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
- The only immigration policy Congress agrees on is to keep admitting fashion models http://t.co/ZBS1Uw34eN about 8 hours ago from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- New book identifies this as 1st rock and roll album -- in 1938 http://t.co/umXVgRlXeQ 02:28:18 PM May 19, 2013 from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Warning sign that Lenin was centrally planning toilet time on train back to Russia http://t.co/bV8SuNLvF3 02:11:30 PM May 19, 2013 from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Why are they singing pro-Confederacy song "Maryland, my Maryland" at Preakness horse race? 10:10:17 PM May 18, 2013 from Twitter for iPad ReplyRetweetFavorite
Aid Watch tweets
- Consensus driven, simple, numerical targets were both the strength and the weakness of the MDGs. http://t.co/od8c97a5bI via @guardian about 7 hours ago from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
- "There must be a lot of money laundering, but we're not criminals. We're just making life more convenient." http://t.co/hlhAagWUL4 @reuters about 8 hours ago from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
- 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
Tag Archives: Dear Leader Fashion
Does bad taste indicate dictators’ vulnerability to overthrow?
UPDATE: an enterprising reader offered another intriguing datapoint
Bill noticed it on ubiquitous billboards during a trip to Libya. Laura found more examples. So we think we have found an intriguing phenomenon: autocrats and outré pop stars look alike. Photographic evidence:
And one last uncanny visual correlation:
There are many directions we could go with this, but we choose for now the point that many dictators look ridiculous, and ridiculously unaware of how ridiculous.
A…
Posted in Badvocacy and celebs, Satire and parodies 21 Comments
Media now cares about Pakistan; aid workers’ surprising lack of confidence in Afghan army protection; North Korean jeans
Now abundant coverage of Pakistan flood, is it making up for previous non-story?
Sorry, Karzai, Aid workers do want to keep their own guards in Afghanistan, as compared to corrupt and incompetent offical Afghan forces.
I always argue that comparative advantage is surprising, but even so was caught off guard by newly fashionable North Korean jeans.