📚 This is an archive of Aid Thoughts, a development economics blog
that was active from 2009 to 2017. Posts are preserved in their original form.
Author: Matt Collin
416 posts
The most trolling, self-aware Nigerian e-mail scam ever
In which I rant about aid on camera for several minutes
Rule of Law, Goma edition
Land grabs in everything: couldn't you have just have bought your daughter a pony edition
Not only the state will bleed
The property ladder here and there
On the ethicical approval of RCTs
Sexist reasons for gender equity
Comments are down
On science fiction
Land deals and local political economy
On MPIs and MDGs
Some more thoughts on land grabs and tricky statistics
Land grabbing: whatever you do, don't mention the G-word.
Bad things and the GDP fallacy
How policies end: not with a bang, but a whimper
Random thoughts left lying around
Get your assumptions out in the open
Dar es Salaam and the megacity
Dar es Salaam bleg
The limits of handwaving and fancy graphs
How to avoid your social obligations: adopt a new religion
Innocent until proven likely
The African Man vs the Hollywood Stereotype
When an RCT would have been really handy
In which Malawi's government decides to ignore the constitution
Kenya, exogenous governance shocks edition
Invisible Children, department of not-so-invisible
Bono meet Russell
Never gonna give you up
Malawi's president and the art of diplomacy
The CSAE Blog
Followers of the cosmic watering can
Time inconsistency, Malawi edition
Quick thought experiment on proven impacts
Not getting better, Nigeria edition
A land registry of their own
Bride price decomposition
Is your mobile phone rape free?
Famine prediction bleg
Survey time!
Cash-on-delivery grants in Indonesia
Why aren't we betting on development initiatives?
Accountability and the Gates Foundation
The Guardian almost says the P word
Kristof influencing Tabarrok
Sentences to ponder, Madonna edition
Sad sentences
Disconcerting statement of the day
Africa and poverty traps
Snark holiday
Is aid really a moral duty?
Agricultural productivity, food consumption and Oxfam
Rape in the Congo
Ideology and results-based aid
Culling the NGOs
The contest
The external validity double standard
What lies beneath
The bane of negative results
Not getting better: stable vs unstable gains
Where did I leave my press pass?
Linda Polman, eat your heart out
The boy who cried crisis
The MVP debate happens
Negative aid
Fertiliser and the economists' only joke
Guest posts on the Malawi fertiliser subsidy
We must be doing something right
Health spending, suggestive studies and the IMF's guilt-by-association
The lost pact to end poverty porn
In which Gbagbo joins the 700 club
Give it away, give it away, give it away now
Explicit interests
Perverse incentives in fundraising
The myth of the persecuted aid blogger
Quant wars
The Geldof Redemption
Africa, the safest web region?
Return to the poverty safari
Randomized trials are so 1930s
Really useless statements
The baby and the bath water
Portraying Lagos
Be careful who you nudge
Veil of ignorance
How to sing about Africa
Do the MDGs influence national policy? Should they?
The performance you can save
What lies beneath
Geldof, cognitive dissonance and the Paris Declaration
Kristof on faith-based giving
On the wisdom of giving shoes
Questions on the edge of poverty
Op-ed of Darkness
From the files of the No. 1 Bumbling Aid Agency
Off to Dar es Salaam
The first country to embrace permanent Haitian resettlement
On Haiti
Having your carbon cake and eating it too
The art of receiving
Joined at the hip?
Transparency and climate change payouts
The Twelve Days of Christmas (Aid Edition)â„¢
Perfectly prescient economics
A quiet debate on aid
J-PAL's Christmas shopping list
Will climate change really lead to more civil war?
Do they know it's Christmas time at all?
AMC, it's easy as 1,2,3.
The missing middle
Book recommendations: Tanzania
More hardcore poverty porn, now with landmines
Internal consistency
Markets in everything: ARV edition
Democracy and climate change
Brassieres without borders
Yarrr, the comedy of the commons
Why don't we fund more health systems instead of just interventions?
What do you think should replace the MDGs?
The headless heart
Where in the world is Abu Sharati?
Should growth really be rationed?
A question for the health bloggers
Awards of the day
The dog with two bones
So fresh and so clean
Numbers are a dirty business
If they have no pencils, let them have wireless access
Lazy summer edition
Linking time
Not the P-word again
Hardcore Poverty Porn, brought to you by MSF
The week in review
Public or Private Questions
It's hard to rely on my good intentions
Elephants in the room
Handset of darkness
Dealing for Darfur
A link to the past
Is C.O.D. aid a new idea?
Where it hurts the most
Apologies
Put the pedal to the metal
The black swans of the bedroom
A link to the past
Let's keep it strictly C.O.D.
Intentionally missing the point
Bibles and lions, oh my!
Development in dangerous places?
More on the poverty safari
Fighting corruption through fashion
Bewitched
Slow start
