Jobs in Africa

The African Economic Outlook (here) came out this month. It predicts continued 5% growth overall, with about 7% in the west and only 3-4% in the north and south. For Nigeria, and my former students should pay attention, it points out that most of that growth is NOT in the oil sectors: agriculture, trade, and ICT growing fastest. It also advises countries to invest more in the value added industries. Given that the vast majority of my intro economics students and even the people on the street in Nigeria not only could but did tell me the same thing on multiple occasions, I'm less impressed. It's a right answer, of course, but more needs to be done to identify why it isn't happening when everyone already knows it's the right answer and to take the political economy more seriously.

Oh, and as an aside, take a look at this graph from the AEO:

I could be wrong, but I don't think that's how gears work. The bottom two would turn just fine, but the Human Rights gear is pushing the Unequal Access gear counter-clockwise while the Exclusion gear is pushing it clockwise. From a graph standpoint, this undermines the presumed point that each of them exacerbates the others. It suggests maybe that a poor human rights record makes unequal access not as bad, or that unequal access improves human rights...

Teal argues that the increase in education supply in Africa is a good thing, but only provisionally. The question is: why is more education good? It's good from a human rights/development perspective, clearly. But whether increased education will bring people out of poverty depends in part on whether or not there are jobs available that demand the increased skills.

"Without the factories the dramatic increase in the primary educated work force will indeed see little economic gain from their education. The recent increases in the demand for education beyond the primary level certainly suggests that both students, and their parents, are aware that low levels of education have little value in the job market place. Focusing on meeting that demand rather than focusing on why that demand has arisen may well be to miss the critical problem facing educational policy in Africa."

One of the informal jobs I saw often in Nigeria is that of the porter. People, usually boys, wandered the Jimeta market with wheelbarrows, offering to carry my purchases. The Sudanese government, however, has decided that it is in the public's interest to create a monopoly on wheelbarrows in Khartoum. Porters are not allowed to own their own wheelbarrow, but must rent them at high fees, ruining what little income they were getting from a pretty thankless job.

El Alaoui, Aicha, Elhadj Ezzahid, and Jallal Eladnani (2013). "Estimating NAIRU: The Moroccan Case", MPRA Paper No 56815.
In intermediate macro we are introduced to the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU). The idea is that if the level of unemployment is lower than NAIRU, you can expect inflation to increase, and to decrease if unemployment is higher. They estimate that the NAIRU has decreased from around 13% in 1998 to about 9% today. There is no explanation for why this happened and the policy conclusion - Morocco needs looser monetary policy based on the fact that the unemployment rate was consistently higher than NAIRU - does not capitalize on the fact that inflation has been remarkably low and sometimes negative since late 2009 or discuss the bank's mandate, goals, or governance.

Pez Romana - the value of markets

Way back in the time of the dinosaurs, my parents had a problem. My brother and I had birthdays fairly close to each other and always wanted to play with the other guy's toys. The solution they came up with was to give me a present on his birthday and him a present on my birthday. This at least reduced the sibling rivalry. We instituted this too, once Econolad was old enough to need it.

This year I was super sneaky. Econolad and I had just started watching Star Wars for the first time and he likes C3P0. I got him a Threepio Pez dispenser, recognizing that he might not like the candy (which he doesn't much).

I explained to him that  this was a useful present. His sister, you see, not only loves all things edible, but the #1 way she shows she loves someone is to share her food or ask you to share your food. I told Econolad he could offer to share one of his Pez candies if she would share a toy with him.

The best is that it works. She is willing to trade some, but not all, of her toys and has the ability to say no if his deal isn't good enough. They each feel loved from each other and are happier with the transactions than otherwise. Prices have tended to stay at one candy for renting a beloved toy for 2 hours, but she has sometimes held out for better terms of payment (now vs. later) or rental length.

The other best part is ... markets are great! As an economist I am very geekily happy every time they bargain and see that creating a market has restored peace to our home. 

