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
Research positions: Work for me, or for IRC
Two jobs that might be of interest. (And a reminder, and an apology, that I only post jobs on this blog if it’s working for me, or for someone married to me. Otherwise I get bombarded.) I’m looking for a research … Continue reading ...
The fundamental problem with US diplomacy?
While Washington plays “Guess the next Secretary of State”, Robert Worth has a marvelous NY Times Magazine piece, where he quotes a former Ambassador to Kenya: “The model has become, we will go to dangerous places and transform them, and we will do it … Continue reading ?
The anarchist’s cookbook, updated, without the explosives, and for international audiences
The actual title is The Outsider’s Guide to Supporting Nonviolent Resistance to Dictatorship. My alternate title was suggested by a colleague. The manual comes with a disclaimer: The following pages are designed to kick start a global conversation on how—and how … Continue reading ?
Ask and ye shall receive (self-governed prisons edition)
After this morning’s post, I’ve learned someone has indeed done the political economy of the Bolivian prison. The article is by David Skarbek: Cooperation among prison inmates is especially unlikely because criminals have high discount rates, lack the ability to exclude noncooperators … Continue reading ?
The privatized prison at its most extreme?
San Pedro prison, the biggest in Bolivia’s main city, La Paz, is home to about 1,500 inmates. Once you pass the thick walls and the security gates, any resemblance to a normal jail disappears: there are children playing, market stalls, … Continue reading ?
What New York can learn from Nigeria
At the fourth annual Maker Faire Africa in Lagos, Nigeria, a quartet of teenage girls ages 14 through 15 have created a urine-powered generator. This eco-friendly energy source cranks out six hours of electricity for every liter of human bodily fluid by … Continue reading ?
“The End of Cheap Chinese Labor”
At the beginning of China’s economic reforms in 1978, the annual wage of a Chinese urban worker was only $1,004 in U.S. dollars …However, wages are now rising in China. In 2010, the annual wage of a Chinese urban worker reached $5,487 … Continue reading ?
Social scientists run amok
From the first time Barack Obama summoned the country’s leading presidential historians to dinner, they saw that the type of discussion he wanted would be different from their talks with previous Oval Office occupants. There was almost no small talk, for this … Continue reading ?
Unexpected letters in history
Note the sender. Mr Franklin Roosvelt, President of the United States. My good friend Roosvelt I don’t know very English, but I know as much as write to you. I like to hear the radio, and I am very happy, … Continue reading ?
Advice on applying for PhD programs
It’s fall, and about time for the flood of grad school inquiries. Like many of my colleagues, this is one of the most common questions I get in office hours from my students. Partly because of the blog, I must get an … Continue reading ?
Chris Rock with a special message for undecided voters of the Caucasian variety
What I love most is that this was being circulated by the august American politics faculty of my fair university.
Corruption and development: Not what you think
Should foreign donors care about corruption in developing countries? In my comment on David Cameron’s development vision, I called corruption an Anglo-American fetish. Westerners care about corruption far out of proportion to its impact on poverty alleviation and economic growth. To … Continue reading ?
Election-related links I liked
“I carved tonight’s projection on a sapling deep in the Rocky Mountains. He who finds it wins Colorado.” Nate Silver 2.0, on Twitter at @fivethirtynate Is the 538 model biased? (h/t Joshua Cohen) Another way to predict elections
How much awesomeness can be packed into one video?
Your intellectual antidote to my recent rant on the UK development strategy. Also worthwhile: The top 250 movies on IMDB in 2 1/2 minutes
The socialist origins of Monopoly
Three decades before Darrow’s patent, in 1903, a Maryland actress named Lizzie Magie created a proto-Monopoly as a tool for teaching the philosophy of Henry George, a nineteenth-century writer who had popularized the notion that no single person could claim to … Continue reading ?
The blind spots in the UN development agenda
David Cameron, Britain’s PM, is one of three world leaders chairing the UN’s post-2015 development agenda. Today he outlined his vision in a WSJ op-ed. (Gated, but emailed to me by his office, so I will go ahead and post … Continue reading ?
Does Michelle Obama ruin Halloween for kids? Dean Karlan says yes.
OK, so Dean Karlan did not actually say that. I might be putting words in his mouth. What does Dean say? Those of you who know him know that no randomized trial opportunity is ever missed–least of all the arrival … Continue reading ...
Links I liked
Micro-level conflict data, the map. And other analysis of the HiCN working papers Arvind Subramanian reviews Why Nations Fail in one graph Top-tweeting African politicians Surely xkcd should get an honorary political science PhD for this…
Africans are richer (and getting richer) than you think
Alwyn Young doesn’t buy the GDP and consumption data in Africa (with good reason). He develops new estimates of poverty in 29 sub-Saharan and 27 other developing countries using DHS surveys–widespread, longstanding health surveys that also happen to record a … Continue reading ?
Disney is planning the release of a new Star Wars film in 2015
Disney has acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in stock and cash… And in what is mind-blowing news for fans, Star Wars will be getting a new lease on life…without Lucas. The next films will be made by “a new generation … Continue reading ?