The Post-Neoliberal Edition
1. Economics: The dismal science doesn't often generate positive reviews from outside the discipline, so when it does happen it's worth noting. Julia Rohrer, who in addition to having one of the best titled blogs I've ever seen, is a psychology graduate student who procrastinated on her dissertation by attending a summer program in economics. Here is her list of things she appreciated in economics as a positive contrast to her experience in psychology.
On the other hand (hah!), economists typically have a lot to say about what is wrong with economics--certainly I encounter more "friendly-fire" in the econ literature than when I dip my toes in other disciplines (though this is perhaps my favorite example of the intra-disciplinary critique). There's an ongoing discussion about the future of economics going on in the Boston Review--I don't know if that counts as friendly-fire in terms of the outlet, but the participants are economists--starting with an essay by Naidu, Rodrik and Zucman, Economics after Neoliberalism. Then there are responses from Marshall Steinbaum, who notes that "every new generation proclaims itself to have discovered empirical verification for the first time," and from Alice Evans who focuses on the nexus of economics and political power in the form of unions.
But, because it's me writing this, I have to close on a new paper in JDE, that finds that communal land tenure explains half of the cross-country agricultural productivity gap. And here's a piece about how small teams of researchers are more innovative than large teams. generate much more innovation than big teams Neo-liberalism won't go down without a fight!
2. Migration: I haven't touched on migration for a while so it felt serendipitous that Michael Clemens and Satish Chand put out an update to their paper first released in 2008(!) on the effects of migration on human capital development in Fiji. The basic story is that in the late 80's formal discrimination against Indian-Fijians increased sharply, causing the community to both increase emigration and investment in human capital to aid emigration prospects. The net effect, rather than the dreaded "brain drain," was to increase the stock of human capital in Fiji. grapes
Cross-border migration is really the only option in Fiji, but in many countries, like Indonesia, there are lots of internal migration options. Since there is typically a large gap in productivity within countries as well as between countries, internal migrationhas always been a part of the development story. Bryan and Morten have a new article in VoxDev about this process in Indonesia, looking at the productivity gains possible from removing barriers to internal migration.
Since we started off talking about Economics, here's a post from David McKenzie considering the effects of migration on economists--or more specifically, how to think about job market papers about a candidate's country-of-origin. True to his style, David goes deep, including a model, and a survey. The post was inspired by a tweet from Pablo Albarcar who later noted it was mostly a joke about "brain drain" worries.
It is surprising to me how tenacious the brain drain idea is. When I have conversations about it, I try to cite the literature like Clemens and Chand, but I rarely find that makes a dent. People can always find an objection. So I've taken to just asking people how they feel about the "destruction" of Brazilian soccer/football culture and skill due to the mass emigration of the most skilled players. Typically, that leads to several moments of silent blinking. If you're interested here's a paper about "Rodar" the circular human capital investment, migration and development among Brazilian footballers.
3. US Poverty and Inequality: I typically try to avoid the grab-bag approach to items of interest but I'll confess this one is a bit of a grab bag with a variety of connecting threads. We'll start by connecting to a piece I included last week about tax refunds and saving. If you haven't read that, you should. I noted I was grateful for the piece because it meant I could skip the annual ritual of linking to a piece I wrote for SSIR several years ago about rethinking tax refunds. But I should have known that the zombie idea of tax refunds being bad personal finance wouldn't die so easily. Here's Neil Irwin from the NYT on how people being angry about lower refunds shows that "humans are not always rational." I'm struck by the irony that the continuing common use of "rational" in economics requires zero-cost attention, while a foundational truth of the discipline is "nothing is zero-cost." There is nothing irrational about paying a very small fee (in foregone interest) for the valuable service of helping you to save when other services are ineffective. That's especially true if you include, as you should, the cost of the tax advisors and financial advisors required to accurately calculate the proper amount of withholding and to choose the right investment/savings account in which to store those savings. So I guess that connects to the thread about economics maybe not being post-neoliberalism quite yet. And here's a column from the Washington Post's personal finance columnist withpush back on the "refunds are bad" idea from readers who explain their rational choices in their own words.
This week a 3 year project by the National Academy of Sciences to provide a "nonpartisan, evidence-based report" on the most effective ways to reduce child poverty in the United States was released. The summary that most everyone is latching on to is that work supports are not going to get the job done. The only way to cut child poverty by at least half is direct cash support to parents. Here's the Vox overview.
If you were thinking about intergenerational poverty, you were probably also thinking about education. The last few years have seen a proliferation of videos of "poor kids" getting into elite schools. Here's a piece about a new book on what happens to the lower-income students once they arrive at elite schools. It's not so joyous--"money remains a requirement for full citizenship in college, despite institutional declarations to the contrary."
Finally, how much do financial incentives and tax rates affect the incentives to innovate and invent? Not much--exposure to innovation matters much more.
4. Management: This is a last minute "swap" of an item, since David McKenziemaligned managers in his weekly links tweet this morning. As some of you know, I have a semi-secret identity ghost-writing and editing management books, with several of them specifically about Toyota and lean process and management, so I couldn't let it lie. Of course, David's quip was a joke. The piece he links to is a terrific overview of the research on how management matters, a literature that David is a significant contributor to. It is a topic that I wish the development field paid much much more attention to (I really hope this is the most clicked link of the week), and this overview is a great introduction, both in content and structure/organization. I think I'll make some of my papers look more like this in the future.
And here's a piece about how middle managers deserve more respect. In my read of the literature above, it is middle management that is the actual missing middle in development.
5. Digital Finance: I relinked the piece on why there's no reason to trust blockchain in the notes above. Here's another reason: "Once Hailed as Unhackable, Blockchains Are Now Getting Hacked." On the other hand, here's, "Bitcoin Has Saved My Family," from a Venezuelan economist.
One of the under-examined topics in the emergence of digital finance is the shift in the organizations and organizational structures that are providing financial services. The institutions and people in telecoms are systematically different than those in finance. That's something that always strikes me as I look at the GSMA's annual report on the state of the mobile money industry. Not because of something in the report specifically, but the fact that the report is from the GSMA.
And finally, a little curiosity that may only interest me. Uganda is opening up the purchase of government debt to individuals using mobile money, on the theory that it will reduce the government's dependence on commercial banks and institutional investors. It's historically sound, but I'm skeptical. For instance, it hasn't worked as well as hoped in Kenya.
The musing on the quality of Brazilian football in the face of mass emigration gives me an excuse to include a video in support of my argument. If you're interested in falling down the rabbit hole a bit, here's a short documentary on the 1982 Brazil team, which is my Platonic ideal of how the game is supposed to be played. Though that could have something to do with the fact that I was 9 that summer, and it was the first World Cup I watched. I still have a visceral rage reaction any time I see the Azurri take the field.
