Postmortem on Sachs Episode

I guess what shocked me was how different this episode was from most all others. Other guests with markedly different viewpoints have been on before and it never got vitriolic. It seems to me that if the last question could have been asked earlier – “Will there be an independent assessment?” we might have been spared some of the heat.

However, I don’t believe this is just a measurement issue. Regardless of long term sustainability/scaling up, I think Sachs would say it’s worth it ($60 per capita) to provide even a few years enjoyment of a dream. Part of his point (although not stated quite this way) was that for the majority of those in these situations, they had exactly zero dreams/prospects. Even the possibility of a path out would be worth something. The counter-factual for these folks probably wouldn’t be pretty. Sachs did make the statement that the surrounding countryside isn’t a control group. We’re dealing with large groups of disparate people living in tough conditions. Isolating variables is going to be problematic.

Nina Munk made a great case, and confirmed some of my own biases. My opinion of MVP was solidified. But, Sachs gave a very heartfelt, powerful, compelling rebuttal. Perhaps he is correct, and Munk’s observations were dated or superficial. Perhaps she is correct, and Sachs needs to zoom out a bit to see the overall failure. I must say, though, that I was a bit skeptical of Munk’s conclusions, as even dropping money out of helicopters would show SOME measurable benefit. And, the saving of lives via malaria programs is a clear benefit.

I look forward to the Russ-moderated debate of 2016, where we can hopefully come to a real conclusion. The facts are muddy today.

As a side note, I wanted to make a comment on the $60 per capita. While that seems a small amount to us westerners, it is the equivalent of many months’ per capita income in the poorest of African countries. When, or if, the African governments pick up this spending in 2016, it is not an inexpensive campaign. It is the equivalent of the US dropping $20-30k per capita on its citizens. Oh, wait… Never mind. We already do that.

Russ,

In sum, I thought Sachs much bark but little bite. He was obdurate but not convincing. In fact, the surer he was the less sure I felt from his remarks. Sustainability is still a question mark. One area ignored was the politics of poverty. All of these people live in countries with political factions, etc. A most appropriate consideration is in today’s — March 22nd — WSJ “Notable & Quotable.” Angus Deaton describes the “aid illusion” as a barrier to better policies. He describes the simplistic beliefs of what is keeping people poor. He quotes Peter Bauer: “if the conditions for development are present except for money, money will soon be available, but if the conditions for development are not present, aid will be unproductive and ineffective.” Sachs would argue that his project is not just money but teaching new ways to be productive. I think, however, the same prerequisite for changing conditions applies to poor countries. The people have to have the means to sustain both the idea and the work or what they receive is only a gift with a short life. Sachs — and you — made few references to what the political leaders were doing to change agricultural practices. Sure, they were cooperative — they were receiving free goods. But what happens when the free goods end?

[Comment removed for rudeness. –Econlib Ed.]

Long time listener of Econtalk, and admirer of Russ’s interview style. I thought Russ did a good job with a somewhat testy Professor Sachs, and even tried valiantly to inject a touch of humour (“transcripts are a wonderful thing, aren’t they?”) If Sachs had have taken the gambit, it might have made for a different textured interview, but I guess he was already a bit upset about the smashing dreams thing. And I guess he had half a point here.

My guess is that, even come 2016, the evidence will be sufficiently ambiguous for both sides to claim victory. I don’t have a dog in the race – knowing next to nothing about Africa, and reasonably content with that ignorance – but interested in it as a specific instance of Hayek’s point on planning etc.

I also agree it would have been good to hear what Professor Sachs has learnt, or even “Which of the criticisms of the MVP do you believe have the most cogency?” Sach seemed too intent on defence, annd I think he missed an opportunity to disarm some of his critics with a more measured approach (although I acknowledge and appreciate his passion for development). Great stuff from Econtalk!

What a pleasure it was listening to both the Munk and Sachs episodes, they were a real treat…I mean I actually laughed out loud on the subway. Partly, because I am a grad. student at Columbia and Jeffrey is well known and liked on campus despite the huge variety of opinions on his work.

I have one thought that has stuck with me since listening to the Sachs episode: Russ, you need to go to Africa and observe these MVP camps for yourself. I kept thinking Sachs was going to ask you to be one of the independent analyst, even if its just a qualitative analysis it would be fascinating to hear your honest critique. Please go and report back to us, we (your listeners) would love to hear how this plays out. Many of your listeners, like myself are biased and we “know” that programs like the Community Reinvest Act do not pull neighborhoods out of poverty. So, the fact that Jeffrey Sachs thinks he has discovered the formula to alleviated poverty is…well frankly a bit crazy. But I do understand his logic, what he is attempting to do is scale-up what Geoffrey Canada has done with the Harlem Children’s Zone and as someone who currently lives in the Harlem area I can tell you it has become quite nice. How much of this should be attributed to Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone is a separate issue. Nonetheless, I find Sachs view to be terribly myopic and self-serving but would love to be proven wrong.

Whatever you do, Russ, don’t think you must apologize for being an economist who thinks there ought to be some empiricism inherent in the process. The Sachs interview hinged fundamentally on what the proper way to tell the story ought to be.

We can’t escape narrative in Economics. That is a given. But the style of the story and the shaping of the myth are not the central themes of Economics. We must watch for sources of value to which we are blind before we cure ills that bother us more than those we think are their victims.