What I learned from reading the Marginal Revolution magazine

(This post was written April 2013 and I'm not sure why it wasn't posted then)

I've been interested by the occasional posts by people who read a magazine cover to cover, then report on what they learned. These couple next posts are based loosely on that idea. I've been thoroughly busy and stressed this semester without much time for semi-curricular reading, which means the posts have been piling up in my reader.

While our NUC accreditors were at AUN, though, I needed to be on-call to answer questions. Completely unable to concentrate on research writing, I did a lot of reading. Below are a few of the things I learned reading every post from a few weeks' worth of Marginal Revolution:

Why markets don't work in Africa - ILRI

I am hoping this gives me an easier time showing it in class.

Goldilocks and the Median Voter Theorem

Since two of my vertebrae are now kissing that have no business kissing, I'm going to be teaching from a seated position a lot more, and that means relying a lot more on PowerPoint and other such abominations to teach class. Since the power goes out a lot, it would be useful to have a backup. So I'm going to finally resurrect this blog to put up some notes for my classes that they can turn to during class on their smartphones if the power goes out. This post is for ECO 303 - development - and is an easy introduction to the Median Voter Theorem for our political economy section.

Political economics is the study of how governments make decisions using economic tools. One of the earlier and easier examples is the Median Voter Theorem.

To understand what the Median Voter Theorem is, remember the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In the original story, every bear could have porridge, chair, and bed ideally suited to his or her preferences. This is one of the good things about the market system: everyone can have exactly what they want. With government making decisions, that may not be the case at all. We are much more likely to get one-policy-fits-all. But which policy will we get?

Suppose the three bears' government will only supply one type of porridge, one type of chair, one type of bed. What will the temperature of their porridge be? How hard will their chairs and beds be?

If the three bears decide things democratically, the Median Voter Theorem tells us the answer: it's whatever Baby Bear wants!

Lit in Review: Poverty and Livestock in Eastern Africa

Tsehay and Bauer, "Poverty Dynamics and Vulnerability: Empirical Evidence from Smallholders in Northern Highlands of Ethiopia," presented at the IAAE August 2012.

They study Yetmen and Shumsheha in rural Ethiopia. Between 1994 and 2010, the percent of households owning oxen increased from 5% to 75% and 46% and livestock assets more than tripled in value. Literacy has gone down, but school enrollments are up significantly.

The poverty dynamics are quite interesting. Half of the households are worse off, moving down from subjacent or medial poor to ultra poor (<$0.50/day) and 1/4 moved up - not out-of-poverty up, but up to slightly-less-poor. The worsening happened between 2004 and 2010, while 1994-2004 had seen significant improvement.

Table 5 shows the number of times out of 4 rounds that a household was poor:

          Yetmen             Shumsheha
0          9.8                   6.93
1         27.45                31.68
2         35.29                30.69
3         19.61                24.75
4          7.84                 5.94

Wainaina, Okello, and Nzuma, "Impact of Contract Farming on Smallholder Poultry Farmers' Income in Kenya," presented at the IAAE August 2012.

Their study of 180 smallholder farmers in Nakuru county finds that farmers contracting with Kims Poultry Care Center received roughly 27 percent more revenue per bird than independent farmers. They used matching propensities.

I'm uncertain whether they mean that "KPCC is the only large poultry farm that works with smallholder farmers in Kenya..." or the only one that works with smallholders in a contract that also provides inputs and interlinked credit. Markets for inputs and outputs tend to be quite thin, so partnering with KPCC improves market access significantly. So these results may not be typical of contract farming overall. Oddly enough, independent farmers have statistically larger birds than contract farmers, so the revenue per kg difference is slightly larger. Extension agents and higher education make farmers less likely to sign a contract, so they aren't explaining the difference.

Smallscale farmers have 100-500 birds, medium scale is 500-1000. The county has 40-45% poverty. It sells processed chicken and eggs to local tourist hotels and throughout East Africa.

They regularly reference Nyaga, 2007; poultry sector country review, FAO

Gelan, Engida, Caria, and Karugia, "The Role of Livestock in the Ethiopian Economy: Policy Analysis using a computable general equilibrium model for Ethiopia," also IAAE August 2012.

