mean),na.rm=TRUE)

The Small Arms Survey’s Sudan/South Sudan Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) is pleased to announce the release of a new Issue Brief: Reaching for the Gun: Arms Flows and Holdings in South Sudan

This Issue Brief reviews arms flows and holdings among both state and non-state armed forces as of early 2012, situating recent developments against historical trends and patterns of supply. It updates a previous HSBA report on small arms and light weapons flows and holdings in Sudan from December 2009.

Key findings include:

In 2010–11 the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) acquired large quantities of small arms and light weapons and their ammunition, 10 Russian-manufactured Mi-17 transport helicopters, as well as final deliveries of 33 T-72 battle tanks that were delivered to Mombasa Port, Kenya, in February 2009.

Ukraine has been South Sudan’s principal supplier of weapons since 2005. Kenya and Uganda have been used as transshipment points for onward delivery to South Sudan

From November 2010 to May 2011, the South Sudan Police Service (SSPS) marked 41,200 firearms distributed among various official security forces, permitting it to trace a number of firearms that leaked out of state control to non-state actors. The SPLA would benefit from similarly marking its weapons.

South Sudanese rebel militia groups are well equipped with both small and large calibre small arms and light weapons. Analysis of captured materiel reveals that they have consistent access to new weapons from SAF and, to a lesser degree, from the SPLA, and a number of governments both inside and outside the region.

Although the SPLA and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) officially separated in July 2011, military and logistical cooperation and collaboration between the two forces continues.

via Small Arms Survey – Highlight: HSBA IB19.

“Vegetarians are more virtuous than the rest of us; they should be admired.”

via Marginal Revolution — Small steps toward a much better world..

HT: Marginal Revolution.  From Why Netflix Never Implemented The Algorithm That Won The Netflix $1 Million Challenge | Techdirt.

You probably recall all the excitement that went around when a group finally won the big Netflix $1 million prize in 2009, improving Netflix’s recommendation algorithm by 10%. But what you might not know, is that Netflix never implemented that solution itself. Netflix recently put up a blog post discussing some of the details of its recommendation system, which as an aside explains why the winning entry never was used. First, they note that they did make use of an earlier bit of code that came out of the contest:

A year into the competition, the Korbell team won the first Progress Prize with an 8.43% improvement. They reported more than 2000 hours of work in order to come up with the final combination of 107 algorithms that gave them this prize. And, they gave us the source code. We looked at the two underlying algorithms with the best performance in the ensemble: Matrix Factorization which the community generally called SVD, Singular Value Decomposition and Restricted Boltzmann Machines RBM. SVD by itself provided a 0.8914 RMSE root mean squared error, while RBM alone provided a competitive but slightly worse 0.8990 RMSE. A linear blend of these two reduced the error to 0.88. To put these algorithms to use, we had to work to overcome some limitations, for instance that they were built to handle 100 million ratings, instead of the more than 5 billion that we have, and that they were not built to adapt as members added more ratings. But once we overcame those challenges, we put the two algorithms into production, where they are still used as part of our recommendation engine.

That being said, I think the important variable — that we have control over — is the exchange rate. Figure 5 plots the real value of the dollar against a broad basket of currencies.tr5.gifFigure 5: Log real trade weighted value of the US dollar, against a broad basket of currencies. NBER recession dates shaded gray. Source: Federal Reserve Board via St. Louis Fed FRED.The more expansionary the monetary policy either directly by increasing money supply, or by increasing inflationary expectations, the more we can drive the dollar down against other currencies, including the RMB and other East Asian currencies. If foreign demand holds up, then exports will continue to grow elasticity estimates here; HSBC argues that BRIC economies are doing that — with the exception of China.

via Econbrowser: Some Implications of the Trade Release.

In the latest issue of American Scientist, Andrew Gelman (an old friend) and Kaiser Fung criticize Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics by Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner (who wrote about my work). Although the article is titled “Freakonomics: What Went Wrong?” none of the supposed errors are in Freakonomics. You can get an idea of the conclusions from the title and this sentence: “How could an experienced journalist and a widely respected researcher slip up in so many ways?”

Gelman and Fung examine a series (“so many ways”) of what they consider mistakes. I will comment on each of them.

1. The case of the missing girls. I agree with Gelman and Fung: Levitt and Dubner accepted Emily Oster’s research too uncritically.

