Monthly Archives: August 2012

People everywhere believe in crazy bullshit. I’m not talking about religious beliefs – any spiritual belief can be defended on the grounds that it’s not a statement about the physical world, and hence not testable. I mean provably false nonsense, … Continue reading →

One question I get fairly frequently is what an economist is doing studying people’s sexual behavior, and other topics related to public health. There are lots of reasons, but a significant one is that the public health topics I work … Continue reading →

Picking aspects of Malawian culture that are superior to the American equivalent has been surprisingly hard. This isn’t because I’m afraid to judge one culture versus another – I’m more than happy to do that, in a serious and thoughtful … Continue reading →

Back in college, a common response to my stated goal of going into development economics was for people to ask whether economic development wasn’t really about US cultural imperialism, or promoting consumerism, or some similar issue that college students care … Continue reading →

Writing about Jina Moore’s view on negative stories about Africa got me thinking about what I say here about Malawi, or about other parts of Africa. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced she’s wrong to call … Continue reading →

The Free Exchange column in last week’s Economist (I’m a bit behind since I listen to the podcast version) cites a working paper by David Bloom and coauthors that shows that inequality increases as countries undergo the demographic transition. First, … Continue reading →

I’ve grown pretty accustomed to being pursued by bunches of kids call me “azungu!”, which is a Bantu word that approximately means “whitey” or “honkey” (or for my kama’aina readers, “haole“). In fact, I’m killing time writing this right now … Continue reading →

In a piece in the Boston Review, Jina Moore complains that Nearly every story I published from Rwanda in my three years reporting there included a reference to the 1994 genocide. Dredging up suffering can win a busy audience’s attention, … Continue reading →

I just finished an intense period of training and evaluation for my project staff, and made final selections for my team of supervisors and enumerators. They are a very talented group, and I’m quite happy with my final team, but … Continue reading →

Academic Progress Goes Clunk has been doing a series of posts on amusing news articles from Malawi. She’s got one up about their mocking presentation of former president George W. Bush, and another about some ladies in Chinamwali being chased … Continue reading →