From the abstract: "We extend an existing dynamic recursive general equilibrium model for the
Ethiopian economy which better models the livestock sector. A separate herd dynamics
module enables us to specify stock-flow relationship, distinguishing between the capital role
of livestock and the flow of livestock products. We also improve the underlying system of
economic accounts, to better capture draft power and breeding stocks." What they look at is growth in total factor productivity (TFP) - how efficient or productive the sector is - comparing a positive shock to TFP growth in livestock, cereals, or cash crops. So imagine you wanted to invest in agricultural productivity in Ethiopia and ask which of those three you should invest in.

They find that an increase in livestock TFP growth from 0.5% to 3.1% would do as much to increase total agricultural GDP as an increase in cereal TFP growth from 2.2% to 4.3%. Livestock TFP growth would also improve export value more than cereal or cash crop TFP growth. Even though domestic prices for livestock decrease, labor income goes up fastest with livestock TFP growth, so the poor benefit the most from livestock TFP growth. Cereal TFP growth improves their caloric consumption by the most.

Quote of the day: Mickey Mouse

Henderson:

In his book, Knowledge and Decisions, one of my favorite books he has written, Thomas Sowell, in a section on "The Physical Fallacy," writes:

A revealing episode in the early career of Walt Disney may illustrate the physical fallacy on a smaller and more human scale. Back in the 1920s, when Disney first emerged as a cartoonist, his early successes led him to found a studio and to employ other artists to draw the thousands of pictures required for animated cartoon movies. Disney Studios was particularly successful with an early cartoon character called Oswald Rabbit, whose copyright was held by a movie distributor rather than by Disney. This distributor decided to eliminate the need to pay Disney by hiring away his cartoonists and both producing and marketing the product. From the standpoint of the physical fallacy, Disney was superfluous. He neither drew the cartoons nor transported the films to theaters nor showed them to the public. The distributor, with the Disney staff and the copyright on Disney's character, expected to profit from his coup--but without Disney's ideas the previously valuable character suddenly became worthless as a money-maker at the box office. What had really been sold all along were Disney's ideas and fantasies. The physical things--the drawings, the film, and the theaters--were merely vehicles. It. was only a matter of time before another set of vehicles could be arranged and the ideas incorporated in a new character--Mickey Mouse--which Disney copyrighted in his own name.

Proving I'm Alive: Big Bag of Blogs

Bellemare on Swinnen's paper on who wins and loses from high food prices and on the benefits to rural smallholders of joining marketing chains.

Tabarrok showing me why I should be very, very afraid: Kucinich and co. try a real life enactment of Atlas Shrugged.

Sumner discovers a second career as Bernanke's shrink, showing how his psychology  helps determine the fate of this recession. (If you wanted to be more sensational about it, you could talk about the discovery of the sinister figure in the shadows: Vincent Reinhart. That would be overdoing it a touch.)

The early impacts of AGRA's investment in Ghana, combining fertilizer subsidies, market access, and variable loan structure depending on outcome (essentially removing downside risk).

I was getting ready to run some proper experiments out here, only to learn that my very presence might bias the games. Of course, now this proposes that I need to replicate this (preliminary) finding itself. How general is the result? (HT: Aid Thoughts and Roving Bandit)

Urbanization in Africa is mostly about population growth rather than migration.

Create value. Make stuff if necessary

I'm often confused why we celebrate manufacturing as much as we do. The goal is to "create value" for other people as I blogged about yesterday - to serve in meaningful ways. Some services are more urgent than others, some more luxurious, some more faddish, and some of them involve turning one thing into another thing someone wants more than what it used to be. I turn ingredients into restaurant meals, I'm classified as a service worker. I turn metal into injectors, I'm classified as a manufacturing worker. The point is still the same - create value for fellow human beings. Why do we love manufacturing?

An Atlantic article on manufacturing in America has some very intelligent discussion, some of which tries to help me answer this. From the 1940s to 1970s, manufacturing was a pathway forwards and that got embedded into the psyche:

All came to work unskilled, at first, and then slowly learned things, on the job, that made them more valuable. Especially in the mid-20th century, as manufacturing employment was rocketing toward its zenith, mistakes and disadvantages in childhood and adolescence did not foreclose adult opportunity.

