Week of May 22, 2017

1. The Value of Management: If you pay any attention to the development economics world, you were probably already aware that there was unrest at the World Bank since Paul Romer became Chief Economist. Yesterday that unrest came out into full public view with stories about Romer being relieved of management responsibilities for the Development Economics Group. The news stories make everyone look bad, and don't reflect my experience with the parties involved (which is admittedly quite limited). But rather than adjudicate any of the issues, I'm going to pivot to my ongoing amazement that economists of all people seem to have so little appreciation of the value of management and specifically specialization in management. It's a learned skill! The idea that someone should be managing a department of more than 600 people because they happen to be a leading economist is bonkers.

Just look at what a little bit of management training for school principals can do for schools and test scores. Or what professional management training can do for quality of care in hospitals. That's right, management can save lives! Here's hoping that skilled management will advance the very legitimate goals of clear and useful communication in Bank reports. I can't be the only one glancing through the stories about the gender studies hoax paper and thinking it wouldn't be that hard to do the same thing for a World Bank research report.

In closing, I'm not good enough of a person to avoid noting that "and" is 16% of the World Bank's actual name and linking to Ryan Briggs' Drunk World Bank twitter account.

2. Immigration: If you weren't distracted by counting the number of "and"s in your latest piece of writing, you may have seen another controversy bubbling up in social media: Michael Clemens and Jennifer Hunt have a new paper suggesting that Borjas' finding of losses for low-wage workers from the Mariel boatlift are actually a result of a change in the composition of wage survey samples. Borjas responded first by accusing Clemens and Hunt of being tools of Silicon Valley open border enthusiasts--and essentially saying that no grant-supported research can be trusted--and only later with an attempt to defend his results with data. That attempt looks plausible until you realize that he ends up charting the outcomes for less than 20 people. David Roodman--whose earlier work on this specific issue Borjas also managed to slander by calling it "fake news"--weighs in with some typically substantive and clear points (maybe he could do some coaching for World Bank writers?). The major one from my perspective being: Borjas already had to pick through data to find a narrow slice of the population that might have been negatively affected by sudden mass immigration, and can only defend that result with a sample better suited to a local news broadcast than serious economic inquiry.

If this kind of thing fascinates you, rather than tires you, Borjas has an additional reply that is more substantive and ultimately arrives at a useful point. But the process to get there remains bizarre.

In other immigration news, here's a look at the effect of differing state approaches to immigration law enforcement, and here's an animation of Mushfiq Mobarrak making the case for the gains from migration.

3. The Precariat: The precariat is term for people in developed countries who are increasingly having to deal with volatility and instability with less protection. While I've obviously been more focused on issues related to volatility in the US because of the US Financial Diaries, the precariat is by no means confined to the United States. Here are some musings about the precariat in the UK and the implications there. Here's a piece about TD Bank/Ipsos finding substantial income volatility in Canada (which I have to note, makes no mention of the fact that they are replicating the work of USFD, Pew and/or JP Morgan Chase Institute).

Here's Carol Graham of Brookings on how the confluence of low-income and precarity lead the way to hopelessness. Here's Annie Lowery in the Atlantic examining Maine's safety net "reforms" which essentially specifically deny access to the safety net for the precariat and the poorest (making it more likely the former become the latter). Here's some wishful thinking that the Trump budget, which seeks to replicate Maine's "success" in cutting access to aid, will spur a conversation about what the safety net should look like in the age of the precariat. And of course I have to mention "The Power of Predictable Paychecks."

4. African Agriculture: You could say that there are few programs out there aimed at improving agriculture in Africa. If you were to ask the average faiV reader about issues to overcome, I think we would all rattle off a fairly similar list: lack of access to inputs, poor access to markets, limited availability of affordable credit, etc. How many of those are actually problems? Via Tavneet Suri, who is now on Twitter, here's a (wait for it) World Bank report on myths and facts about agriculture in Africa based on synthesizing a lot of recent research. As Eva Vivalt notes, it's important to think through your priors before considering new evidence (well not quite, but close enough for me) so make sure you think about your beliefs before reading.

5. Auto Audio: Since it's a holiday weekend in the US, I'm guessing that a number of readers could use something to listen to while sitting in traffic trying to get out of town. And even if you're not, here are some things worth listening to:
1) Tyler Cowen's "Conversations with Tyler" with Raj Chetty
2) Planet Money episode talking to Robert Gordon about The Rise and Fall of American Growth
3) The entire Revolutions podcast which features many fascinating hours about the American, English, French and Haitian revolutions...but let me especially recommend Series 5 on the Bolivar-led revolution in northern South America. Despite being raised in Colombia I learned for the first time the vital role Haiti played and that my great-great-great-great--more greats--grandfather funded an invasion of Venezuela in the early 1800s.