Lindsay

How do we get there? There may be truth in the familiar Irish quip – “I wouldn’t start from here” – but I think the answer has already been provided by the Jews, Muslims, and others campaigning simultaneously against anti-Semitism and genocide. Israelis and Palestinians must mutually acknowledge (perhaps via a South African-like Truth and Reconcili... See more

I had an exchange this week about the importance (indeed, primacy) of economic growth in development. I’ve had many such exchanges over the last few years, and at some point they all turn to the same point: even if this is true, what can we do about it? I used to say that growth is hard, not complicated: more like playing the trumpet than building ... See more

Bergstrom (2022) finds that economic growth, as measured by the increase in national gross domestic product (GDP) per person, explains 90 per cent of the historical variation in poverty.

Atrocities tend to rhyme.

Never bring a model to a political economy fight.

Discretion is disallowed because of a belief that deviation from a plan is necessarily a distortion. Impartiality is guaranteed by perfect system design, i.e., only the wisdom and impartiality of the system designer can be trusted. But few, if any, contexts are simple, uniform and controllable, which are the preconditions for allowing strict preset... See more

Bodies fall but ideas endure: Ghassan Kanafani

Much of ‘the evidence’ is crap! You can safely ignore it! A garbage study is always more garbage than study. Even good studies can be turned into garbage by the garbage practices of everyone else. If I wanted to be extreme: no matter how well you design your study, and how carefully you document your data choices and how carefully you design your e... See more