How an economist describes being friend-zoned: unique steady state equilbrium, where agents are ex-ante homogeneous and vertically heterogeneous. Agents tend to date longer than is socially optimal, which is very innefficient!😂
After 10 years in power, African govts increase military spending and reduce health & education spending. Health & education spending does not predict the risk of losing power while military spending does.
Mind last year, I got two jobs offers in the UK, both senior lecturer/associate professor position. The unis are great. I would have b3eb more than thrilled to have one of them. Then I thought of the cost of living and immigration policies. I turned both down. Thar was right.
The next president of Uganda should recombine districts. Kabale district is a shadow of itself. You drive 20kms and you are in either Rubanda or Rukiga. I don't think one needs districts to build schools and hospitals.
45% of African economics papers and 65% of African economics papers in top5 journals are in 5 countries (South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi).
Finished your bachelor in econ, math, stat? You might want to apply to the PhD-track Master Program at Bonn. You get a scholarship and Bonn is one of the best in Europe.
I never understand why people look down on Bobi Wine so much. Is it because he has a MDD degree/diploma, it because he is from the ghetto or not from a prominent elite school/family or that he isn't a curved out politician. What exactly is Bobi weakness?
Cash transfers and Crime in Indonesia. A very bold and carefully tested hypothesis finds that CTs increase crime by 27-33% of control mean. Cash transfers might increase idleness among recipient households, hence increase crime. RCT results agree with DiD results.
Looking for PhD programs in Development/Agric Economics? Check out this call with DAAD scholarships at
@ZEFbonn
@UniBonn
. Great faculty, networks, etc. Follow the link and reach out if you like.
Robert Kabushenga is one of the best business and managerial minds we Uganda. Really great that he launched this You Tube Channel. Set a reminder and catch up with his Coffee with Robert
@rkabushenga
. Looking forward to it.
Here is how key paper in Rheinland Pfalz decided to frame it: The Virus from Africa is with us. And look at the picture they chose? They are now giving apologies, but you think it didnt get passed by the editorial team?
I think people need to be continously reminded that hiring research assistants in country X is not creating research partnerships in and with researchers in country X. we seem to conflate these.
I submitted a paper to a top 5 econ journal. I drank a glass of wine when it wasn't desk rejected. After 95 days, it is rejected with the most kindest comments from 3 reviewers. This cup of ginger tea is celebrating great referee reports.
Emerging research on willingness to pay for COVID vaccine shows people in (in Africa) are WTP >US$20. In Latin America, >US$100. Why cant gov't open vaccination markets & focus on quality control? Wouldnt we achieve faster vaccination? Why are govt's monopolising vaccine markets?
This is not nice though. Its another level of condescending and disrespect. Just because you a tech-literate city dweller with these gadgets doesn't mean you scare villagers living their own lives and laugh about it.
Bantu languages are always fascinating! Once I was in Katima, Namibia & my Namibian research assistants started back-biting me. When I told them I heard & knew what they said, field work that day was jeorpardised!
Now here Kikuyu sounds like a Mukiga with a lisp.
Something to celebrate: last year I gave some advice to a Ugandan female applicant to graduate schools. Now she's been admitted to Harvard, Stanford and Columbia. I am drinking for her drinking for her.
Poverty in East Africa:
1. Why did poverty reduction stall in Uganda and Tanzania in the last decade?
2. With all the growth, democracy, civil freedoms in Kenya, how is it that they never reduce poverty?
After 9 years in Bonn, I have moved slightly northwards to RWI Essen. Excited to join the Climate Change and Development group looking forward to the next chapter of career rollercoaster! But still in Bonn, so up for drinks on the weekends!
Researchers really need to stop this thing of doing a study in Gambia and putting Sub-Saharan Africa in the title. It's deceptive. I might have done it too, but its deceptive. If you do a study in Burkina Faso, put in the title or not, but dont put SSA.
@mkguliford
Do you mind sharing the screenshot of one of them, blocking out the sender name, location etc? We international people might not know what if offensive and aggressive to Americans and wouldn't mind getting acquainted about it.
The
@UniBonn
and
@MatinQaim
have 3 PhD positions open to study development/agric economics issues as part of the Future Rural Africa. You have a good Master (Econ, Stats, Agric Sciences etc), and interested? Follow the link.
Ever wondered how much your decision is influenced by unspoken family approval? In this JMP by
@CriClerici
,
@dmnkbiesalski
and Bianchi, they find that occupational choices are much family-approval based as their financial expectations.
The end of Mobile Money (in Uganda)? A recent paper shows that <half the people who have a mobile money account actually use it. Most of them mention exorbitant transaction costs as the key barrier. MTN, Airtel & the govt are telling us to keep money under our beds.
New
@UNUWIDER
working paper. Multinational firms in Uganda pay about 20% less taxes compared to large local firms. They are also more likely to report losses possibly due to profit shifting.
