Results for “lagos”
51 found

The politics of order in informal markets: Evidence from Lagos

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is the title of a new paper by Shelby Grossman, here is the abstract:

Property rights are important for economic exchange, but in much of the world they are not publicly guaranteed. Private market associations can fill this gap by providing an institutional structure to enforce agreements, but with this power comes the ability to extort from group members. Under what circumstances do private associations provide a stable environment for economic activity? Using survey data collected from 1,179 randomly sampled traders across 199 markets in Lagos, I find that markets maintain institutions to support trade not in the absence of government, but rather in response to active government interference. I argue that associations develop pro-trade institutions when threatened by politicians they perceive to be predatory, and when the organization can respond with threats of its own; the latter is easier when traders are not competing with each other. In order to maintain this balance of power, the association will not extort because it needs trader support to maintain the credibility of its threats to mobilize against predatory politicians.

Via Henry Farrell, that abstract reminds me of my earlier essay, and critique of libertarian anarchy, “Law as a Public Good,” shorter version of the argument here.

Where to eat in Lagos, Nigeria

by  Tyler Cowen in

Much of the food is good but not excellent.  For the very best, I recommend two places in particular:

The Yellow Chilli: All the dishes seem to be quite good, but arguably the jollof rice and the seafood okra are standouts.  Simply coming here for each meal probably beats doing a lot of search that will fail to find equal quality.

Sappor Cuisine: That’s if you are looking for street food and eating on the run.  It’s set in Freedom Park (worth visiting in any case), just get the weird Nigerian dishes you’ve never heard of before, plus some fish.  I’ve had four dishes there, and with not the slightest rumble in my stomach, in case you were wondering.  You might not think that steamed yam powder can be transcendently good, but it is.  At night there are worthwhile concerts in the park, so you can eat from here while you sit and listen.  The best suya I had was on the beach.

Sunday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Will Sweden move away from school vouchers?

2. Lagos harbor and various water and real estate projects.

3. How Manuel Blum became such a successful academic advisor.

4. Chinese confrontations with Filipino ships.

5. U.S. approves chikungunya vaccine.  As I’ve been telling you, it is all going to work.

6. Claims about fake license plates.

7. Carlos E. Perez is doing generative books.

8. Some new AI rules for actors’ contracts.

How might AI impact developing economies?

by  Tyler Cowen

Cheap, tailored expertise

Many of the poor have little access to experts, on topics ranging from physical and mental health, agriculture, and entrepreneurship. Hiring experts can be transformative: Bloom et al (2013) found that management consultants substantially improved production at textile factories in India. Many envisioned that the internet would level access to expertise, allowing entrepreneurs in Delhi and farmers in Western Kenya equal access to the world’s best knowledge. But, as anyone who owns a dusty textbook knows, raw information is not enough to lead to action. Most of the world’s knowledge is not written for the world’s poor. Much is written in English, some uses technical jargon, and has metaphors and references that make sense to people in Los Angeles but not in Lagos. AI can unlock the insight in this information for broader audiences. The newest generation of AI chatbots can not only translate between languages, but also change reading levels, remove jargon, and rewrite knowledge to use local customs and metaphors. These chatbots also allow you to have a conversation about the topic, allowing you to ask for clarification for specific parts, or specify that your needs differ from what the system had assumed. While these systems sometimes make mistakes, their quality, and ability to translate is improving quickly. And they allow almost zero cost access to the tailored expertise that would otherwise require hiring experts that would be prohibitively costly for the poor. This tailored expertise might improve business processes across developing economies for motivated people. Some startups are already developing targeted advisors for specific tasks, like choosing between schools (ConsiliumBots). Similar advisors could also help deliver medical advice to rural populations.

Here is more from Daniel Bjorkegren, an economist at Brown University.  Here is his paper on nostalgic demand.

