Paddy Carter

anzana.comGovernment of Burundi and Anzana’s Weza Power Sign a U.S. $1.4 Billion Public-Private Partnership to Accelerate National Electrification — Anzana Electric GroupThe Government of Burundi and Weza Power, an Anzana Electric Group company, signed a public-private partnership (PPP) that will mobilize US$1.4 billion to accelerate electrification in Burundi. The 25...

imo this is one of the most ambitious things UK development cooperation has ever done - expanding electricity access to over half of Burundi. There are many orgs involved now but it all started with @britishintinv.bsky.social creation of a T&D platform Gridworks www.anzana.com/news-updates...

Paddy Carter reposted

Stefan Dercon

@gamblingondev.bsky.social

I rather enjoyed writing this paper. "A development bargain=elite bargain characterised by an elite commitment to pursue development. Aid works best where it exists, yet is needed most where absent. This paper maps what outsiders can do in such places." tinyurl.com/4rm472dw

tinyurl.comUNU-WIDER : Working Paper : When development bargains are absentA development bargain is an elite bargain in which those with power and influence share a commitment to pursue growth and development. Aid works best where a development bargain exists, yet it is need...

some people like to harp on about how govt should be run like a business. If a business experienced more demand than it could supply, what what it do?

Ian Martin@ianmartin.bsky.social

All day in A&E yesterday. This is just the obligatory post praising the dedicated and madly cheerful heroes who work there. I know people say you can't just chuck money at a problem but I dunno man when I left, the queue just to get past reception was out the door in the dark. Doubling the size of

I hope you're all watching The Reluctant Vampire on the Beeb

cis.orgTrump Rekindles Biden-era Relationship with Refugee NGOThe Trump administration has awarded the New York-based non-profit International Rescue Committee (IRC) – a vocal critic of the administration – a $20 million contract to provide virtual professional ...

a questionable decision by the International Rescue Committee to help Trump give absurd sums to Afrikaans "refugees" cis.org/Rush/Trump-R...

absurd in comparison to the sums usually given to refugees

er ...

sciencedaily.comGoodbye joint replacements? Stanford scientists found a way to regrow cartilage and stop arthritisScientists have found a surprising way to regrow damaged knee cartilage by blocking a protein that becomes more abundant with age. In old mice, the treatment restored naturally lost cartilage and also...

Judging by my hip pain progression I want this available on the NHS within 5 years please www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

cowles.yale.educowles.yale.edu

here is ungated version of paper in new AER about what happens when wealth taxes cause rich people to leave the country. The economic impact looks small and if I am reading correctly, if tax cut ought to raise £1, you lose 24p because of behaviour response - in aggregate. But ...

but there are large effects on the taxes paid by those wealthy individuals and the firms they own. Their firms shrink or are acquired by other domestic firms.

This is interesting. I suppose one might still believe that multinationals are ripping off poor countries because they ought to be paying even more tax. Zucman is hardly a shill for big business. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

masaofukui.github.iomasaofukui.github.io

pick of this week's NBER WPs. The commoditization of labour: masaofukui.github.io/Commoditizat... Atlantic current collapse could be good for North Africa/Southern Europe bfi.uchicago.edu/working-pape... As of 2026, humanity is below replacement fertility. www.nber.org/papers/w35809

courses.wbginstitute.orgGovernment Analytics: Fall 2026The course explores how government analytics can leverage government-wide microdata to evaluate every team in every public organization, thus addressing information gaps on public sector performance a...

I wonder if UK HMG sends people on the World Bank's courses about how to use administrative data to improve public service delivery courses.wbginstitute.org/course/gover...

isw.changeworknow.co.ukDirector and Head of DistributionAbout BII British International Investment (BII) is the UK’s leading development finance institution, wholly owned by the UK Government. Our primary mission is to address global development challenges...

if you have experience in loan syndication / distribution and fancy working on something a little different - emerging and frontier market assets - we are hiring for a senior position: isw.changeworknow.co.uk/bii/vms/e/ca...

share.googleAI machine 'helps save 25 million Lego bricks from landfill'The automated technology can sort up to 100,000 pieces a day at a Lancashire mill.

