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Category: Development

Published May 3, 2011

Confusing Busyness with Productivity

Last week, Jean-Marie Baland (who was my colleague while I was on research leave at the University of Namur last year, and who is himself on leave at Harvard this year) was visiting Duke. One of the two talks Jean-Marie gave was about “The Distributional Implications of Group Lending,” in which him and his coauthors show that in most cases, group lending is more beneficial to the middle class than it is to the poor.

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Published April 26, 2011

Tales from the Hood and “Tea”-gate (Updated)

I purposely avoided blogging about Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea and the Central Asia Institute debacle. I did so because issues with my eyes largely kept me away from my computer last week. More importantly, I did so because as an academic (and not an aid worker), I am considerably less qualified to discuss Greg Mortenson than my fellow development bloggers whose boots are on the ground.

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Published April 25, 2011

The Psychology of Food Riots

I missed this article by Evan Fraser and Andrew Rimas in Foreign Affairs when it came out in January and discovered it last week while doing bibliographical research for a grant proposal.

Aside from the fact that Fraser and Rimas seem to confuse the effects of rising food prices and food price volatility, anyone with an interest in food policy should read it, as it nicely illustrates the fact that food prices alone are unlikely to trigger political unrest:

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