Story in today’s NYT
About Aid Watch
The Aid Watch blog is a project of New York University's Development Research Institute (DRI). This blog is principally written by William Easterly, author of "The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics" and "The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good," and Professor of Economics at NYU. It is co-written by Laura Freschi and by occasional guest bloggers. Our work is based on the idea that more aid will reach the poor the more people are watching aid.
"Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking." - H.L. Mencken
Recent Comments
- Rukmini on Aid Watch blog ends; New work on development begins : This has been a valuable resource for me and I’m sorry to see it...
- Jesse on From Hell to Prosperity: I would like to see this graph with a comparative one which shows the number of people in each religion...
- Ellie on Aid Watch blog ends; New work on development begins : Sad to see you go, but I certainly respect the decision. Hope it is...
- Vivek Nemana on From Hell to Prosperity: Jeff, Well, the billionaire effect might explain a disproportionately high mean income, but...
- M on Aid Watch blog ends; New work on development begins : I agree that Bill and Laura should think about how they can get their message...
- Mr. Econotarian on Are Lax US Gun Laws Spilling Violence into Mexico? : The paper says: “DHS data gives the number of illegal...
Archives
Bill Easterly tweets
- New book identifies this as 1st rock and roll album -- in 1938 http://t.co/umXVgRlXeQ about 6 hours ago from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Warning sign that Lenin was centrally planning toilet time on train back to Russia http://t.co/bV8SuNLvF3 about 6 hours ago from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Why are they singing pro-Confederacy song "Maryland, my Maryland" at Preakness horse race? about 22 hours ago from Twitter for iPad ReplyRetweetFavorite
- RT @hangingnoodles: "a self-satirizing plan…pouring in money to a fictional government” http://t.co/K9yCiLgs06 @bill_easterly NYT on Mali … 09:29:12 PM May 17, 2013 from Twitter for iPad ReplyRetweetFavorite
Aid Watch tweets
- Where is the line between marketing social impact and exploitation? | http://t.co/YTc7AoLRMc via @Thehumanosphere 06:25:08 PM May 17, 2013 from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Why the rise in global trade may have less to do with policy and more to do with metal boxes. http://t.co/QN6uw0wLys via @TheEconomist 05:57:06 PM May 17, 2013 from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
- “I thought you were here to help.” http://t.co/z7hbKP8RtX via @NYTimes 05:29:12 PM May 17, 2013 from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
- African traders flocked to Guangzhou for the cheap goods but are staying to run manufacturing operations http://t.co/gK7jmSS3qW via @qz 05:03:40 PM May 17, 2013 from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
Category Archives: Maps
The Great Manhattan Africa Luxury Coffee Tour
Welcome to Manhattan, tourists! Today’s tour will accomplish three things: (1) you will find great coffee places, (2) you will find great coffees from Africa, and (3) you will end poverty in Africa. OK, both coffee people and aid people tend to exaggerate, so don’t take (3) literally, unless you are from the Earth Institute.
What better place to begin Manhattan coffee mania than at Stumptown Coffee Shop? This place takes African coffee so seriously,…
Happy Midwest; New York Stressed
Catharine Rampell in NYT has a great feature on variations in happiness in the US, including the great pictures below.
The overall US picture on happiness shows a surprisingly happy northern Midwest/Plains; New York City area not so much
Maybe it’s the stress. In 
Manhattan, rich downtown and mid-town are stressed out, Harlem is more relaxed (see legend below).
Your present author originated in that happy slice of northwest Ohio and is now…
Third World America
UPDATE 11:20AM: accused of Detroit “poverty porn”, see response below.
As you may have noticed, this blog sees America itself as an interesting development laboratory. Others seem to agree, as a new report applies the Human Development Index to the US.
The site has a cool mapping function. Here is a map of health that locates Third World America in the Deep South and its borderlands.
The South as Third World holds up…
Also posted in Data and statistics Tagged Detroit, Human Development Index, Third World America, U.S. Inequality 37 Comments
Cool maps: Measuring growth from outer space
For many of the world’s poorest countries, figures measuring economic growth are unreliable, and in some cases they don’t exist at all. In an NBER working paper, Brown University professors J. Vernon Henderson, Adam Storeygard, and David N. Weil came up with an interesting proxy for GDP growth: the amount of light that can be seen from outer space.
Of course, the light intensities pictured in this world map reflect both income and population density. The…
Also posted in Academic research, Data and statistics 20 Comments
Aid Watch Rerun: The lure of starting from scratch
NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: Over the holidays, we’ll be publishing reruns of some of our posts from the first 2 years of Aid Watch. This post originally ran on June 17, 2010.
It is an acknowledged national characteristic that Americans believe in self-reinvention. One of our founding myths—inspired by the once unexplored and sparsely populated expanse of the North American continent—is the idea that you can head out of town, leave the encumbrances of the past…
Also posted in Aid debates, Aid policies and approaches Tagged Aid Watch Rerun, Madagascar, Paul Romer 5 Comments
Census 2010: Voters more Republican, more Texan, Fatter
The exciting Census headlines: Texas is the big winner in gaining Congressional seats, Texans vote Republican, Republicans win! Except — the additional Texans are Hispanics, Hispanics vote Democratic, Democrats win!
What a nice illustration of a serious problem in development empirics, known by the lusty, sensuous name of “heterogeneous effects.” If you find handing out free bed nets lowers malaria, that still only applies ON AVERAGE to the group covered by the study. Within this group, the effects…
Also posted in In the news, Metrics and evaluation Tagged CalorieLab, McTexas, Republicans 5 Comments
Instead of the Iron Curtain, the Facebook Curtain
This map shows the pattern of Facebook friendship links across places around the world, with lots of white where there are very dense links across nearby places. The map was created by a Facebook intern, and I learned about it (where else?) on Facebook (HT Mari Kuraishi).
One interesting pattern is a kind of Facebook Curtain somewhat related to the old Iron Curtain. The whole area including the former Soviet Union and China, along with…
The US Map of Prices of Pot
UPDATE: just got the question on Twitter: “what does this have to do with development?” Answer: nothing, except that you will never understand development if you are so quick to ask that question.
When I first saw this map, I immediately thought legalize pot! what a great teaching tool for my Intro students! So students, please explain using the concepts of supply, demand, and transport costs (including in this case smuggling costs)…
Also posted in Economics principles 13 Comments
QDDR: we can hardly contain our excitement
Aid Watch is as excited as everyone else to get a leaked, advance summary of the Quadrennial Development and Diplomacy Review, (HT Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy) which is a critical part of the US government process to set its priorities on Development.
We love to seize occasions where we can be more positive to reward positive things happening, and not be our usual snarky selves.
Today is not one of those occasions.
Some…
Also posted in Aid policies and approaches, Grand plans and aid targets, Military aid 14 Comments