Stationary Bandit

The Winner of the Man Booker International Prize is...

Chinua Achebe.  He certainly deserved it.  I have used his books (Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease) in a course on African Economic Development I have taught for the past couple of years.  They provide nice illustrations of the transition from pre-colonial to post-colonial Nigeria.  He describes credit markets in a world without a written language, the role of legal and political systems in pre-colonial societies, and the importance of incentives in explaining corruption in post-colonial Nigeria.  Maybe next up is the Nobel Prize... (Here and here are additional articles about the award.)

Immigration Questions

Russ Roberts raises a few good points pertaining to the present debate.

We once believed in a lady in the harbor with a lamp beside the golden door. She said "send me your tired huddled masses yearning to breathe free." She welcomed the wretched and the homeless. Now it's "send me your tired huddled masses as long as they're software developers, 25-39 years old and can already speak English." So modern. So utilitarian. So ugly.

Here's an idea. If we care so much about keeping the US competitive in the global economy, we can do more than just keep the wrong people out. Let's make existing residents prove they're worthy of staying here.

Here is the whole piece.