2. The risk of driving a car. I think Gelman and Fung miss the point. Yes, the claim (driving drunk is safer than walking drunk) was not well-supported by the evidence provided because the comparison was so confounded. However, I read the whole example differently. I didn’t think that Levitt and Dubner thought drunk people should drive. I thought their point was more subtle — that comparisons are difficult (“look how we can reach a crazy conclusion”).

via Seth’s Blog » Blog Archive » Gelman and Fung versus Levitt and Dubner: How “Wrong” is Freakonomics?.

From a new paper by Eliana Carranza.

The female population deficit in India has been explained in a number of ways, but the great heterogeneity in the deficit across districts within India still remains an open question. This paper argues that across India, a largely agrarian economy, soil texture varies exogenously and determines the workability of the soil and the technology used in land preparation. Deep tillage, possible only in lighter and looser loamy soils, reduces the use of labor in cultivation tasks performed by women and has a negative impact on the relative value of girls to a household. The analysis finds that soil texture explains a large part of the variation in women’s relative participation in agriculture and in infant sex ratios across districts in India.

En début de soirée, le colonel-major réussit à faire passer son message – une fausse déclaration de ralliement au MNLA – à la radio internationale. Puis les 204 militaires « sudistes » sont désarmés. Mais quand Ag Khabi demande que ceux-ci lui soient livrés comme prisonniers de guerre, Ag Gamou refuse. « Ces militaires sont désormais mes otages », rétorque-t-il. Le lendemain, les hommes du colonel-major continuent leur route en direction du Niger.

À 100 km de la frontière, Ag Gamou appelle le consul du Mali au Niger avec son téléphone satellitaire et lui demande de se préparer à l’arrivée de ses hommes pour qu’ils soient rapatriés vers Bamako, via le Burkina. Puis il prend congé de ses soldats originaires du sud, restant avec sa milice touarègue. « Depuis ce jour, je n’ai plus de nouvelles du Ag Gamou, mais je sais que tout ce qu’il a fait état pour sauver sa vie et les nôtres, car nous n’étions plus en état de combattre et lui était menacé par Ansar Dine qui ne l’aurait pas pris vivant », conclut notre source. En début de semaine, le colonel-major Ag Gamou a indiqué que son allégeance au MNLA sur RFI était une manœuvre pour s’enfuir et qu’il était désormais disposé à reprendre les combats contre les rebelles touaregs au côté de l’armée malienne.

via Malijet – L’actualité malienne au quotidien – Mali : comment Ag Gamou a échappé au MNLA et à Ansar Eddine.

Good reporting from Abdoulaye Diakité:

Le ton a été donné par le chef de la junte lui-même Amadou Haya Sanogo le lundi dernier lors d’une conférence de presse de « rectification ». Il a presque prédit un retour du CNRDRE quarante jours après. Un discours qui fait écho à celui d’Oumar Mariko qui a tenu dans la matinée les mêmes propos allant jusqu’à dire la fin du mandat de Dioncounda Traoré le soir de son 40e jour de présidence.Une position partagée par d’autres acteurs politiques à l’instar du Front patriotique pour la sauvegarde de la démocratique qui rejette dorénavant toute prorogation de l’intérim du président de l’Assemblée nationale. Tout indique que l’affrontement entre les différents clans est prévisible ainsi qu’un nouveau bras de fer avec les putschistes qui n’ont pas visiblement envie de retourner dans les casernes.D’ailleurs, leur réticence a été forte dans la désignation du Premier ministre consensuel devant conduire la campagne de reconquête du Nord et de l’organisation des élections générales. Durant tout le week-end, les négociations entre la junte et le nouveau président de la République ont été sans concession et ont logiquement abouti à des rejets des différentes personnalités proposées.La volonté de la junte d’imposer son choix au très stratégique poste de Premier ministre de transition est sans limite surtout qu’elle est soutenue par les blocs politiques soutenant le putsch qui voient aux nouvelles circonstances sociopolitiques une aubaine pour en finir avec les grands partis comme l’Adéma, le RPM, l’URD et le PDES.Ces partis ont commencé de leur côté une contre-offensive pour déjouer les plans de la junte et de ses alliés. Un document expliquant leur position a déjà distillé au niveau des ambassades et des partenaires au développement. Et d’autres initiatives sont annoncées dans le même sens. Comme quoi, tout le monde est en train de fourbir en prévision des joutes devenues inévitables.

via Malijet – L’actualité malienne au quotidien – Crise post coup d’Etat : La transition déjà compromise.

In recent years, California gardeners have been presented with a number of excellent books on the state’s native flora and its value for gardeners and landscape professionals. ….