Fit in academic job market. A🧵. After the recent Econ Nobel, many people would now have read about the strike of luck on how Krueger got the Princeton interview w/ Orley. He was a brilliant young economist, but luck had to be that he sits next to Orley's wife on that flight.
The Kiel Institute for World Economy has 4 doctoral positions to conduct research on African Economies. Innovation & Competition, Finance & Macro and International Development. Recent Econ MA/Msc graduate? You might be interested
Are you an African researcher working on climate change, digitalisation, conflict, interested in spending 3 months at either
@IDOS_research
or
@SWPBerlin
or
@kielinstitute
? Apply to this
@MT_Afrika
visiting fellowship. A team of great researchers
Today as an one of those crying in the rain days. Got one paper rejected and another published. With colleagues
@IDinsight
, (
@DanStein_econ
@hlanthorn
Ricco & Emma) and Yulei, happy to share with you the published one.
🚨🚨 New paper in
@LancetGH
by African researchers finds that COVID-19 cases in 47 African countries were over 505m & only 1.4% were reported! Deaths were 440k & only 35% reported.
People Eat well but they dont report it in nutrition surveys.
@KibromAbay
's new paper is just wow! Delayig the timing of a nutrition module by 15 mins results in 17% decrease in dietary diveristy and 28% decrease in minimum food groups consumed.
Of Rishi Sunak becoming the PM of the UK. It reminds me of an incident in my Master at Sussex. I lived in a house repartitioned for student living. In the basement was an Indian girl whom I never really interacted with but she had heard that on the first floor was a Ugandan guy
A thread on COVIDEX and behavioral medicine.
I've just been on a chat with a medical doctor friend and we found ourselves wondering about the social experiment currently going on with COVIDEX in Uganda.
Agriculture insurance is increasingly the new frontier of innovation and risk mitigation for farmers in LMICs. But take-up has remained elusive, especially in Africa. So, we review a huge amount of literature on why and what can be done to improve it. Super thrilled this is out!
Hooy hooy!! PLOS has a new journal - PLOS Global Public Health with
@CKyobutungi
as the Editor in Chief!! This is HUUUGGEEE, MAAJOR!!! Congrats Catherine: Now let the rejection rollercoaster begin!
So, seeing people making jokes about medical interns strike is exceedingly bad. If you have a good job, think of others who want to have a good job as well. Work for fairness, equity and betterment of everyone. Put yourself in their shoes.
Papers on Uganda at the
#OxCSAE2021
conference. A Thread.
This and last week, the
#OxCSAE2021
conference is ongoing. You can register and attend. You'll probably love it. Below, i provide short summaries of papers on Uganda
My wonderful colleague
@tabe_ojong
just defended his PhD with great pomp and fun and after the party this evening he heads to
@IFPRI
in Cairo to join another wonderful person,
@KibromAbay
. Congrats Martin! Most of the times, we had fun! Go on and shine bro!
Youth unemployment in Africa. The higher the countries per capita GDP the higher youth unemployment. Most likely, its not that poor countries have low youth unemployment but that it is not well measured and recorded
They not only have a fantastic CV but also very well networked. So here is the prayer for us on the job market. I pray you sit next to luck. That your networks come thru. That you wont be dejected of sending the next application. That you become successful. Amen & Cheers!
@NKarachiwalla
Now imagine it was a fairly good paper from a not so fancy author from University of some African country? Editor might probably never even read the abstract. Tough business, isnt it?
@enemorales
@Teheimar
@Nymne
this is so funny! I actually picked that picture from a thread with this map and didnt even notice it needed 2 rows! Its really long!
You are probably already tired with COVID-19 and food security papers, but here is one for the road!
We did a
@CRC228
baseline in June-Sept 2019 in Baringo Kenya, Morogoro in TZ and in Zambezi Namibia. Conducted a phone survey in May-July 2020.
Shouldn't someone do an NFT of Muzee Jemba? I don't know what NFTs are but I've heard they protect original artistic creations. If we are going to start duplicating the original meme, then it's better protected also from corporate interests.
In this video, a woman speaking a western Uganda language blocks while wagging her stick, a group of white bicycle riders. She says "go away, you are bringing us covid". The white woman in front of their pack, begs "please, please".
A PhD position in my institute conducting development & agric research in Kenya & Namibia. I can he contacted in Jan if anyone needs info. Check it out.
In our new working paper (with
@tabe_ojong
), we find that religion (biased Christian) and higher levels of religiosity were associated with higher educational aspirations for children in rural Kenyan (Baringo) households.
For a Ugandan applying for university abroad, the harsh reminder is to do TOEFL or IELTS tests. One has been doing English as a foreign language for all their bloody lives!
@Comrade_Otoa
I know many people have already told you this - but i think you need to write a book. Part of it would be too hilarious, other too educating and other too insightful.
