This week in In Development Magazine: Nithin Coca writes about Jakarta’s large expansion of transit over the last decade, and trying to tame the traffic of the world’s most congested city.
Abby ShalekBriski1 writes about how it would be ideal if writers on agriculture… knew anything about agriculture. An excellent quote from the piece:
They suggest that perhaps cattle producers can transition marginal rangeland used for grazing into other crops. Marginal grazing land is not a close substitute for perennial specialty crop production due to soil constraints, climate risk, and capital requirements. The piece explicitly references a conversation with an Oklahoma cattle producer who allegedly cannot afford to transition to growing stone fruit. There’s a very good reason for that!2
Nick Bloom and coauthors find that the ROI on good government statistics is 25:1 in the US. I would love to see an estimate on this in LMICs.3
Oliver Hanney has been on a roll this week: first pointing out that development aid will not reduce migration and we shouldn’t pretend it will, and secondly, addressing the ongoing debate on “should dev be more macro vs. micro”. He points out that macro research is often more useful to policymakers - though I will admit to an academic’s preference for clean causal inference.
Daniel Björkegren writes about what AI may mean for developing countries, and why the structure of these economies means it may not have similar effects to those seen in developed economies.
Aveek Bhattacharya points out that it’s no one’s job to make sure the Prime Minister is good at his job. Shockingly, this often means they aren’t.
Larissa Schiavo argues that Dulles Airport and the mobile lounges actually weren’t futuristic, because they failed to anticipate that the future would be different than present day.
The Blue Lagoon is actually… heated by a nearby geothermal plant? Based.
Abby is one of my favorite people I’ve gotten to know recently.
For those who have never been to Oklahoma: Oklahoma has lousy soil and no water. If you have a sudden desire to grow stone fruits, probably do it in not Oklahoma.
I am maybe a little bit obsessed with the quality of government statistics in LMICs. If you know things about this, please, please pitch me an essay at submissions@indevelopmentmag.com.