Helen Popper has chosen a different approach in her delightful California Native Gardening. As the subtitle suggests, this is a seasonal guide to the care of native plants in our gardens and landscapes. Popper emphasizes the rhythm of growth, flowering, fruiting, and rest that is inherent in our natives. …

Popper leads the reader through the gardening year, beginning with October and the first hint of a change from the summer siesta. She presents a concise list of tasks for each month, then expands upon it in a wonderful readable prose-nurturing our understanding of the needs of native plants in the landscape, month-by-month. She concludes each monthly chapter with a discussion of the flowers that will likely be in bloom in that month….

This is the book I’ve been looking for to guide me through a year’s program of maintenance of the increasing number of native plants in my own garden. The native gardener in California should not be without it.

via Pacific Horticulture — Book Reviews: California Native Gardening: A Month-by-Month Guide.

You can buy the book on amazon.com.

These data show the compensation received in 2009 by 519 chief executives at 482 private, nonprofit colleges in the United States.  The Chronicle compiled compensation data from the Internal Revenue Service’s Form 990, which is filed by most major nonprofit entities. We obtained each institution’s form from the college or from GuideStar, an organization that posts the documents online.

Click on the link to see the very interesting graph…

via Graphic: How Presidents’ Pay Compares With Professors’ Salaries – Facts & Figures – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Lazear writes:

Indeed, that was the expectation [that the economy was in rapid catch-up mode and would eventually regain all that had been lost]. As economist Victor Zarnowitz of the University of Chicago argued many years ago, the strength of the recovery is related to the depth of the recession. Big recessions are followed by robust recoveries, presumably because more idle resources are available to be tapped. Unfortunately, the current post-recession period has not followed the pattern. The 2007-09 recession was induced by a financial crisis and some, most notably economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff authors of “This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly”, argue that financial crises pose more difficult recovery problems than do policy-induced recessions.

After recounting the Reinhart-Rogoff thesis, Lazear essentially dismisses it, apparently in favor of John Taylor’s argument that the crisis was Fed induced.I want to take exception to the argument that the expectation was for a rapid recovery.

via Econbrowser: The Recovery According to Ed “We are not in a recession” Lazear.

Andrew Gelman and Kaiser Fung have an article on Freakonomics in American Scientist. My favorite part was the story of Emily Oster and her theory of Hepatitis B: Monica Das Gupta is a World Bank researcher who, along with others in her field, has attributed the abnormally high ratio of boy-to-girl births in Asian countries to a preference for sons, which manifests in selective abortion and, possibly, infanticide. As a graduate student in economics, Emily Oster now a professor at the University of Chicago attacked this conventional wisdom. In an essay in Slate, Dubner and Levitt praised Oster and her study, which was published in the Journal of Political Economy during Levitt’s tenure as editor:

[Oster] measured the incidence of hepatitis B in the populations of China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, and other countries where mothers gave birth to an unnaturally high number of boys. Sure enough, the regions with the most hepatitis B were the regions with the most “missing” women. Except the women weren’t really missing at all, for they had never been born.

Oster’s work stirred debate for a few years in the epidemiological literature, but eventually she admitted that the subject-matter experts had been right all along. One of Das Gupta’s many convincing counterpoints was a graph showing that in Taiwan, the ratio of boys to girls was near the natural rate for first and second babies 106:100 but not for third babies 112:100; this pattern held up with or without hepatitis B. In a follow-up blog post, Levitt applauded Oster for bravery in admitting her mistake, but he never credited Das Gupta for her superior work. Our point is not that Das Gupta had to be right and Oster wrong, but that Levitt and Dubner, in their celebration of economics and economists, suspended their critical thinking. I think that this story actually has two elements. One is the dangers of a convincing explanation. There are a lot of associations that can appear and would be extremely exciting if they were true. Just consider the recent article on statins reducing mortality due to pneumonia: it is an amazing result that would be extremely exciting if it were true.

via Observational Epidemiology: A really nice article by Andrew Gelman and Kaiser Fung.

From 1992, the paper is here note by the way an interesting written comment from Paul Krugman at the end. The basic story was that Hong Kong and Singapore had obtained their prosperity by two different paths. Hong Kong had made real productivity gains, but Singapore grew just by throwing more factors of production at the problem of economic growth, including a massive dose of savings and investment, including foreign investment. The share of investment in Singapore’s gdp rose from 9% in 1960 to 43% in 1984, while Hong Kong’s remained roughly steady at about 20%. If you back this out from national income statistics, you can measure that Singapore had very low levels of total factor productivity growth.But should we believe that story, which by now is twenty years old? After all, these days, Singapore is extremely interested in cutting-edge science and on the frontier in the biosciences and with satellite launches, among other areas. Hong Kong has done fine, but as a finance center and entrepot for the China trade. Not many people look to them as ideas leaders. Maybe both countries somehow turned on the proverbial dime, but I don’t believe the initial Young result for a few reasons:

via Marginal Revolution — Small steps toward a much better world..

