Rwanda has better institutions than the congo.
Haiti and the dominican republic share the same island but not the same property rights.
Institutions matter
18 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, law and economics, property rights Tags: border effects, property rights
Fighting the World’s Biggest Environmental Problem – With Fossil Fuels | Bjorn Lomborg
12 Jul 2014 2 Comments
in development economics, environmental economics Tags: Bjørn Lomborg, indoor pollution
The Great Fact
06 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth miracles Tags: The Great Escape, The Great Fact
The graph shows the total global proportion of people in extreme poverty from 1820-2005, defined as having less than $1 per day (inflation adjusted across the time period).
HT: Cool It
Of mice and collective farms
04 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, growth disasters Tags: Russian jokes
When Stalin was in office, he once noted that there were mice in his study and complained to President Kalinin about this.
The President thought for a moment and suggested, "Why don’t you put up a sign reading ‘Collective Farm’? Half the mice will die of hunger and the other half will run away."
The Great Enrichment foretold
01 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in growth miracles, liberalism Tags: The Great Enrichment, The Great Fact, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Whig theory of history
Thomas Babington Macaulay’s books on British history are hailed as literary masterpieces.
His writing are famous for their emphasis on a progressive model of British history, according to which the country threw off superstition, autocracy and confusion to create a balanced constitution and a forward-looking culture combined with freedom of belief and expression.
This model of human progress has been called the Whig interpretation of history where civilisation marches onwards and upwards towards the light. I do know how he explained the fall of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages.
The Great Fact in the Age of Milton Friedman
27 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth miracles Tags: The Age of Milton Friedman, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
HT: The Gapminder
What was the greatest invention of the industrial revolution?
26 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
This video by Hans Rosling is one of the best about the Great Escape and the Great Fact; and what we just so take from granted, even myself because of the overweening conceit of youth, from our childhoods and the lives of our parents.
The Great Escape: the astonishing fall in child mortality rates
25 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth miracles Tags: child mortality, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
HT: The Gapminder
On independence, Jamaica was rated a better prospect for economic development than Singapore!
24 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: East Asian Tigers, Jamaica, Singapore
Upon Singapore’s independence in 1965—three years after Jamaica’s own establishment as a nation—the two nations were about equal in wealth: the gross domestic product (in 2006 U.S. dollars) was $2,850 per person in Jamaica, slightly higher than Singapore’s $2,650.
Both nations had a centrally located port, a tradition of British colonial rule, and governments with a strong capitalist orientation. (Jamaica, in addition, had plentiful natural resources and a robust tourist industry.)
But four decades later, their standing was dramatically different: Singapore had climbed to a per capita GDP of $31,400 (2006 data, in current dollars), while Jamaica’s figure was only $4,800.
Both countries were ruled by political parties that were members of Socialist International.
Both countries had a Prime Minister who held office for a long time in the period after independence. Both countries had a father and son follow each other in short order as Prime Minister.
Bill Easterly at the Asian Development Bank
20 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in Bill Easterly, development economics, growth miracles Tags: Bill Easterly, East Asian Tigers
— United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, a body that has long distinguished itself by promoting all the bad ideas that stifle both trade and development.
— But any Asian leader who hasn’t already figured out that trade should be mainstream after Asia’s world-historical trade explosion is past the point of rescue anyway.
— Successful trade booms (and the accompanying infrastructure demand) come about through letting free market entrepreneurs run wild to find things foreigners want rather than consulting ADB bureaucrats on designing a “national development strategy.”
— All of which goes to show that the ADB’s fundamental problem is that it needs advice from successful Asian countries more than they need advice from it.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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