But now a hefty part of the growing inequality in the US is from opposing forces:

Create Value, Not Jobs? How about AND?

Gurri makes a very good point (HT: Cafe Hayek), but one that wouldn't be immediately embraced by people the way it is regularly framed. (It's also not the only good point to be made on the subject, either, but that's another day's lecture.) The issue not "Create value. Not jobs." It is to create jobs of value. It is to enable people to create value and jobs will follow, sustainably. Partly this is semantics, but I think the semantics are important in terms of effecting policy.

It's easy enough to create make-work jobs. Keynes opted for digging holes and filling them up again. Germany (and many others) have expensive humans repave roads poorly that machines could do much better, much faster, and less expensively. While I do believe in the principal of having someone work for what they gain to avoid idleness and the evils of a dole, it ought to be work that makes at least one other person's life better off.

Slightly more tricky is creating make-work jobs that produce something more. India has a number of good programs that create jobs that also produce something of value, for instance.

I, Cheeseburger

As I look forward to possibly enjoying my first pizza of the newly renovated AUN Club kitchen tonight, let us pause in humble reflection on the miracle of markets:

I realized that my prior plan hadn’t been ambitious enough—that wasn’t really from scratch. In fact, to make the buns, I’d need to grind my own wheat, collect my own eggs, and make my own butter. And I’d really need to raise the cow myself ... mine or extract from seawater my own salt, grow my own mustard plant, etc. This past summer, revisiting the idea, I realized yet again that I was insufficiently ambitious. I’d really need to plant and harvest the wheat, raise a cow to produce the milk for the butter, raise another cow to slaughter for its rennet to make the cheese, and personally slaughter and process the cow or sheep. ...

Further reflection revealed that it’s quite impractical—nearly impossible—to make a cheeseburger from scratch. Tomatoes are in season in the late summer. Lettuce is in season in spring and fall. Large mammals are slaughtered in early winter. The process of making such a burger would take nearly a year, and would inherently involve omitting some core cheeseburger ingredients. It would be wildly expensive—requiring a trio of cows—and demand many acres of land. There’s just no sense in it.

A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors—in all likelihood, a couple of dozen—and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh.

 Remarkably, Jaquith was unaware of the I, Pencil article of which this is one more example. UPDATE: I forgot to mention I, Pizza, the story of the 150 people it takes to take one shot of a slice of pizza being lifted for a commercial.

Best of 2011

Time for some intense naval-gazing. I wasn't going to do one of these, but then I enjoyed others' so much for the posts I missed that it seemed much more interesting.

Top Ten Posts of 2011
1. Google's statement on AUN's amazing internet usage, got a lot of doubting comments and a few  defending and very plausible explanations.
2. Nutrition Labeling, describing the new requirement that meat include information on calories from fat.
3. Unemployment: Leads and Lags - Breaking unemployment into separate decisions to hire or fire will give us a better indicator of where the economy is going (has been) than total unemployment.
4. AEA session on agricultural export bans during the 07/08 food price crisis.
5. Microinsurance in Kenya via cellphone
6. My first visit to AUN. Classes will resume Thursday the 24th
7. Low saturated fat diet vs. low simple carbohydrate diet
8. QE2 and food prices - debunking the idea that the Fed is causing global food price inflation
9. Food safety, food movements, and paternalism
10. Lit in Review: Food Demand -- Ethiopia and Speculators
Honorable Mention (because I thought it was fun): The socially acceptable price of fried chicken, also known as the political economy of fast food markets in South Korea.

Top Ten Posts of 2010 (in 2011)

1. My pictures of the Thorvaldsen's Christus and apostles statues, mentioned in a Church lesson this year.
2. Lit in Review: Grossman and Helpman, there has been steady interest in summaries and other papers that make use of the "Pay to Play" model of lobbyists.
3. Food in Africa: Too much and too little discussing the problem of getting food from food-surplus states to food-deficit states. There was never a large spike, but a steady stream of interest throughout the year.
4. High Hopes for Rwandan Agricultural Development
5. Food Security in Nepal which has been of increasing interest lately
6. Cutting Costs Through ... Fonts?? Some fonts go easier on the printer's ink
7. Population Health vs. Individual Health - commentary on macro vs. micro in economics and health
8. Ethiopian Monetary Policy - combines monetary policy, food prices, Ethiopia's development goals (food self-sufficiency), and growth prospects
8. Five from vacation: education, hyperinflation, and Chinese food safety.
10. Fed governor: if we could guarantee 5% NGDP growth, it would be great - I'm glad this made the list because I think it was my most significant post, interviewing Governor Dudley about what they are targeting and Sumner's policy.

