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Ideas Untrapped

By: Tobi Lawson
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  • a podcast about ideas on growth, progress, and prosperity

    www.ideasuntrapped.com
    Ideas Untrapped
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Episodes
  • The Dynamics of Growth

    The Dynamics of Growth
    Apr 27 2024
    In this podcast episode, Tobi interviews Rasheed Griffith - who is the CEO of The Caribbean Progress Institute, and host of The Rasheed Griffith Show explores the adaptability and policy implementation in smaller countries compared to larger ones, noting that smaller nations can change more swiftly due to simpler institutional structures. Rasheed contrasts this with larger countries like China and India, where changes, although rapid, are often driven by cultural homogeneity and authoritarian governance, which may not be desirable in Western democracies. The discussion also touches on the impact of leadership and institutional capacity on economic development, emphasizing that the quality of governance often outweighs the mere structure of political systems in influencing a country's developmental trajectory.You can listen to episodes of Rasheed's brilliant podcast (The Rasheed Griffith Show) here. You can also subscribe to the Carribean Progress Institute newsletter here, where you can read many interesting and important writings.TranscriptTobi; Welcome to the show, Rasheed.It's great to talk to you.I want to start with something that you mentioned in our first conversation, which has stayed with me. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since, which is that small countries are somewhat more amenable to change than big countries. You know, when we talk about ideas and policies and economic development,I just want you to expand on that a bit. I know I'm paraphrasing, but I want you to expand on that a bit.Why do you suppose that is?Rasheed;Small countries have less people to influence politically, economically, socially. So ideas can spread faster and ideas can spread deeper in small countries. So for example, if you have a country like Nigeria, you have over 200 million people, you have vast, vast institutions that are captured or incentivized in very radically complex ways.Compare that to a country like Saint Lucia that has 180,000 people. Very small institutions, very small number of schools, very small number of just social actors.For the difficulty of idea spread and idea capture, it's a lot less in a very small place, and yet these are still essentially independent sovereign UN vote countries that have as much rights in that league as Nigeria.You know, Walmart...Walmart in the US has more employees than all of Saint Lucia has population. Or even Saint Vincent, or even Trinidad, Walmart has more employees.So, when you talk about turning the ship of these small countries, it's a lot less complicated than trying to influence Nigeria or Ethiopia or the US or Canada.Tobi;I want to square that a bit with what we saw in China in the last 40 years.China is obviously a very large country and some people would say that it went through a process of rapid change, I mean, after the 1978 reforms. How did a country like China and to some extent what we are seeing in India recently, do you think that having, even if you're a big country, having a homogenous culture, language, ethnic population, does that also help speed up the process of change.China, obviously, communism being the central guiding ideology and of course, majority of the population is Han Chinese. And we're seeing Modi, you know, rally around Hinduism as the national identity of the country. So, how does homogeneity play in here? And you see some pretty screwed up small countries, you know, Haiti…What are the constraints and what are the catalysts?Rasheed;So China is obviously a good example, but China didn't just transform itself via ideas. It transformed itself via a dictatorship. And I think most people would not want that trade-off. You know you go to Shanghai, [which] I've been to many times, you go to Shanghai and you say “it's so great here, the transportation is fantastic the skyline is amazing, all this happened in 30 years” but then the problem is this; the way [and] how it's done, the effects, the results are quite spectacular but for most people in Western countries, you are not willing socially, morally, to make that trade-off even if the trains are so nice. Because you don't want to have the authoritarian system that China has. So, you know, you can describe China as communist and of course the party structure is very Leninist communist structure [but] of course how the economic stuff operates is very open in terms of price mechanisms that you typically find in other capitalist operation. But, you know, don't make no mistake, this was a very harsh trade-off that the Chinese people did not have a chance to make particularly because they had a very authoritarian, still has a very authoritarian party. And I would also say that a lot of the transformation of China that has happened it wasn't particularly directed by the party. People always use Deng Xiaoping as the start point for the opening up policy. But when you look at the proper historical literature, he really just allowed the people to do what they were starting to...
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    48 mins
  • History and the Future of Prosperity