18 Sept

Ok this justifies the gazillions $ spent on AI I'm a convert

Paddy Carter reposted

Bartapest

@bartapest.bsky.social

17 Sept

China’s new 134km Pinglu Canal creates a direct river-to-sea gateway to #ASEAN, cutting shipping routes by 560km and logistics costs up to 30% - a game-changer connecting Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Chongqing to booming regional #trade: www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/... #China #Vietnam

aljazeera.comWhat’s the Pinglu Canal, China’s new gateway to Southeast Asia?China's first modern river-to-sea canal could significantly cut down time and costs of trade to Southeast Asia.

Paddy Carter reposted

Kevin Carey

@kevincareywb.bsky.social

16 Sept

Michael Kremer to be World Bank Group Chief Economist (effective October 1). www.worldbank.org/en/news/pres...

worldbank.orgMichael Kremer Appointed as World Bank Group Chief EconomistWBG President Ajay Banga announced that Nobel laureate Michael Kremer has been appointed as World Bank Group Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, bringing one of the wo...

In my job we must try to establish impact versus a counterfactual andd our number one rule is never use the word counterfactual in front of anyone who isn't an economist. The replies to this show why

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

HIMES: You spent $10b to try to lower the yield on the 10 year bond. When you started, it was 4.8%. Today it's at a 20 year high of 5.04%. A 20 basis point rise. Was your intervention successful? BESSENT: Yes H: Wait- it went up by 20 points! B: There's a counterfactual of what would it have done

For some reason the wor always triggers a reaction about ridiculous imaginary scenarios. Whereas if you just say the same thing in different words - such as why are we needed and what different are we making - people can answer without wigging out

You ask a banker about the counterfactual they think you're asking them to describe possible alternative universes.

Why, when you've a lot going on, doesn't evolution program you to sleep like a log so you're at your best. How are sleepless nights a survival trait? Darwin, crock of shit.

Top evolution fails: childbirth killing mothers; continuing to be a dick when you've told yourself to stop being a dick

iwmi.orgExplainer: Alternate Wetting and Drying irrigation techniqueA water-saving approach for sustainable rice production.

11 Sept

today I found out rice farming produces about the same GHG has global aviation (methane) and there is reasonably straight forward solution www.iwmi.org/news/explain...

11 Sept

(this was from talking to a BII investee who has built a business around helping farmers make that shift)

8 Sept

1. how did that happen? 2. what an opportunity

7 Sept

Daron "Che" Acemoglu is at it again 👊

pluralistic.netPluralistic: Amazon achieves enshittification inception (04 Sep 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

6 Sept

an argument here that Amazon's market power and its practice of auctioning the top slots in search results combined with a rule that vendors must not sell for less elsewhere is forcing up prices everywhere.

Steve Randy Waldman@interfluidity.com

“the money Amazon makes from payola exceeds the advertising revenue received by all the newspapers in the world by 300%.” @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy pluralistic.net/2026/09/04/c...

ow.lyThe demographic wave making job creation more urgent than everThe global population is ageing, but developing countries are set to see a record number of young people reach working age over the next decade, with strong working-age population growth projected to continue well beyond that. Amid slowing global growth, generating sufficient jobs for growing working-age populations is a major challenge that will shape development outcomes for decades to come. A new World Bank Group report outlines this global jobs challenge and argues that tackling it must be a critical policy priority.

3 Sept

does anyone know of good empirical work that shows population growth results in worse employment outcomes? (there is an argument that because people create demand for firms, more people creates more jobs and population growth itself does not explain why some countries have fewer good jobs)

VoxDev@voxdev.bsky.social

🆕 The demographic wave making job creation more urgent than ever Today on VoxDev, Tommy Chrimes (World Bank Group), Sadhna Naik & Kersten Stamm discuss the global jobs challenge: https://ow.ly/gOaN50ZIygj

Paddy Carter reposted

Josh Eyler

@josheyler.bsky.social

27 Aug

Major kudos to MIT, who just put out a report about AI on their campus that lucidly explains the threat posed by AI to cognition and the student experience, while at the same time prioritizes learning, students, and the value of education. 1/x aiandeducation.mit.edu/report/

aiandeducation.mit.eduReport – AI and Education

worldbank.orgWDR 2026: The Promise of Artificial IntelligenceThe World Development Report 2026 explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping development as a general‑purpose technology.

has anyone managed to download the 2026 WDR (and might be able to send it to me if so)? www.worldbank.org/en/publicati...

