The ethics of experimenting have been much in the news lately. It started with the Montana mailer experiment. It gets weirder. Via Jeff Mosenkis, two mailers received by
Walmart reported brisk traffic overnight. The retailer, based in Bentonville, Ark., said that 22 million shoppers streamed through stores across the country on Thanksgiving Day.
Via Michael Clemens, who adds “this isn’t a motivational meme from somewhere, we drove by this sign today.”
One of the most provocative and interesting field experiments I’ve seen in this year: Poor people often do not make investments, even when returns are high. One
The “doing development differently” manifesto A working Lego particle accelerator (sort of) To Western eyes, the weirdest flavored foods in the world? In most of
Continuing the tradition of blogging the development job posting of everyone who is married to me: Become the the project director of a 5-year research project on
Dietz Vollrath at the Growth Economics Blog has a three part series on problems with the the empirical institutions and growth literature. If you’re a development
Number of U.S. universities that have received military equipment from the Defense Department since 1998 : 117 That have received mine-resistant vehicles : 6 Grenade launchers : 2 From the Harper’s
The Zephyr 7 high altitude pseudo satellite. Airbus is developing a high-altitude, solar-powered drone that can stay aloft indefinitely. It could deliver wireless service where
Frankly, it’s shocking that I haven’t done this myself: Story from Slate. Hat tip to @MadihaAfzal. Thank goodness no one but my co-authors can read my LaTeX comment
The five pillars represent the unity of the five branches of the United States military serving steadfast together. They are staggered in size with their
The U.S. should have 53 states because it’s a prime number and can’t be divided. Then we would truly be one nation, indivisible. Source. D.C.,
Protest economics: More intense protests in Tahrir Square are associated with lower stock market valuations for firms connected to the group currently in power US
With the antenna up my sleeve and the magazines chafing my ribs, I joined my party in the neutral patch of grass in the middle
Norway’s oil fund owns 1.3% of every public company in the world Aravindan Thirunavukarasu urinated on a wall and then made a font out it IKEA
A reddit thread. Some of the best answers: George Lucas wanted X salary to direct Star Wars. The studio thought it was too much. Of
The Onion: “After submitting a ballot, an “I Voted” brand is applied to the flesh of the voter’s chest“ To rationalize tonight’s outcome, there is
Following up on 10 hours as a Woman comes this from Funny or Die: There are many competitors for best line, but I particularly like
In response to the Montana experiment controversy, last week I asked, why wouldn’t it be okay for researchers to mess with elections? I’ve had a
A new APSR paper by Daniel Carpenter and Colin Moore: Examining an original dataset of more than 8,500 antislavery petitions sent to Congress (1833–1845), we
