Thanks Prof. Easterly to make our minds work!

I do not have the training in either economics or statistics to refute your refutation of Collier, I’m assuming the professor can handle his own.

I am, however,concerned with the almost cavalier manner in which you present his nuanced arguments as crude generalizations. He advocates “invad[ing] poor countries, run[ning] poor people’s societies for them and deny[ing] poor people their democratic rights”? This borders on academic criminal negligence. Stephen Krasner does an appreciable job [in this same series] negotiating the conventions and traditions of sovereignty in any application of Collier’s recommendations.

Do you disagree with Collier’s conclusion that institutional capacity and accountability are two of the most debilitating short-comings that poor countries have to deal with? Are the incentives to create an endogenous response properly aligned or do the resources exist locally?

I agree with Collier’s assessment up to a point, except I would rather ECOWAS or the AU stand-by force enforcing security. But there isn’t enough space to discuss that. Were it not for other reasons, one would be tempted to think you do this stuff for the attention.

Ed Miguel and his former students are producing some of the most interesting econometric work on the behavior of people in conflict and in recovery from conflict. These are micro and panel based studies, and are therefore more convincing that Collier’s macro-econometric regressions.

I am uncomfortable with Collier’s use of instrumental variables as a basis for inferring causation from his macro regressions. Perhaps his use of instrumental variables is just inroducing error.

Fair point, but then on those grounds why should a country ever sign a treaty that holds beyond a term limit?

And do you honestly think that we’d have a problem at the sign-up office with African presidents rushing in to sign up, to the detriment of their citizens? I always figured that it would be *pretty difficult* to get them to sign up.

Yes, that’s right, because a country’s government never does anything that’s against the long-term people’s interest? Er…

You are citing cases of bilateral interventions by neighbors, which is a different game altogether than what is being suggested here.

Not letting neighbors get involved in peacekeeping is peacekeeping 101 (although sadly, often ignored).

The whole point of having an international security guarantee is to avoid this kind of conflict of interest. Sure, it’s still a bit of a minefield, but that’s not enough say the idea isn’t worth looking at.

the security guarantees are completely and absolutely voluntary: countries sign up to them. How on earth could that ever be construed as colonialism? You can’t infringe on sovereignty that was willingly given up.

ROFL.

Cuba ‘voluntarily’ gave up Guatánamo to the US. Parliament was clearly told the alternative was annexation.

The Lankan government ‘voluntarily’ signed the Indo-Lanka accord. It was under no illusion the alternative was invasion.

If I remember correctly from reading Wars, Guns and Votes, the security guarantees are completely and absolutely voluntary: countries sign up to them. How on earth could that ever be construed as colonialism? You can’t infringe on sovereignty that was willingly given up.

Of course the bottom billion deserve democratic rights – this is the whole point of finding methods to enforce electoral accountability – currently it does not exist in most countries in the bottom billion.

I agree that Collier’s proposal needs more discussion before implementation, but you’re really going out of your way to portray this as some absurd, epic battle between evil neocolonialism and the disenfranchised bottom billion, with the brave dissenters standing in the way! This issue deserves more nuance than this.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paternalism