Ryan C Briggs
16.12.2009

Jessica Cohen and Bill Easterly have a new edited book coming out called What Works in Development? Thinking Big and Thinking Small. The volume examines the role of randomized evaluations in development research and the contributors are a who’s who of top development economists. You can find Bill’s summary of the book here. Apparently there are some problems getting the book out the door, but it is worth keeping on your radar.

Grad student alert: You can find the original (free) papers that the book is based on here.

14.12.2009
*Unhappy thoughts means some combination of foreign aid, immigration and refugees, civil war and guerrilla warfare, terrorism, “war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity” (all one category), famine, drought, or AIDS. Over the whole period, this collection of negative topics averaged 28% of total articles on the continent. Again, the tagging system that the Times uses is opaque, the tags are vague, and most importantly, it seems like a lot of articles with “Africa” as the location tag lack desciptive tags (like “famine” or “ponies”). In short, be skeptical of the graph’s validity.

*Unhappy thoughts means some combination of foreign aid, immigration and refugees, civil war and guerrilla warfare, terrorism, “war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity” (all one category), famine, drought, or AIDS.

Over the whole period, this collection of negative topics averaged 28% of total articles on the continent.

Again, the tagging system that the Times uses is opaque, the tags are vague, and most importantly, it seems like a lot of articles with “Africa” as the location tag lack desciptive tags (like “famine” or “ponies”). In short, be skeptical of the graph’s validity.
12.12.2009
The graph above shows some of data mentioned here broken down by year. As I mentioned the last time I used these stats, articles tagged “Africa” are on the continent and do not include articles on individual countries within Africa. If you are comparing this graph to the one on Somalia keep in mind that the scale of both axes has changed.

The graph above shows some of data mentioned here broken down by year. As I mentioned the last time I used these stats, articles tagged “Africa” are on the continent and do not include articles on individual countries within Africa. If you are comparing this graph to the one on Somalia keep in mind that the scale of both axes has changed.
10.12.2009
I figured out some new tricks with the New York Times’ API while I was procrastinating. Basically, this lets me use the logical ‘and’ command to explore the tags that are assigned to articles. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier. The graph above shows all articles with Somalia as the location tag and “PIRACY AT SEA” as the description tag, divided by the total number of articles on Somalia. I looked at monthly data. April was the high point with 88% of all articles covering piracy.

I figured out some new tricks with the New York Times’ API while I was procrastinating. Basically, this lets me use the logical ‘and’ command to explore the tags that are assigned to articles. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier.

The graph above shows all articles with Somalia as the location tag and “PIRACY AT SEA” as the description tag, divided by the total number of articles on Somalia. I looked at monthly data. April was the high point with 88% of all articles covering piracy.
09.12.2009
A map of instances of malaria in the United States in 1870. In some places, it apparently accounted for 1 in 7 deaths. America was also hit by some brutal yellow fever outbreaks, but somehow managed to do pretty well over the ensuing hundred years. Let’s say it together everyone, geography is not destiny. via Boing Boing, originally on iayork.com

A map of instances of malaria in the United States in 1870. In some places, it apparently accounted for 1 in 7 deaths. America was also hit by some brutal yellow fever outbreaks, but somehow managed to do pretty well over the ensuing hundred years. Let’s say it together everyone, geography is not destiny.

via Boing Boing, originally on iayork.com
08.12.2009
I made the graph above when I was trying to find some quick and dirty empirical evidence that democratic countries in Africa exhibited better governance than their more autocratic counterparts. I divided all countries in sub-Saharan Africa into two groups based on their Polity IV score, and then calculated each group’s average number of days to start a business. The latter data set only runs from 2003 to 2008. The trend clearly holds with outlying countries (such as Guinea-Bissau, 233 days to start a business) removed and with the dividing Polity score at 4 or 6 (I didn’t check other scores). The downward trend certainly doesn’t show causation, but it does show that countries that were decently democratic in 2003 more than halved the number of days it would take to start a business from 64 to 29 over 5 years. Whatever caused it, that’s impressive.

I made the graph above when I was trying to find some quick and dirty empirical evidence that democratic countries in Africa exhibited better governance than their more autocratic counterparts. I divided all countries in sub-Saharan Africa into two groups based on their Polity IV score, and then calculated each group’s average number of days to start a business. The latter data set only runs from 2003 to 2008. The trend clearly holds with outlying countries (such as Guinea-Bissau, 233 days to start a business) removed and with the dividing Polity score at 4 or 6 (I didn’t check other scores).

The downward trend certainly doesn’t show causation, but it does show that countries that were decently democratic in 2003 more than halved the number of days it would take to start a business from 64 to 29 over 5 years. Whatever caused it, that’s impressive.
20.11.2009 [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

The most recent episode of the pop science podcast Radiolab featured an interesting discussion with Harvard professor Josh Greene on moral decision-making. Prof Greene explained some brain science (excuse my jargon) behind a problem that was earlier featured on Development Drums with Peter Singer. The problem is that most people are willing to jump into a lake and save a drowning girl even if they are wearing a $1000 suit. To do otherwise seems morally wrong. However, most people do not feel morally compelled to give $1000 to charities that do the same thing in an impersonal way.

Prof Greene ties this problem into how we evolved to process information. Tens of thousands of years of evolution have fine tuned us to respond to problems that are personal in nature. We have a part of our brain that deals with abstract concepts, even abstract threats like climate change or nuclear proliferation, but it doesn’t drive us to action as much as the oh-my-god-the-house-is-on-fire part. Greene’s argument is that it is possible that humans will culturally evolve to be better at processing and acting on abstract threats. This isn’t purely wishful thinking. This kind of change is likely happening now.

One example of our cultural evolution toward better abstraction is that over the last 100 years we have scored higher and higher on IQ tests (this finding also demolishes the idea that IQ is genetic, see here). We did not increase our scores because we actually became smarter. Rather, our culture demands far more abstraction from us than it did 100 years ago and we adapted how we use our brain. Our new ways of thinking privilege abstraction and so we score higher on tests that examine abstraction.

The crucial question is whether our enhanced ability to understand abstraction translates into action. The rising IQ scores show that we are becoming better at processing abstract information, they don’t show that we are becoming more motivated to tackle abstract problems.

If you are still reading, then you will want to listen to both podcasts.
← older posts     newer posts →