Africa’s Megalopolis

by  Alex Tabarrok in

An interesting piece in The Guardian by Howard French on Africa’s megalopolis and the difficulties of pulling together five countries with very different governments and colonial histories:

There is one place above all that should be seen as the centre of this urban transformation. It is a stretch of coastal west Africa that begins in the west with Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast, and extends 600 miles east – passing through the countries of Ghana, Togo and Benin – before finally arriving at Lagos. Recently, this has come to be seen by many experts as the world’s most rapidly urbanising region, a “megalopolis” in the making – that is, a large and densely clustered group of metropolitan centres.

…In just over a decade from now, its major cities will contain 40 million people. Abidjan, with 8.3 million people, will be almost as large as New York City is today. The story of the region’s small cities is equally dramatic. They are either becoming major urban centres in their own right, or – as with places like Oyo in Nigeria, Takoradi in Ghana, and Bingerville in Ivory Coast – they are gradually being absorbed by bigger cities. Meanwhile, newborn cities are popping into existence in settings that were all but barren a generation ago. When one includes these sorts of places, the projected population for this coastal zone will reach 51 million people by 2035, roughly as many people as the north-eastern corridor of the US counted when it first came to be considered a megalopolis.

But unlike that American super-region, whose population long ago plateaued, this part of west Africa will keep growing. By 2100, the Lagos-Abidjan stretch is projected to be the largest zone of continuous, dense habitation on earth, with something in the order of half a billion people.

That was then, this is now; science and chaos edition

by  Tyler Cowen in

A blast from the past, circa 1688 and thereabouts:

Even as the House of Lords was starting to consider what to do after the departure of James, many sprang to settle old scores and reopen old issues.  Legal toleration made the Church of England more defensive and less tolerant of sceptical or heterodox opinions.  The Nine Years War from 1688, in which England at first suffered severe reverses at sea, strained the economy and finances of the country almost to breaking.  The great silver recoinage of the late 1690s aggravated the problems; Halley was then deputy controller of the country Mint in Chester.  He may have suffered from the great disaster of 1693, the loss of many ships of a Levant Company fleet off Lagos.  The war lasted for much of the time that Halley was Clerk, and it undoubtedly delayed his project to observe the magnetic variation in the Atlantic.  It was an anxious decade, a dangerous decade for anyone holding responsible office; in it [Edmond] Halley had some of his most original and influential ideas.

That is from Alan Cook’s Edmond Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas.  Halley was a contemporary of Newton, Wren, Pepys, Hooke, Purcell, Locke, and Dryden, among others.

Places to go in 2020

by  Tyler Cowen in

Here is the mostly dull NYT list.  Here is my personal list of recommendations for you, noting I have not been to all of the below, but I am in contact with many travelers and paw through a good deal of information:

1. Pakistan, and Pakistani Kashmir.  Finally it is safe, and in some way it is easier to negotiate than India.  The best dairy products I have eaten in my life, and probably it is the most populous country you have not yet seen, or maybe Nigeria, but that makes the list too.  Islamabad is nicer than any city in India, and watch the painter trucks on the nearby highway.

2. Eastern Bali.  Still mostly unspoilt, the perfect mix of exoticism and comfort.  This island is much, much more than Elizabeth Gilbert, yoga, and hippie candles.

3. Lalibela, Ethiopia.  Has some of my favorite churches, beautiful vistas and super-peaceful, and the high altitude of Lalibela and Addis means you don’t have to take anti-malarials.  I know a good guide there, here are my Lalibela posts.  the central bank forecasts 10.8% growth for the country for next year, so Lalibela is likely to change rapidly.

4. Lagos, Nigeria.  A bit dangerous, but immense fun, wonderful music every night, and not nearly as bad as you might be thinking.  Africa’s most dynamic city by far and a new modern civilization in the works.  Here are my earlier Lagos posts, including travel tips.

5. Odisha [Orissa], India.  Sometimes called India’s most underrated cuisine, that is enough reason to go and so now it is on my list for myself.