Where did my visitors come from in 2011?

One week later in Jimeta

One week after the shooting in Yola and on the 4th day of the fuel subsidy strike, the Yola-Jimeta area is remarkably quiet. My family went shopping and saw that there were far fewer vehicles on the road, many shops were closed - in some cases whole streets of shops gated and locked up - and the main market itself was quieter than usual, though there still a decent amount of traffic around the stalls. It was very strange to see so little activity.

I carefully wrote down the prices of everything we bought and noted that nothing had gone up significantly. The small pouch of water that in other cities had doubled or trebled in price was still the same N5 as ever. Our huge block of mozzarella cheese was even down N500 since last time.

There were two big differences. Faro Water, the local bottling plant owned by AUN Founder Atiku Abubakar, has joined the strike, so there were no refill water jugs. One shop did still have cartons of water bottles we could buy.

Second, a couple key intersections now sport dedicated police searching every car. Each motorcyclist had to stop, dismount, and walk their bike through. Pedestrians passed with their hands in the air. Each car had to show what was in the trunk and sometimes answer questions. I may post some of it later. Most of the travellers, and our driver, laughed at most of it.

The road to the church where the shooting took place is blocked to all traffic.

Random Links: food governance, being LDS, behavioral economics

C. Juma on how to improve Africa's research infrastructure - basically, make research institutions more like teaching institutions and teaching institutions more research oriented.

A fascinating Kenyan website called I paid a bribe. The tagline is: uncover the market price of corruption.

The price of orange juice at a 34-year high.

Price transmission in NYC from subway to pizza.

Why are Americans eating less meat? Partly higher relative prices, partly recession, party "Flexitarianism."

WalMart pays Nicaraguan farmers less than other retail outlets, but offers much less price variance in compensation. Since food price variance has increased, this might be a better deal than it used to be.

"What is essential to being a good Mormon? According to the [Pew] survey [of pretty active American members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints], 80 percent said "believing Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ" is essential to being a good Mormon, 73 percent said "working to help the poor,"" Other interesting sound bites:

• The Latter-day Saints surveyed had a more favorable opinion of Pres. Obama than LDS Senate Majority Leader Reid (25 to 22)
• 97% of us identify as being Christians, believe in Jesus' resurrection, and use the word "Christian" as the single word that best describes us, while 49% of non-Mormons do not think we're Christian
• Most of us rank being a good parent as more important than career or religious activities
• 60% of converts cited church beliefs as why they joined. 60% of converts joined between 18 and 35 years old.
• 82% say they have a food storage, and almost half have 3 months stored up. When Pres. Ensign came to check on us and assess our needs, we were happy to report that we had 1-2 weeks of food stored up and enough cash to satisfy our needs. Water was another story, but we could boil the tap water to make more as needed and had already refilled a 5 gallon (20 liter) drum with boiled water.
• Even though most identified as conservative, we are much more positive about immigrants and immigration than the average conservative.

Asking people to give a lot of examples actually convinces them that something is less likely than asking them only a few examples. It is the ease of coming up with the marginal example that matters rather than the total number.

Bellemare on how to do well in an economics class.

How to prolong lithium battery life.

Best tweets of the protests

This is another post I will be updating occasionally: some entertaining tweets about the fuel subsidies (in some cases, spelled out further for the Twitter-impaired)

On economics:
This is the point where I wish I concentrated during those classes on Economics
There are 3 groups of Nigerians at the moment: 1, those fighting for the fuelsubsidy; 2, those fighting against the fuel subsidy, 3. Those who don't even know what subsidy is. I'm no. 3.
The market for high heels have died with the market for cabs.