    History and the Future of Prosperity
    Mar 20 2024
    In this episode, I had a conversation with economic historian Johan Fourie, who is a professor of economics at Stellenbosch University, and the author of one of the most enjoyable books on economic history called Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom. We spoke about the resurgence of economic history, particularly in Africa. Johan attributes this revival to multiple factors, including an interest in understanding past economic patterns, technological advancements enabling data analysis, and scholarly work drawing global attention to the field. We discuss Africa's economic development, noting the continent's reliance on primary goods and the impacts of political and economic policies on growth. Johan stresses the heterogeneity within Africa and warns against generalizing the continent's economic narrative.The discussion then delves into the role of ideas in shaping economies, with a focus on industrial policy. Johan highlights the importance of empirical evidence in policymaking and warns against the potential misuse of industrial policy for political gains. He emphasizes the need for a more inclusive research ecosystem in Africa, advocating for better representation and the promotion of economic history as a vital sub-discipline.Johan also addresses the importance of economic freedom, defining it in simple terms and discussing its implications in policy decisions. He touches on the challenges of racial history and representation in academia, emphasizing the need for diverse voices and a marketplace of ideas for better policy formulation.Finally, Johan discusses the optimism inherent in economic history, acknowledging the significant progress humanity has made while remaining cautiously hopeful about the future. He advocates for policies that ensure the equitable distribution of the benefits of increased productivity, highlighting the potential of new technologies to contribute positively to Africa's economic growth.TranscriptTobi;Welcome Johan. It's good to talk to you. I guess where I’ll start is economic history is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, I'd say. Personally, for me, I'll say in the last five years I've read more economic history books and papers than actual economics itself. So I just want to ask you, what was the turning point, at least in recent time, why does economic history seem to be having a moment or its moment right now?Johan;I think there are many answers to that question. I'll focus on African economic history because I think that's something, firstly, that I know a little bit of, and secondly, that the factors that affect African economic history might be slightly different than those that make economic history attractive to, kind of, global audience.Although I do think your sentiment is true also for for global economic history, that there's certainly been a resurgence in interest. Of course, they were previous episodes where this also happened in the 1960s there was a great interest in econometrics, but that kind of died down by the 80s and 90s. And certainly I think in the last decade or two that's made a comeback, but certainly in African economic history, also by the 60s and 70s, for different reasons, again, because of the end of the colonial period and many Africans being interested in their own economic pasts; it was, you know, certainly intended to improve the development outcomes of many of these countries. And so studying what had happened in the past became important. And then by the 80s, you know, for reasons like the shift in history towards more cultural aspects of African history and, perhaps, also, to some extent, the fact that economics became more technical, more mathematical.The fields really, economic history really, had kind of dialed down interest in Africa's past, but perhaps also to some extent, the fact that many African countries were struggling to grow. And so there was little interest in understanding of why these things had persisted. But by the 2000s, of course, African growth turned around and, you know, this is a continent [where] there were several countries that were growing quite rapidly and you had this covers of The Economist and Time magazine and all that was talking about Africa Rising, all these things, but also, I think, an interest by scholars, often scholars based outside of Africa, to understand this resurgence or what Morten Jerven called the, kind of, recurring African growth. So we know actually in the past that this had happened, that there were periods of growth. But understanding why there are these fluctuations became quite important. And then that combined with the ability to transcribe large historical data sets. Find many of these sources in African archives and then transcribe them and analyze them. So access to computing power also.So it was both from a demand side like interest in Africa's past and also the supply side, the fact that they were now tools that would help us analyze what had ...
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    57 mins
  • The Promise and Challenges of Charter Cities

    The Promise and Challenges of Charter Cities
    Mar 13 2024
    In this episode, I had a conversation with Kurtis Lockhart who is the executive director of Charter City Institute - a non-profit that thinks and executes governance models for cities to power developing economies into growth and productivity. Our conversation started with an update on the concept of Charter Cities and how they differ from traditional models like Special Economic Zones (SEZs), particularly in the context of economic development. Kurtis describes Charter Cities as new cities with distinct governance models designed to drive sustained economic growth and alleviate poverty, primarily in lower-middle-income countries. This approach is seen as an alternative to the model first prescribed by the economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Romer, which involved a high-income country importing its governance to a low-income nation. Kurtis emphasizes a public-private partnership (PPP) model, where a host country collaborates with an urban developer, ensuring local involvement and sustainable development.The conversation addresses concerns about Charter Cities being enclaves for the wealthy, clarifying that the Charter City Institute (CCI) focuses on broad-based economic growth and poverty alleviation. Kurtis highlights the importance of political buy-in and stability, acknowledging the challenges of expropriation and policy consistency across different political regimes. He suggests mitigation strategies like revenue-sharing agreements, equity stakes for host countries in city developers, and political risk insurance.Discussing the geographical constraints, Kurtis acknowledges that location and economic geography play a crucial role in the success of Charter Cities. However, he argues that geographical advantages can evolve with changing technologies and transportation networks, as seen in historical examples like the Erie Canal.Addressing concerns about existing urban challenges and inequalities, Kurtis talked about CCI's involvement in upgrading existing cities and supporting secondary cities, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where most urban growth is anticipated. He shares plans to collaborate with Kenya's State Department for Housing and Urban Development to empower select secondary cities through the Special Development Zone initiative, leveraging their success as models for other cities.TranscriptTobi;Welcome to Ideas Untrapped. It's fantastic to talk to you, Kurtis. I've been wanting to do this for a long time.Kurtis;Yeah. Thanks, Tobi. I know we've been trying to do this for a while. It's good to finally be on with you. Tobi;So let's start from the absolute basics. I'm trying not to get carried away because Charter Cities are something that sort of excites me as well. I should also say it annoys me, possibly in equal measure. So I'll try not to get carried away, but if you can just give me an elevator pitch, so to speak, but you can go as long as you want. What are charter cities and how are they relevant to issues surrounding economic development, particularly in the 21st century?Kurtis;Yeah, so thanks again. And I'll start at the highest level I can, and then you can ask more specific questions as we go on. So at the very basic level, the definition of charter cities is new cities with new rules to improve governance. And so why do we think that that's really important? Zooming out, the best way to lift people out of poverty at scale is through sustained economic growth over one, two, three, four- decades. That's what happened in East Asia, in Japan, in Taiwan and South Korea. It's what happened in China, and I think it's what's happening in India now. You then have to ask yourself, how do we increase economic growth rates over sustained periods of time? Economists are pretty agreed that the single greatest determinant of long-run economic growth rates is governance, right? It's institutions. And the problem with governance and institutions and getting good governance is many countries, especially across the global south, lower-middle income countries are, you could say, stuck in poor governance traps.So the question becomes, okay, how do we reform and change this governance institutional structure to improve governance? It's really hard to do that, it turns out, at the national level. And so we see charter cities as a mechanism - a localised mechanism - in a concentrated geographic area where there are no incumbent or entrenched special interests in that localized area. You can get a lot deeper governance reforms at this local level and that gets people rich within that jurisdiction, within that concentrated space, number one, as well as number two, it's able to serve as a demonstration effect to the broader host country that then hopefully sees that demonstration effect and scales up those governance improving policies across the whole country. And this is what you saw in China when Deng Xiaoping instituted the opening up and reform in 1979-1980, with four Special Economic ...
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    51 mins
Philosophy Social Sciences Science
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