6. Sumatra, Indonesia.  Surely a good place to understand the evolution of Islam, and supposedly to be Indonesia’s best food.  I hope to get there soon.  First-rate textiles and lake views, I hear.

7. Warsaw, Poland.  No, not a fascist country (though objectionable in some regards), and rapidly becoming the center of opportunity for eastern Europe and a major player in the European Union.  First-rate food and dishes you won’t get elsewhere, at least nothing close to comparable quality.  Nice for walking, don’t expect too many intact old buildings, but isn’t it thrilling to see a major part of Europe growing at four percent?

8. Baku, Azerbaijan.  The world’s best seaside promenade, and wonderful textiles and food, in the Iranian direction, here are my travel notes.  Feels exotic, yet safe and orderly as well.

9. Macedonia, or anywhere off the beaten track in the former Yugoslavia.  Then think about the history and politics of where you are at, and then think about it some more.

10. Quito, Ecuador.  One of the world’s loveliest cities, including the church, wonderful potatoes and corn for vegetarians too.  There are some iPhone snatchers, but overall safe to visit.  Very good day trips as well, including to the “Indian market” at Otavalo and volcano Cotopaxi.

My trip to Karachi

by  Tyler Cowen in

Most recently, the city has been beset by a plague of flies — a “bullying force,” says the New York Times, “sparing no one.” The swarm of flies, which I was fortunate enough to miss, was the result of monsoon season, malfunctioning drainage systems clogged with solid waste, and slaughtered animals from the Muslim celebration of Eid. (The same monsoon season, by the way, led to power blackouts of up to 60 hours.) On a livability index, Karachi ranks near the bottom, just ahead of Damascus, Lagos, Dhaka and Tripoli.

There is no subway, and a typical street scene blends cars, auto-rickshaws, motorbikes and the occasional donkey pulling a cart. It’s fun for the visitor, but I wouldn’t call transportation easy.

And yet to see only those negatives is to miss the point. Markets speak more loudly than anecdotes, and the population of Karachi continues to rise — a mark of the city’s success. This market test is more important than the aesthetic test, and Karachi unambiguously passes it.

And:

Most of all, I am impressed by the tenacity of Pakistan. Before going there, I was very familiar with the cliched claim that Pakistan is a fragile tinderbox, barely a proper country, liable to fall apart any moment and collapse into civil war. Neither my visit nor my more focused reading has provided any support for that view, and perhaps it is time to retire it. Pakistan’s national identity may be strongly contested but it is pretty secure, backed by the growing use of Urdu as a national language — and cricket to boot. It has come through the Afghan wars battered but intact.

That is all from my longer than usual Bloomberg column, all about Karachi.

My Conversation with Kwame Anthony Appiah

by  Tyler Cowen in

Here is the audio and transcript.  We covered Ghana, Africa more generally, cosmopolitanism and the resurgence of nationalism, philosophy and Karl Popper, Lee Kuan Yew, the repatriation of cultural objects, Paul Simon, the smarts of Jodie Foster, sheep farming in New Jersey, and the value of giving personal advice.

Here is one excerpt:

COWEN: Take Pan-Africanism. Do you think, in the broader course of history, this will go down as merely a 20th-century idea? Or is Pan-Africanism alive and well today?

APPIAH: Pan-Africanism involves two different big strands. One is the diasporic strand. The word Pan-Africanism and the Pan-African Congresses were invented in the diaspora by people like Sylvester Williams in Jamaica and W. E. B. Du Bois from the United States and Padmore.

That idea of a diasporic African identity seems pretty lively in the world today, though it doesn’t produce much actual politics or policy, but the sense of solidarity of people of African descent, of the African diaspora seems pretty strong to me.

COWEN: But strongest outside of Africa in a way, right?

