Blog Profile / Chris Blattman's Blog
| URL : | http://chrisblattman.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Academics / Political Science | |
| Posts on Regator: | 2061 | |
| Posts / Week: | 8.2 | |
| Archived Since: | July 25, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
How to pick a dissertation project (and why it should not be a field experiment)
I have pointed students to advice on how to start a thesis. I have also posted my thoughts on what to do (and not to do) in empirical research. For the past few weeks, though, I find myself giving the … Continue reading ?
As though I didn’t think humans were ridiculous enough already
In the largest false memory study to date, 5,269 participants were asked about their memories for three true and one of five fabricated political events. Each fabricated event was accompanied by a photographic image purportedly depicting that event. Approximately half … Continue reading ?
Links I liked
Before tomorrow’s lecture on state and institutional development, I naturally told the class to watch this Monty Python excerpt Effect of bicycle helmet laws on child injuries Tyler Cowen seldom recommends an author this strongly The most interesting surf video … Continue reading ?
“The Scared is scared”
Life lessons and a gripping plot when you ask a six-year old girl to narrate a film. Via Mashable via @AnnieFeighery. From Bianca Giaever on Vimeo.
PE of development, Week 3: The role of initial conditions
Lecture slides for my SIPA class are here. Alas, there are no more PhD slides, and I do not feel confident enough in my notes to share them with the world just yet. Nine PhD students will remain the appropriate guinea pigs for … Continue reading ?
“Consequently, anti-opium efforts have significantly increased the drug-trade resources flowing to the Taliban.”
From a new paper by Jeffrey Clemens: In the mid-2000s, U.S. anti-opium policy intensified with a goal of reducing the resources available to Afghan insurgents. To achieve this objective, I show that opium suppression efforts must accurately distinguish between insurgent … Continue reading ?
The perils of social engineering
One of the most usual ways in which centralized governments invade the social fields within their boundaries is by means of legislation. But innovative legislation or other at-tempts to direct change often fail to achieve their intended purposes; and even … Continue reading ?
Work for me in Ethiopia?
The project description is here. The question is simple: “More sweatshops for Africa?” The project assesses the impact of low-skill, low-wage factory jobs on the worker’s wealth, health and politics (among other things). We also ask: what enriches and empowers … Continue reading ?
What Andrew Jackson teaches us about modern day development
I am reading this superb biography of Andrew Jackson. It is more a page turner than some novels. Some interesting facts about the man on the $20 bill: He was a child soldier in the American Revolution Later in life … Continue readin...
My PE of development classes, Week 2: Growth and development theory
This week offered lightning tours of simple growth and poverty trap models for the Master’s students, and for the PhD class a slightly more detailed look at poverty trap and constrained development models. This is probably the last week for PhD … Continue reading ?
The industrial organization of rebellion
Paul Staniland studies armed groups in Kashmir in a new paper: Being awash in cash and AK-47s has no single impact on how groups are built and behave. Material resources have fundamentally different effects depending on the social-institutional context into which they … Continue reading ?
My graduate political economy of development classes
After some struggle, my syllabi are now prepared. My master’s (SIPA) syllabus is here. This is a substantive class that traces the political underpinnings of development, and the political impacts of economic change. The slides from the first class are here. I’ll … Continue reading ?
Links I liked
Quinoa Nonsense, or Why the World Still Needs Agricultural Economists Photoessay: Everyday life in an American brothel (SFW) Empowering Women: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan Cash, Food, or Vouchers? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Northern Ecuador How … Continue reading ?
The behavioral approach to development policy
Successful development programs rely on people to behave and choose in certain ways, and behavioral economics helps us understand why people behave and choose as they do. Approaching problems in development using behavioral economics thus leads to better diagnosis, which … Continue reading ?
Does foreign aid improve or reduce human rights and governance?
We help arbitrate the debate over this question by leveraging a novel source of exogeneity: the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. We find that when a country’s former colonizer is the president of the Council of … Continue reading ?
The Wire: The Musical
Source. h/t Suresh Naidu
What child soldiering tells us about trafficking, child labor, and enslavement
Historically-speaking, coercion is the most common kind of labor contract. I started out with the question: How to understand coercion in rebellion or firms, and why does it often seem to be tied to child recruitment? Why do armed groups … Continue reading ?
Links I liked
The FAA is reviewing its electronic device policy on airplanes The Star Wars Galactic Empire responds to the White House The new Empirical Studies of Conflict site And a 50 shot sequences of a skier descending a slope
Quote of the day: Mali edition
A tip: if you couldn’t locate Mali on a map with ease a week ago, making policy prescriptions about it now is probably a bad idea. That is from Laura Seay (@texasinafrica). She points me to the Bridges from Bamako … Continue reading...
Scenes from the New York subway system circa 1980
I’m awestruck by the transformation. Book by Bruce Davidson here. More pictures here.