Interesting.

Tips from just a research (agricultural economics) standpoint. Based on the challenges this Ghanaian cattle farmer is facing—high turnover, theft, and workers exploiting his generosity—here are some general practical, robust solutions he might want to consider.

These draw from common strategies used in African agriculture, particularly in Ghana and similar research contexts where labor migration to cities, low loyalty, and theft are persistent issues.

When you are “kind” because you want something in return (e.g employee loyalty), you are being transactional, not kind. Nothing wrong with that. However, you can’t make someone loyal. You can only find out if they’re a loyal person or not. Most people decide to only be kind to the extent that they don’t expect anything in return.

The goal is to help build a more sustainable operation by addressing root causes like motivation, accountability, and security, while reducing reliance on unreliable hires.

A thread with GENERAL tips. (It’s a lot just so people can choose what they like and don’t like.) Use these tips at your own risk, of course. They may not always work and this is just for entertainment purposes. They’re just general suggestions and you know your situation best.

https://x.com/KwekuOA/status/2007430749754892715

1. Strengthen Hiring and Onboarding Processes.

Implement thorough screening: Require references from previous employers, do background checks (even basic ones via local networks), and have trial periods (e.g., 1-2 months probation).

This weeds out unreliable candidates early and sets clear expectations from day one.

Use formal contracts if you don’t yet: Outline job duties, pay, benefits, rules against theft, and consequences (e.g., immediate dismissal or legal action). Get their signatures on the contracts if you don’t yet.

In Ghana, simple written agreements can deter opportunists and provide legal recourse if needed.

Hire locally or through trusted networks: Partner with community leaders or agricultural cooperatives to source workers who have ties to the area, reducing the urge to quit for urban jobs. This fosters a sense of ownership and community accountability.

The umbrella organization in Ghana is the Ghana Cooperative Agricultural Producers and Marketing Organization (AGRIC COOP-Ghana). They have a Cattle, Sheep and Goat Development Association of Ghana, etc.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Tetteh Quarshie, the man who started the cocoa revolution in Ghana, but were afraid to ask.

In the 1870s, at the height of the colonial era, a master blacksmith from Osu took a risk that would eventually dismantle the economic monopolies of his time and help build the foundation of modern Ghana.

Thread. 1. The Smuggling of the "Golden Pod" (1870–1879)

At the time, the Spanish colony of Fernando Po (now Bioko, Equatorial Guinea) was the "Fort Knox" of cocoa. It was a tightly guarded, slave-labor-driven hub that provided Europe with its luxury chocolate.

The Risk: Exporting cocoa pods was strictly illegal.

Tetteh Quarshie, working there as a blacksmith, didn't just observe the crop; he understood its unit economics. He saw that the soil and climate in the Akuapem hills back home were identical to Fernando Po.

The Heroic Act: In 1876, he famously smuggled several pods (Amelonado variety) into the Gold Coast, reportedly by sewing them into his clothing or hiding them in his luggage.

Why the classics in economics matter: In “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy” (1942), Joseph Schumpeter was ahead of his time when he argued that the expansion of higher education would lead to the emergence of an underemployed academic precariat. Schumpeter suggested that capitalism could sow the seeds of its own destruction through the growth of intellectuals critical of it. Universities, as hubs of thought, could balance this by fostering innovation and entrepreneurial thinking. #Innovation #HigherEd

Sure. Here are some notes and a thread on VAR and SVAR models:
github.com/andreachello/A… x.com/arcamachoX/sta… 1. VAR* and SVAR** models both help us with analyzing multivariate time series in econometrics.

*VAR: Vector Autoregression.
**SVAR: Structural VAR.

A thread about conformal prediction, an important statistical concept that can help development economists and economists in general that are interested in causal inference and related concepts: Conformal prediction is a method of producing predictions that are accompanied by validity guarantees, meaning that they are valid under any distribution of the data.

🧵1/ Does causality have a color? In this .@DevEconX paper, we use graphs to model data or systems, and diagonal Ramsey numbers to estimate causal effects. What are diagonal Ramsey numbers and how can they help us with causal impact? Let’s find out! developmenteconomicsx.com/wp-content/upl…
🧵2/ Diagonal Ramsey numbers are a concept from graph theory that measure how large a graph has to be to guarantee that it contains a monochromatic subgraph of a given size. Ramsey numbers been used in macro, theory, and elsewhere, but not causal inference.

Until now.

Another thread on classic industrial R&D labs. Bell Labs was the birthplace of information theory. Nine Nobel prizes(!) and four Turing awards(!!). I’m mostly quoting this neat new .@Nature article on how they operated with actual quotes.

nature.com/articles/s4225… Riordan attributed the success of Bell Labs to the “combination of stable funding and long-term thinking”

But there were other ingredients articulated in 1950 by Mervin Kelly, director of Bell Labs.

While not perfect, I’ve long found this tech sector space endlessly fascinating, and am convinced of the significant need for far more collaboration between economics and computer science and across the board.

There are interesting contexts and implications. This is not the first time in history that private industry has been crucial to social impact. During the Second World War Raytheon played a pivotal role in supplying game-changing radar to the Allied powers.

Academia to industry in 5 steps:
1. LinkedIn profile with research methods+software keywords
2. Search for your universities
3. Add alums/folks in firms
4. DM, start conversations
5. Find a job ad for their workplace and ask for referral
#altac 1. Find (e.g) tech research scientists with backgrounds similar to yours and make your profile mimic theirs. Keywords: Stata, R, programming, data science, AI, teaching, economics, etc.

Thread to document a little of what I’ve read about innovative industrial research:

The history of Nobel prizes awarded to scientists in the private sector(!), yields some interesting correlations: In each case, in some area on the forefront of innovation and technology, the three necessary factors tend to be industrial motivation, basic science, and stellar results.