Weekend links: W. Arthur Lewis remembered, Worm Wars redux, don’t worry be happy, and more…

London School of Economics has a great podcast involving Stuart Corbridge, Paul Collier and Dani Rodrik. The podcast is of a panel held to commemorate the life of W. Arthur Lewis, and in addition to Collier and Rodrik being fascinating on development economics, Stuart Corbridge (the host) offers a good summary of Lewis’s life, including some sobering description of the racism Lewis faced in his early academic career.

While the ‘Worm Wars’ are clearly very July by now, it’s not too late to catch up on them: Michael Clemens and Justin Sandefur have a great summary of what the debate was about.

Does aid undermine local-level political accountability? Not withstanding concerns about external validity, a recent RCT (gated, ungated) suggests not.

Last week we linked to The Economist‘s take on low-fee private schooling; here’s an expert offering a competing view.

Poor cities are cheap places to live, right? Wrong. Or at least wrong if, like Luanda, you’re the capital city of a country in the grip of the resource curse.

File under intriguing (not to mention handy if you’re looking for some peace and quiet): while the globe’s population as a whole is increasing rapidly, at least 11 countries are getting (or are expected to get) less populous.

And similarly, while it’s easy to get caught up in all the negative news out there (though the folks at the Solutions Journalism Network are valiantly trying to do something about that), here are 26 indications that things are getting better.

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Terence Wood

Terence Wood is a research fellow at the Development Policy Centre. His research focuses on political governance in Western Melanesia, and Australian and New Zealand aid.

Camilla Burkot

Camilla Burkot was a Research Officer at the Development Policy Centre, and Editor of the Devpolicy Blog, from 2015 to 2017. She has a background in social anthropology and holds a Master of Public Health from Columbia University, and has field experience in Eastern and Southern Africa, and PNG. She now works for the Burnet Institute.

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