FREE Book on Development Economics

Or is it an NFT for the book?

Development Economics

Why are some countries poor? It seems like that is a question economists should be able to answer. Yet, when I was preparing to teach a development economics class, I didn’t feel like I had a good answer. That’s because most books I had read on development economics covered specific topics and how they contributed to poverty, without considering the big picture.

This week’s video includes my recommendation for a good book to read on the topic. The book is Under-Rewarded Efforts by Santiago Levy. The best part? The book is free online! You can get the PDF here.

Chocolatonomics

Speaking of the developing world, Ghana is making a move to improve its fortunes. Ghana is reducing/eliminating the export of raw materials destined for value-added manufacturing. Instead of sending cocoa to Switzerland to be turned into chocolate, Ghana wants to start making the chocolate itself. I haven’t looked into all of the specifics, but this seems like a solid development policy. Chocolate production doesn’t seem too hard—we have a chocolate factory in our town that just began two years ago, and they seem to be doing fine—so why not grab the more valuable part of the production process?

NFT Irony

NFTs have officially passed the hype part of the cycle and entered satire. DC comics (the lesser of the comic giants) wrote a letter to its artists saying they were not allowed to create an NFT based on DC work (i.e. Superman, Batman, Arm Fall-Off Boy). So someone turned the letter into an NFT.

I was wondering if I could make an NFT of an NFT. Then turn that into an NFT. Just embed them like Russian dolls. Call it NFTurtles, because its NFTs all the way down.