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@BigBigBLessing

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

Jul 9

1/ New paper: Democracies only grow faster than autocracies because of personalist leaders. Bad things mainly happen in overcentralized, unchecked regimes. New from me, Scott Gehlbach & @arthurzeyangyu, The Personalist Penalty:
osf.io/preprints/soca…

2/ Famously, democracies grow faster than autocracies. Yes, some autocracies do spectacularly well... until they don't. Others perform horribly all the time. But this kind of analysis always bothered me: in a democracy-growth regression, why pool Lee Kwan Yew with Mobutu?

Like unhappy families, few autocracies are alike. Lumping them together makes little sense. The most obvious difference to me: personalist versus institutional rule. Putin in 2000 was constrained. Putin in 2022 not so much. That matters.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

Apr 18

OK, I think ChatGPT 4o just changed grant proposal writing forever.

Our problem, because of a tech and email mistake, we received notice that a huge proposal was due with less than a week notice, on a week when most of my Colombia team is on Easter holiday. 🧵

First a little about the project. We've been running surveys of tens of thousands of 13yos in Medellin Colombia to build prediction tools for who will join a gang (5% of boys), who will commit crimes and get arrested (15% of boys before age 25).

Also, which girls will go into webcamming (10% likely) and which boys and girls will have severe mental health crises (15%). Then we have been piloting new social work programs to help these kids in school before the crisis hits and deter crime and sex work.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

Apr 11

Try to imagine a US President telling Ford that they shouldn't sell cars to foreigners, and that they should cut their R&D. It wouldn't happen. But that's what we're doing to one of America's most important exports: Education. 🧵

There are >1 million foreign students in the US. About a quarter of them are from.... you guessed it, China.

This education is, literally, an export. Trade statistics count it as such. As they should! Foreigners earn or borrow money abroad and spend it on an American service.

Because these students move here, they also buy a lot of other stuff: food, housing, furniture, haircuts, beer—you name it. Once you add up tuition and all these other bits and pieces, tertiary education is roughly our 5th largest service export.

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

Mar 12

What do jobs look like for people who work in the international development and humanitarian sector? Obviously bleak in the short run, and dire for families with two earners in the sector. If you're a student or young person who hoped to enter this industry, some thoughts.

Little has changed about actual development. There will, sadly, still be wars and crises, and more than 2/3 of the world is still developing, whether USAID $ flows or not. When it comes to "development", aid was a source of jobs but it was never main engine of change.

One of Ethiopia's most successful and dynamic businessmen is a friend, and I still remember his complaint from 15 years ago. He was trying to buy up and reform and improve dozens of factories. His big shortage? "I need more accountants and merger specialists."

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Chris Blattman

@cblatts

Mar 5

I was skeptical of the $200/mo price tag for ChatGPT DeepResearch, but man is it paying off. The ability to get a cogent, well-referenced, literature review or annotated bibliography in 7 minutes is incredible.

Short thread on how I've used it. Advice/feedback welcome.

Some examples:

I know the "behavioral conflict" literature well—how psychological biases, beliefs, and emotions lead us to bargaining failures. I wanted to apply these to civil courts for a prospective project in Mexico, and develop survey instrument to understand what biases disputants hold. I had spent months assembling copious notes on such studies when writing my book. DeepResearch found several important studies I had not seen, and helped me find ones had concrete information on survey questions and other measurement tools. So it complemented me even on a subject where I arguably know more than most scholars in the world.

In another example, faced with an opportunity to study the effect of getting a pre-trial defense lawyer in Mexico, in 7 minutes DeepResearch had pointed me to half a dozen high quality studies, so I was able to immediately see where the research frontier is, and to what extent my team and I should spend time investigating the project. I could have done this on my own, but it would have probably take a couple of hours on Google, and I may not have found the relevant studies.

Read 11 tweets

Chris Blattman

@cblatts

Jul 30, 2024

On Venezuela, some semi-informed reflections from afar (and from other cases):

Obviously the previous regime (and to some extent this one) has endured large scale protests before with unexpected fortitude

At the same time…

…the handling of the election and the way Maduro announced victory this time seemed way more inept than in the past. Whereas before they were amazingly skillful this seems inept. Especially when they had so much time to prepare. It was a car crash in slow motion.

I don’t want to oversimplify literature on repression, but a rough pattern: moderate repression often backfires on regime, generating more anger than fear. Strong & certain repression often works. Unclear is whether Maduro has the support or state capacity to repress strongly

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