thealaskastory.comCalifornia company says cloud-seeding drones produced 19 million gallons of precipitation over Kenai Peninsula - Alaska StoryA weather-technology company says seven cloud-seeding missions were flown over the Kenai Peninsula last weekend.

can we try this over London? thealaskastory.com/california-c...

something here that seems relevant to UK policy debates (i.e. either raise taxes or accept a state that does less). Evidence of the UK Laffer curve with some nuance: "larger increases in marginal relative to average tax rates are associated with a stronger contraction in tax revenues."

academic.oup.comThe impact of income tax changes on tax revenueAbstract. This article shows that tax revenue responses to changes in tax rates crucially depend on how the changes affect the marginal tax rate relative t

here is the paper: academic.oup.com/oep/article/...

newcivilengineer.comWhat is standing in the way of desalination plant investment?Water companies have included desalination in their long-term plans to avoid supply issues, but will they make that investment?

21 Aug

I've been wondering why Beckton desalination plant hasn't been working and it sounds like we have laws saying membranes must be certified but not the labs to test them for certification. www.newcivilengineer.com/in-depth/wha...

21 Aug

I imagine these membranes are being used by many other countries is it really beyond our wit to use their experiences to give the OK?

17 Aug

Maybe I could induce a private equity fund to finance a chain of kiosks just selling this stuff. God it's good.

onlinelibrary.wiley.comAfrican Economic Growth RevisitedThis paper presents an updated analysis of the patterns of economic development in Africa over the last 60 years. The analysis stresses the heterogeneity of development trajectories among sub-Saharan...

16 Aug

my econometrics has atrophied, but I remember that regressing Y/P on P is not sensible. I am not sure the authors are making that mistake here, but here is a result that population growth has tended to depress economic growth in Africa: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

ft.comDoes Africa have too few people?What some see as an alarming population explosion could be just what the continent needs

16 Aug

this is a topical question - David Pilling recently wrote up the Joe Studwell idea that population density is good for growth and Africa has not had enough people www.ft.com/content/6069...

Paddy Carter reposted

VoxDev

@voxdev.bsky.social

14 Aug

Is microfinance still a useful tool for eradicating poverty? In this week's episode of Economics Unpacked, @muhammadmeki.bsky.social and @simonrquinn.bsky.social explain why we need to think more carefully about the design of microfinance.

VoxDev@voxdev.bsky.social

🆕 Microfinance: Where do we stand 20 years on from the Nobel Peace Prize? 📢 Today on Economics Unpacked w/ @simonrquinn.bsky.social (@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social) & @muhammadmeki.bsky.social (@odid-qeh.bsky.social): www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISq2...

youtube.comMicrofinance: Where do we stand 20 years on from the Nobel Peace Prize?YouTube video by VoxDev

our petition is more representative of people's views than your, er, survey of people's views www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

View full thread

my "abundance" style pipe dream is that we should be investing so much in water (desalination, re-use, storage) that during droughts we are told to get out there and water the parks and gardens and we have drones watering healths etc.

I think we should irrigate the planet on a scale that's going to have environmental campaigners worrying about our precious deserts

our petition is more representative of people's views than your, er, survey of people's views www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

it's a minor miracle that it has not rained in nigh on two months and we still have water coming out of the taps.

mobilistglobal.comMOBILIST provides seed funding to launch a new L&G African Government Bond ETF - MobilistMOBILIST has supported the launch of a new Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) designed to broaden institutional investment in African sovereign debt markets. Developed with Legal & General Asset Management (L...

if you think African governments pay more to borrow than they ought, given the risks, there is now an ETF you can buy to trade that belief, which was seed funded by UK government: www.mobilistglobal.com/news-views-e...

Paddy Carter reposted

Alex Coad

@coad.bsky.social

30 July

📢📢"Positioning firms along the capabilities ladder" New paper in ICC [Open Access] with Nanditha Mathew and Emanuele Pugliese Paper: doi.org/10.1093/icc/... Youtube video [16m07]: youtu.be/Ls0uZb9fVN0 #EconSky

30 July

This - a battery drive train that inserts between a lorry cab and its trailer and can electrify existing lorries - seems like a cool idea. Business model rests on building a network of swapping stations and having them used often enough, sadly, which is v hard to pull off