On cars:
If he puts on the AC in his car for you, marry him!
Abuja Bigboy spotted Oppressing as he left his engine on while waiting for girlfriend

Tried on a new shirt. Kinda tight. I'm not there yet but I'm on my way. My Fuel subsidy "strolls" should do the rest!
Lol! We be blaming everything on the fuel subsidy. Employer: "why are you 2 hours late to work" Employee's reply: fuel subsidy.

Economics in Unusual Places

1 - Using game theory at a buffet with limited food options to figure out what foods you should choose first (HT: MR). Basically, instead of just grabbing your favorites first, you should think about what other people will grab first (and as importantly, last). If your favorite food is hated by your fellow diners, leave it alone - it will still be there later - and pick up something else that might disappear if you don't grab it now. The article also has insights about the kinds of social norms that make everyone better off, how to pile the most on your plate, and some Wansinkian insights how much women's food choices are influenced by their neighbors.

2 - Some more game theory on why Iran has told the US just how it captured the Sentinal drone: by ensuring that it will only have one to sell, it makes other countries much more willing to pay for that one than they would be if they thought 2-3 more might appear in the next few years. Iran is sending a signal or using a commitment device about its future behavior to impact the actions of its fellow players today.

3 - I reported earlier on how G.I. Joe action figures are not classified as "action figures", but are "dolls" so they can get a lower tariff. The X-Men apparently are marketed by Toy Biz as not being human at all so they can avoid being tariffed at the doll rate altogether and instead get classified as "toys." Little did the X-Men realize their own marketing agents were plotting against their basic humanity, and all in the name of economics!

4 - Are we on our way to a Kuznets Gender Curve? Very poor countries and households can't afford to select children based on gender. As income rises (to the level of India and China, say) there is more and more discrimination favoring boys - medicine can tell families whether the fetus is a boy or a girl and they can react as they wish. However, new evidence is showing that upper-middle class Indian families ($3200/yr and up) are reversing the trend. The Economist praises bourgeouise values for saving the girls.

5 - Cowen pushes back hard on the idea that wealth is power, whether in politics, charity, or the market:

Second, the wealthy in groups do not always coordinate very effectively, to say the least.  ...  Third, many of the very wealthy choose to consume ego rents rather than effectiveness.  Fourth, “democracy” and “the market” control large chunks of modern life, and it is hard for outsiders to commandeer those processes.... the ability of the rich at the margin to control policy through intentional acts, either individually or in groups is much overrated.
Wealth does protect you from the depredations of others, such as being treated very badly by the police or legal system.  In this defensive sense wealth can give you a good deal of power.

Claims about our food

The health claims made by potato chip manufacturers apparently vary with the price. Most popular are reminding people what's NOT in the bag: every negative increases the cost by 4 cents per ounce. Expensive chips are much more likely to have any health claim than cheap chips, which tend to emphasize being locally made.

Sugar says that using the term "corn sugar" misleads consumers by claiming that "HFCS is natural and is indistinguishable from the sugar extracted from sugar cane and sugar beets." Corn says sugar is misleading consumers by "wrongfully alleging that high fructose corn syrup (a sugar made from corn) causes health issues that do not arise from consuming cane and beet sugar." While the journalist reporting on this does manage to get M. Nestle (way down at the bottom) to comment, we also get a quote from an "alternative medicine guru and author" ... What? All the real doctors were busy?

Speaking of sugar, how much is in kids' cereals? M. Nestle reports on an Environmental Working Group report:

kids’ cereals are really cookies in disguise, typically 40% -50% sugars by weight.   Kellogg’s Honey Smacks topped the list at 55%. ... 

The good news is that at least some cereals are managing to reduce sugar content. (Image source: General Mills)


 There is a claim that Wendy's may soon be the #2 burger establishment, unseating the Burger ... well, he can't be king since he's #2 and about to be #3, how about the Burger Prince then? I have appreciated seeing Wendy's posting calorie counts in some states that don't require them and have adapted my own consumer choices accordingly. Just don't go to the Wendy's in Ithaca - I got food poisoning there twice. Update: On Wendy's triumphant return to Japan.


