I just published a new article in the Journal of African History The History of African Poverty by Numbers: Evidence and Vantage Points. The Journal of African History, 59(3), 449-461 I have posted by ungated pre-proof version of the article here. There are excellent...
Read more ›
Category: Poverty
Development by Indicators: Knowledge and Governance
In this workshop organized at Nantes by Boris Samuel and me on May 5 and 6, 2015 we will investigate the role of indicators in economic development. We will explore how numbers structure knowledge about economic development and how they give rise to social...
Read more ›
Statistical Tragedy in Africa? Evaluating the Data Base for African Economic Development
On Monday, salve April 6, thumb 2015 - 10:00am to 11:30am the special issue in the Journal of Development Studies: Statistical Tragedy in Africa? Evaluating the Data Base for African Economic Development which I edited with Deborah Johnston is being launched at the Center...
Read more ›
Statistical Earthquakes
That's what Homi Kharas and Laurence Chandy calls it. They refer to the shifts that the new price data come from the International Comparison Program are causing to the poverty numbers. The new numbers are causing large revisions upwards and downwards for some country,...
Read more ›
“Nigeria is not a poor country”
“Nigeria is not a poor country”, President Goodluck Jonathan declared earlier this month in response to a World Bank report which listed Nigeria among the five poorest countries in the world. The claim is wrong and misleading says Taiwo Obe, writing for Africa Check.
Someone robbed the databank (at the World Bank)
More specifically, Justin Sandefur (with Sarah Dykstra and Benjamin Dykstra) at the Center for Global Development have been running a script to get full access to the data in the Povcalnet database maintained at the World Bank (by Shaohua Chen; Prem Sangraula and Martin...
Read more ›
The History of Poverty in Africa
At the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University, Rhiannon Stephens is organizing what promises to be an excellent conference on the History of Poverty in Africa. Jane Guyer is giving a keynote on Thursday March 6, and then there is a full...
Read more ›