There’s more from Sachs and Easterly this week. See here for my roundup of last week’s tussle in HuffPo.
First, Sachs rebuts the idea of using Occam’s razor for development economics:
Bill Easterly takes a complex problem, African poverty, and tries to reduce it to a single factor: “the consensus among most academic economists is that destructive governments rather than destructive geography explain the poverty of nations.” This is a strange assertion. Geography and government policies both matter.
Easterly then steps up the data mining accusation and compares Sachs and his ilk to astrologists:
African poverty is complex, but our theories about it should not have so many complex Buts, Ors, and Excepts that they are impossible to disprove. Ignoring Occam’s Razor is how astrologists stay in business.
You know what, though? Why view my reporting of all this when Bill Easterly has constructed a handy chart detailing the whole thing? It’s pretty entertaining, and, in all honesty, cuts to the heart of their arguments.
Huffington Post Sensational attack Defense against previous round of attack Valid point Sachs 5/24: Aid Ironies E got aid himself but opposes it for dying babies None Immunization works Easterly 5/25: Why Critics are Better for Foreign Aid than Apologists S as bad as Cheney intimidating opponents with smears S previously quoted E accurately as in favor of what S now says E is against Aid needs critics to make sure it reaches poor people Sachs 5/27: Moyo’s Confused Attack on Aid for Africa Aid critics don’t understand geography of Africa S: Don’t worry, I’m smearing Moyo too Malaria is bad Easterly 5/29: Geography Lessons: Correcting Sachs on African Economic Development Convoluted S geography theory uses a lot of Ifs, Buts and Excepts to fit Africa, ignores bad government E: Bad government is more important than bad geography to explain Africa’s poverty Aid should not go to bad governments Sachs 6/1: No Need to Oversimplify Poverty E has “pre-scientific” mono-causal, bad government explanation for poverty S admits Zimbabwe has a bad government; geography theory data mining is justified in “complex systems” Poverty is complicated Easterly 6/2: Astrology, Despotism, and Africa S doesn’t understand data mining, which makes geography analysis = astrology; S calls despotisms besides Zim “potentially well governed” E: All science tests one thing at a time, such as bad government, not equivalent to believing only one thing matters People adapt to geography thru trade & technology (like bed nets from S!) & migration
More evidence that the blogosphere is a positive development for development economics, if only for the humor of bare-knuckle academic brouhahas.
[...] my mind lately, and it’s good to know that I’m not alone. Bill Easterly, fresh off his battle in HuffPo with Jeff Sachs, has had a few posts this past week about the topic of poverty as a human rights [...]