Hi all,
It’s been quite the week for extraordinary behaviour with foodstuffs. A Taiwanese man has inadvertently changed his name permanently to ‘Salmon Dream’ in an attempt to access free sushi, yet this is somehow not the most ridiculous food-related public idiocy of the week: I present Charles Walker, who has been wandering the streets of Westminster armed with a pint of milk to make a point about… what exactly? I’m struggling to follow this, nor the relevance of the milk. At least once a week, I wonder if my life is some kind of Truman Show-style experiment with a researcher gradually including increasingly bizarre behaviour to see how much I simply accept before taking to the seas to escape. How else to explain the period 2016-20 in US politics, Fergie’s version of the national anthem or England being competent at limited overs cricket? It’s a mystery.
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The more I study and read economics, the more I realise that there is virtually nothing you can truly understand without getting deep into the weeds of the data, how it has been conceptualised, collected and treated. Four links, on totally separate subjects demonstrate that this week. First, Dietz Vollrath demonstrates that some of those who have been complaining that the US Stimulus package will lead to the economy overheating are, quite simply, misunderstanding what the CBO’s data on potential US output means. He explains that it is in no sense an upper bound on what GDP can be in the future, let alone a guess as to what it can ‘safely’ reach. The information explaining this is public, but apparently not enticing enough to attract many of those propounding on the topic. Second, Kathleen Beegle, Naureen Karachiwalla and others show that studies alleging that fertiliser quality in Africa is often substandard are sometimes simply replicating problems in the testing procedure for fertiliser, not the quality of fertiliser itself, which passes better calibrated tests. Third, also from the Bank, Besart Avdiu and Moritz Meyer show how estimates of remittances measured at household and macro levels are wildly different, driven largely by how the latter measure only ‘formal remittances’. And finally, Nick Hungtinton-Klein and co-authors have a new paper that shows how perfectly legitimate, but different, data cleaning choices can lead to researchers using the same data to come to opposite conclusions about what the results are.
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While I’m piling on the economics profession, let me tag in Arvind Subramanian and Devesh Kapur to deliver the finishing move. They document the absolutely stunning dearth of developing country researchers in positions of influence in academic development economics: as journal editors, even associate editors; in most of the big conferences; and among major research organisations. I don’t fully buy the argument that this is driven by the rise of RCTs, but it’s unmistakably a problem for our profession.
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One shining exception, every single year, is the CSAE Conference, and I hope my prompting last week led to some of you to sign up. It always features researchers from developing countries (and it is incredibly striking how often their methods and main concerns are different, which reinforces the point that their absence biases our body of knowledge). If you did miss it, Dave Evans and Amina Mendez Acosta have you covered, having summarised every paper presented, a public good of immense proportions.
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Doug Gollin and co-authors on how agriculture drove development through the Green Revolution, an answer to those like – sometimes – myself, who question how agriculture can be the motor of economic transformation.
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How will our working patterns be shaped when we emerge from this pandemic? I think everyone expects them to be different. While at first many of us were thrilled to work from home (when we could), I am increasingly craving the random contact with colleagues who have different ways of thinking about the world, the people from whom I learn the most. Nick Bloom predicts, on the basis of his research into the topic, that those who can will settle into a hybrid pattern, with a couple of days at home and a couple in the office, but also warns that many workers will not have this option at all.
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Very often the pressure of what feels right can override the reality of what is actually good for global welfare. Lee Crawfurd picks up another example of this, in the brouhaha over the low pay that Sri Lankan revision tutors receive to provide online support to UK students. Lee points out that even this pitifully low pay is higher than the average wage for a university grad in Sri Lanka, and is cheaper than alternatives available to poor UK students – a rare development-domestic welfare win-win.
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The sporting world has been affected by Covid just as much as the rest of us. Players have vast amounts of time on their own in hotel rooms when traveling to compete; many have indeed come down with the virus (and some have lost family members to it, just as many others have. Wealth is a good protection, but not foolproof). One thing I’ve been really struck by is how measurable the impact of Covid has been on their performance – even months afterwards. True Hoop has some of the numbers, and I think there must be research paper in this. And just in case some of you think this isn’t sufficiently popcultury or amusing for the last link – the Suez Canal blockage has inspired some truly marvelous memes – but none better than Khoa Vu’s.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
R
Disclaimer
CGD blog posts reflect the views of the authors, drawing on prior research and experience in their areas of expertise. CGD is a nonpartisan, independent organization and does not take institutional positions.
