The Labor Constraint
A few years ago I managed an NGO that served 20,000 subsistence farmers in Mali. I was surprised when I first arrived to find many of our farmers planting less than half their land. They might have 10 hectares but…
The Internet and the Long Tails of Political Discourse
Nearby is a graph of a standard normal frequency distribution. It was created with a random number generator but these types of distributions are also very common in nature. For example, if you count the kernels on the cobs from…
Ebola: The View from 3° 30’ South
I moved to Burundi in February. I work for a small company providing training and micro credit to 30,000 subsistence farmers. Recently, I spoke with several Burundian friends about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. I asked them if they…
The Economics of Immigration
“I pity the poor immigrant Who wishes he would’ve stayed home Who uses all his power to do evil But in the end is always left so alone.” – Bob Dylan 1967 The immigration debate…