Carl's Jr's chief, meanwhile claims the Affordable Care Act will be bad for business because it will increase the costs of doing business. His argument makes it sound as if this is a fixed cost - the company will just have to shell out an extra $18 mil each year. Actually, they are variable costs that depend on how many people they choose to employ. Making labor more expensive does discourage building more stores as he says on an income effect, but there is a substitution effect that tells them to use more machines and fewer people, or more temps who can be excluded from the Act. Yglesias points out that much more relevant are the requirements that say restaurants like Carl's Jr will need to post calorie and other nutrition information, which will likely have an even larger impact than the employment costs.

Development in India: The element of time

One of the main differences between those who advocate for more government intervention and less is the time scale involved. Those who tend to favor a bit more free market in their society tend to be thinking on a time scale of a generation or two while those who favor a bit more government tend to be thinking on a time scale of either 1 year or 100 years (depending on if they're an environmentalist or not). "Yes, that program will increase the growth rate, but people are starving today," say the one. "Yes, but lowering the growth rate means more people will starve in the future," say the other. Time plays many different roles:

Agriculture repeats itself

Chapter 10 of my textbook on Food Policy for Developing Countries discusses nanotechnology and the fact that companies have a vested interest in ensuring that nanotech does not become the next great consumer scare. To do that, they need to make sure there is public debate, address consumer concerns early on, openly, forthrightly, and without condescension. Governments have an important role to play also in clarifying up front what standards will be required. Having a clear regulatory framework will encourage companies to invest and make it easier for them to demonstrate openly that their products meet safety standards. Here is M. Nestle agreeing on the scope of the problem and supplying some new reports on the subject.

There is a hefty debate brewing on which framework should be used to debate international agricultural policies. Doha is going nowhere slowly. At COP17 African countries had been reasonably unified, but are less so now that South Africa is calling for a greater environmental focus, with Ghana, Mali, and Tanzania prominent on the other side of the debate. One of the better arguments in the article:

Harjeet Singh of ActionAid International said that farmers with fewer than two hectares would only be able to make $3 a year at the present rate for carbon. He said he did not doubt the intentions of South Africa in "pushing for climate-smart agriculture as the answer to agriculture's problems" but added that "climate-smart agriculture could benefit South Africa a lot because your farmers are large-scale and carbon markets work for agriculture on the industrial scale".

Cote d'Ivoire has announced the (re?)formation of a state cocoa board that will take over most of the higher level market functions. The article seems to be written from a Ghanaian-centric viewpoint, worrying about how the CdI board will be able to compete with Ghana's and the likely impact on world prices [which will be lower, duh, because the civil war kept cocoa production and sales much lower].

And for variety, here is an interview with a Zimbabwean crocodile farmer. He has 10,000 crocs at a time, which he exports to Europe and Asia to sell their skins and meat. Among his major costs are importing the beasts to feed the crocs and trying to get enough eggs to keep the project at that size.

Test Questions I Have Used: The price of everything

In the final for my introductory microeconomics students, I posed a question based on a post on Wronging Rights. It involved an NGO buying up AK-47s in Africa to scrap and sell as jewelry in the West as a means of "doing something" about conflict. The question was to identify why this was a terrible idea, thinking about the incentives increased demand has on the supply side. WR subsequently put up a correction based on an email to the NGO. They do not go around buying guns from dealers, but they buy guns that have been confiscated by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the UN. If anything, this encourages the government to confiscate more guns, which should do good things for reducing demand and supply.

On a midterm for the same class, I also posed a question based on the growing gender imbalance in some Indian states. Having 8 women to 10 men ought to increase the "price" of a bride that husbands pay, or in this case reduce the price the family of the bride has to pay the groom's family. This article from the World Bank discusses one campaign to encourage single men to get indoor plumbing and a toilet: No loo, no I do. And what do we find? Single men are becoming much more likely to have a toilet for prospective brides in states that have a low female-to-male ratio.


In class we also debated the ethics of kidney donations just in time for a slough of posts to go up around the blogsosphere about them.