One of the nicest discussions I’ve see: Explanations for ISIS’s behavior, and for political violence more generally, usually fall into two camps. The rationalist camp
This article argues that gangs, clans, mafias and insurgencies are, like states, forms of governance. This insight is applied to the case of Somali piracy
Historians speculate that prehistoric nomads may have made beer from grain and water before learning to make bread. The ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids got paid
Half of macroeconomics papers won’t replicate, mainly because of missing data or code No, depressed American towns do not look like Zimbabwe. Annie Lowrey’s terrific
A terrific article on how the effectiveness of depression treatments have been overstated because researchers didn’t publish null results Bono on development: “I’m late to
I was on vacation when this came out and so didn’t blog, but this is the final word on the Worm Wars as far as
Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Max Roser reminds us that the data sets above (known as Abscombe’s quartet) all have the same
Some researchers have shown that the stress and preoccupation from being poor causes people to think differently and make worse decisions. Because of this, some
The first time was tragedy, the current time is farce. A lawyer for the Parlement of Paris in the 1750s: “The introduction of too many
Justin Wolfers on what the White House nudge unit has and hasn’t learned. Great piece The Busara experimental lab in Nairobi (where I am running
Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Bridge Academies, the low-cost private school franchise supported by Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, DFID,
It’s a business plan competition for $50,000, and I think it’s a contender. In 2011 the Nigerian government handed out 60 million dollars to about
Time lapse footage from the International Space Station.
These guys know that stealing is bad; they know that drug dealing is bad, or at least that society considers it a bad thing. They
In the last few months, I sat on a blue chip panel debating how to make the humanitarian system work better. The report is out,
One of my new favorite podcasts is Reply All, about all things Internet Why only second rate entertainers and CEOs will run for President and
Luigi Zingales: I think that the first thing is spend time in hiring the best possible people. I think that one thing that works well
Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Photo from previous coup Burkina Faso is having its second coup in under a
A photo series by Jorge Pérez Higuera. Here is an article, which appears to take the following statement seriously: Higuera’s decision to build the series
The UK government pioneered the Behavioural Insights Team a unit that uses behavioral economics, psychology, and experiments to nudge people in important policy directions. There