“Le Conseil a été informé d’un projet de loi portant modification de la Constitution. Les innovations majeures portent entre autres sur : la constitutionnalisation de la chefferie coutumière et traditionnelle, du genre, du Médiateur du Faso et du Conseil supérieur de la communication ; la création d’un Sénat et d’un tribunal des conflits ; la sanction de la Déclaration de politique générale (DPG) du Premier ministre par l’Assemblée nationale ; l’amnistie au profit des anciens chefs d’Etat de 1960 à la date d’adoption des dispositions de la nouvelle Constitution.

via Autant le dire… : Réformes politiques : top on y va ! – leFaso.net, l’actualité au Burkina Faso.

Le capitaine Sanogo, chef de la junte malienne qui a pris le pouvoir le 22 mars a annoncé, ce vendredi 6 avril, la signature d’un accord-cadre avec le représentant du médiateur burkinabè pour la crise malienne Djibril Bassolé. Lors d’une déclaration à la télévision publique ORTM, la junte a détaillé les points de cet accord qui prévoit le transfert du pouvoir.« Nous sommes parvenus à un accord, accord qui permettra dans les heures et les jours à venir de mettre effectivement en place les organes prévus par la Constitution et qui fonctionneront de manière régulière », a déclaré à l’ORTM le ministre burkinabè Djibrill Bassolè au nom de la Cédéao.L’accord-cadre de cinq pages signé entre le chef de la junte et la Cédéao prévoit le transfert des affaires à un président intérimaire. Ce dernier devrait être le président du Parlement Diouncounda Traoré, qui prêtera serment et sera chargé d’organiser des élections dans un délai de 40 jours. Il sera aussi en charge de gérer la situation dans le nord du pays.Parallèlement, les putshistes devraient bénéficier d’une amnistie générale aux termes d’une proposition de loi contenue dans l’accord.Le président en exercice de la Cédéao Alassane Ouattara a déclaré la levée immédiate des sanctions de l’organisation contre le Mali.

via Malijet – L’actualité malienne au quotidien – Mali : la junte et la Cédéao concluent un transfert de pouvoir.

Koulouba est au sommet d’une butte. Il n’y a qu’une seule voie d’accès. Or, les putschistes tiennent cette route. Il ne reste qu’une solution : descendre à pied la colline par-derrière, en direction du quartier de Dar Salam. C’est là qu’un béret rouge entre en scène : le lieutenant-colonel Abidine Guindo (homonyme de Boureima Guindo). Lui n’a pas trahi. Jusqu’en novembre dernier, il était l’aide de camp du président. Aujourd’hui, il commande le 4e régiment de parachutistes basé à Djicoroni, à 6km de Koulouba. Ce soir-là, il est aux côtés du chef de l’Etat et prend la direction des opérations. Avec trois autres parachutistes, il aide ATT à franchir la clôture puis à dévaler la pente. Le président à 63 ans. Il souffre d’un genou et a prévu de se faire opérer l’été prochain, après la fin de son mandat. A certains endroits de la descente, ses compagnons doivent le porter. Enfin, le petit groupe atteint la route en contrebas, l’avenue de l’Indépendance. Pourtant, à ce moment, le président en fuite n’est pas encore tiré d’affaire. Pour rejoindre le camp de parachutistes de Djicoroni, il faut un véhicule. Mais pas un 4×4, qui pourrait attirer l’attention des putschistes. Une Mercedes 190 de couleur blanche passe sur la route. Abidine Guindo et ses hommes braquent le chauffeur, qui s’enfuit sans demander son reste. ATT et ses compagnons montent dans le véhicule et réussissent à gagner Djicoroni sans encombre. Un choix judicieux. Les hommes d’Abidine Guindo sont plus fidèles que ceux de la garde présidentielle. Et l’ambassade des Etats-Unis est voisine du camp. ATT est donc doublement protégé. Il peut souffler. Mais il a eu chaud.

via Malijet – L’actualité malienne au quotidien – Révélation sur le coup d’Etat au Mali: Comment ATT a fui Koulouba.

I loved reading this quite charming graphic novel, about difference and courage….  More about Vera Brosgol is here.