APPIAH: Yes, where it began. In Africa, I think, on the one hand, that most contemporary sub-Saharan Africans do have a sense of themselves as belonging to a kind of Black African world. But if you ask them to do something practical about it, like take down borders or do more political integration, I don’t know that that is going to go anywhere anytime soon, which I regret because I think, for lots of reasons, it would be . . .

My sister and her husband live in Lagos. If they want to go to Accra by road, they have to cross the border between Nigeria and Benin, the border between Benin and Togo, the border between Togo and Ghana. And at each of those borders, they probably have to interact with people who are going to try and extract an illegal tax on them.

COWEN: Easier to fly to London, right?

APPIAH: Much easier to fly to London and back to Accra. That’s crazy. And we’ve had these weird things. On the one hand, there’s probably a million Ghanaians in Nigeria, living Ghanaian citizens.

And:

COWEN: Is cosmopolitanism not only compatible with nationalism, but in a way quite parasitic upon it? And in a sense, the parasite is being ejected a bit? Think back to your boyhood in Kumasi. You have all these different groups, and you’re trading with them. You see them every day, and that works great, but there’s some central coherence to Ghana underlying that.

You go to Lebanon today — that central coherence seems to have been gone for some time. You could call Lebanon a cosmopolitan place, but it’s not really an advertisement for Lebanon the way it’s worked out. Are we just moving to a new equilibrium, where the parasitism of cosmopolitanism is now being recognized for what it really is?

APPIAH: I don’t like the metaphor of the parasite.

[laughter]

APPIAH: But yes, I do want to insist that cosmopolitanism . . . Look, cosmopolitanism, as I said, does not only require, or the right kind of cosmopolitan requires a kind of rootedness, but its point, precisely, is that we are celebrating connections among different places, each of which is rooted in its own something, each of which has its distinctive virtues and interest, each of which has its own history. And we’re making connections with people for whom that place is their first place, just as I am in a place which is my first place.

So yes, cosmopolitanism requires, I think, a national sense of solidarities that are not global. That’s why, as I say, you can be a cosmopolitan patriot. Now, if the nationalist says, “Okay, but why do we need anything beyond national citizenship?” The answer is, we have a world to manage. The economy works better if we integrate.

There is much, much more at the link, self-recommending…

I don’t find all global cities increasingly the same

by  Tyler Cowen in

Here is my Bloomberg column on that question, recently raised by Megan McArdle, here is one excerpt from my take:

Maybe it is only the “major” cities that are becoming more alike. If so, what is “major” supposed to mean? Among the more populous cities I have visited are Lagos, Tokyo, Mexico City, Delhi, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Cairo. I can find very real similarities among their gyms, coffee shops, hotels and smart phones used by the locals. Still, it is hard to argue they are converging on some common set of experiences or cultural memes. Those cities show different movies (for the most part), play different kinds of music in public spaces, serve different dominant cuisines, exhibit different modes of personal dress, and of course speak different languages.

And:

Even central London and central Manhattan have fundamental differences, and that is without bringing Harlem or East Harlem into it. I almost always feel pleasant and relaxed walking around London. In central Manhattan, I often feel a bit stressed. I go to Manhattan to hear jazz, to visit contemporary art galleries, to soak up the energy of the streets. When I am in London (less frequently), I visit well-stocked bookshops, eat Indian food, and absorb a very different vision of government and politics.

To be blunt, if the two cities are so similar, why do I much prefer spending time in London?

…More than ever before, London and New York offer more good ways of having different experiences.

There is much more at the link, hearkening back to my earlier book Creative Destruction: How Globalization is Changing the World’s Cultures.

Friday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Lagos.

2. “[Low] Rainfall predicts assassinations of Ancient Roman emperors, from 27 BC to 476 AD.”

3. Photographer of death: “It is not known whether Hooper ever aided his subjects.”  Warning: those images are tough viewing.

4. Ex post penalty levied on InTrade.

5. Markets in everything? (speculative)

6. John Cochrane review on banking and finance.

7. Yugoslavian concrete brutalism show at MOMA (NYT).