Research is super expensive, its unbelievable! You want to do an RCT of about 2000 households? Collect data 3-4 times? But budget is upwards of USD 500k. That's shitloads of money. All for a manuscript or two that will get rejected like a crazy!
NGO entry into locations with exiting govt services worsens health services. NGOs provide better pay and take govt workers, and end up being commercially driven to worsen service delivery
This Ethiopian guy is having the most hilarious conversation with a checking agent. His COVID19 vaccine shows he was vaccinated in 2014. The check-in agent is confused how the guy got vaccinated 6 years before COVID came.
The appointment of
@rggoobi
to PS reminds of 2 high school exam scenarios. (a) teacher knows the exam leaked & changed the question last minute. Brings the new exam hot from the printer. (b) realises you've all forgotten next term & brings that same question.
This is one amazing picture. The Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Bonn, Prof Heckelei, is pulling his student
@tabe_ojong
in a rickshaw in the streets of Bonn, after awarding him his PhD. Another notch at being proud of your students! Martin is sapeuring every moment!
🚨🚨We have a new working paper on extreme weather and child health in Uganda. Extreme weather reduced HAZ by 0.57 SD mainly through low crop production (hence reduced food access & nutrition) and increase in child diseases.
Yeehaa!! paper published! but there should be a deterrent to reading your paper immediately when its out. There is always an embarassing typo on the first page! Hitting the biergarten to drink one for it!
If you think about it, this is a very exciting paper! If you are in south-western Uganda, cold temperatures possibly cause more steamy relationships but it might not be the case in Peru where frost seems to take the fire out of relationships!
Rep Dan Crenshaw with
@Trevornoah
: "You can become American. You can't become French, I am not sure you can become German."
Trevor Noah really didnt have a followup to this statement. Really? Really?
Seeing Kathleen Noble representing Uganda in rowing is amazing at many fronts. She could have chosen to represent the country of her parents. But also, isn't there Masaza rowing competitions? Kathleen will inspire men and women to get into this game.
Ever wonder how prosperity-focussed faith practice might alter one's economic outcomes? My friend
@tabe_ojong
and I were in Baringo Kenya prepping for a survey. While training enumerators, we saw our host coming from lunch-time prayers. We got an additional research idea.
Prime Minister of Australia is announcing a programme for owners, he stands on some guys lawn. Guy comes from his house and tells him "Get off my lawn" and the PM says "sorry, lets move off". Dont these people know the fountain of honour? 🤣🤣🤣
Tomorrow I present my paper with Sarh Schroeder on health insurance premium changes and labour supply in Rwanda at the
@EuHEA
Seminar series and Uni Bologna Econ department. Looking forward to it.
The issue is also that addictiveness is only one side! My experience is, as an economist from/in Uganda, I have met so many people I wouldnt never have met if i wasnt on Twitter and only analysing my data. Sometimes I send message to someone & they reply, to my surprise.
In high school, Bahati was the richest kid. there was a joke that he would ask his rich and less educated dad that the school lab needed photosynthesis and oxygen. He at some point owned the school canteen. Now a boda and car collision have ended his life. Rest thee well Kanagizi
This is a great organising question for Southern economists. But without falling into the publish or perish rathole (I think i'm a step in already), we need to still publish. Without publishing, we are not building cummulative body of knowledge.
The organising question of western development economics, framed 70+ years ago, is how the North can develop the South. My organising question is how to end dependency, both intellectual and material. Different enterprise.
Apata Insights in Kampala are looking for a Quantitative Research Associate. Recent graduates (like last 3 years) are encouraged to apply. Circulate this in your networks or apply.
COVID-19 risk perceptions in Uganda. Remember that online survey
@whiteheadcomm
did last July? we looked in the data together & found that 85% of respondents feared COVID-19 less in July than they did in March 2020. Glad we published this piece.
Are you an African political scientist (PhD post 2017) interested in short research visit to Bonn, Kiel or Berlin? The
@MT_Afrika
have 3 three-month fellowships that might interest you. Please check out the call. .
Esther Schüring & Markus Loewe from
@DIE_GDI
have a new exciting book on social protection systems. Its open access and has chapter from all your social protection favourite people (
@KeetieRoelen
@CStrupat
Devereux, RS-W etc!) My winter teaching plan has new material!
This page from a national newspaper tells something interesting. Government hospitals have free beds & in principle, free of charge. Private hospitals are fully maxed out & extremely expensive. Might tells us who is treating COVID and who is not. What do you think
@sdkafeero
?
@sebsronnie
@TheNicklison
@PathyKlinn
It's actually simple. The guy is lying. The current midpoint salary for Vice Presidents, Executive Director, Sector Managers is about 317k. Some about 250k. In DC. Unless he was the WB President in 2001, there is no way he was earning 240k.