Munk told a story in which the cure was perhaps more disruptive than the disease. We in the West need to be sensitive to the possibility we destroy really critical things when we bring our cures. The classic case of people taking steel axes into cultures that had built their sense of meaning and self-worth around the industry of creating stone tools- and thus destroying the culture in which people understood their place in the world- should always be before us.

I said last week I thought the interview was “a draw”, because it came off as a contest where I don’t think Russ was ready for a contest. But if I’m called on to choose between an Economics of quasi-religious fervor and an Economics seeking experiments in the most effective ways to do things, in widely varying cultures, and a sustainable future, I’ll go for the sustainable future every time.

I’ve seen a few comments defending the Millennium Village Project like so:

“So what would YOU do to help those unemployed? This is the question you seem to avoid. When we’re in a mess, would you have us just wait, doing nothing until markets equilibrate?”

And I’d just like to respond:

“I don’t wanna do nothing, there’s plenty to do. The question I ponder is who plans for whom. Do I plan for myself or I leave it to you. I want plans by the many, not by the few.”

A note about the format and length.

I am also a podcaster on a very different topic as well as a fervent listener of EconTalk.

Podcasts are consumed in a very different way than other medium and the time pressure is not as high as you seem to imply Russ. In particular, people listen to it by chunk anyways.

I did settle for 80-90 mins long episodes as the natural length. It pleases people with long commutes and I no longer feel rushed to finish a topic.

So a 90 mins EconTalk episode would be perfectly fine by me even though my commute is literally 20 mins,

Prof Roberts,

Firstly, I would just like to thank you for the episode. It was clearly a challenging conversation, but I think those challenges serve to help uncover real differences. A few lingering critiques that I hope you will take with the due grain of salt:

– At times, it seemed that your preference for what that program should be (such that it would easily conform to your standard critique) seemed to get in the way of a fair consideration of the points being offered. Most notably, in the discussion about the selection of interventions, you were borderline dismissive of Sachs’ claim that the communities themselves were heavily involved in needs assessment and in ongoing development and iteration of solutions, particularly as the MDV program matured. You acted as if Nina Monk’s claim of top-down prescription was the established truth of the matter. In Monk’s interview, you showed no hesitancy to run with her examples as a clear demonstration of your Hayekian views and with ID programs generally.

When Mr. Sachs pointed out that her cases came from the early stages of the program and from a very limited, non-representative set of communities, you were essentially dismissive. The idea that top-down identification of interventions was simply a starting point and that communities were heavily involved in conducting needs assessments, selecting interventions and developing those interventions seemed to carry no weight. It seemed, at least to this listener, that your desire for Monk’s observations to be the norm, combined with your ideological preferences, set such a strong prior that you were unable or unwilling to fairly consider Sachs’ description. It very much seemed, as you described, that you were in debate mode, defending an ideology rather than trying to developing a more clear understanding of the reality. And unfortunately, your patronizing tone on this front exacerbated the existing tension.

– The discussion of your “cruel” comment actually reveals what I believe to be the core differentiating factor in your world view and Mr. Sachs’. Mr. Sachs’ sees the suffering across the less-developed world as a great tragedy. He knows the underlying factors are immensely complex and doesn’t believe it is something that can be easily “fixed”, but he does want to make a difference. And he believes that we have a set of promising ideas that might help. So he developed a strategy to making an attempt. The goals were clearly stated and involved a notion of sustainability. However, we would be remiss to not consider the potential to provide enormous short-term benefits, which while subject to questions of cost/benefit, should not be simply dismissed out of hand if they prove unsustainable. Is it cruel to treat a person’s cancer, lessening their suffering and giving them hope it might be beaten, knowing full well that it might?

Secondly, even failure to achieve the stated goals is not necessarily utter failure in the objective humanitarian sense. An enormous amount of learning is happening as a result of the efforts. Many, perhaps most programs, won’t work. But they will produce knowledge. And while his simplistic claim regarding governmental uptake did not articulate this value well, the value remains. Consider the example of any scientific research effort. Is a string of failed trials evidence of futility in the pursuit of a new medication or material? This is a point you appeared completely unwilling to consider at all, too happy to revel in the notion of the futility of design.

Particularly in the infinitely complex world of social science, what is the appropriate scale at which we can seek to design solutions? The Hayekian caution is well-taken, but where does it leave us in the face of persistent suffering? What moral imperative does it leave us? Do we let our fellow man suffer when we feel we have the ability to help, simply because our solution may be imperfect? Who do we count among those who deem worthy of our help? And when we help, should we simply provide money and nothing else?

Your critiques are usually fair, but in situations like this, they leave me empty. The alternative you provide (or fail to provide) is even less attracting the flawed solution. I find that when you interview somebody with a sympathetic viewpoint, you occasionally consider these questions. But when you have a guest who challenges you on these fronts, you sometimes slip in to a disconnected paternalism, giving only the slightest recognition to the vast space between the easy libertarian conjecture and the liberal fantasy. Your doubt of the “success”, however defined, of the MDVs is perfectly reasonable. But the way in which you express it, the derision with which you approached the idea of the effort produce successes was evident.

It is one thing to doubt success. It is another to hope for failure. Unfortunately, despite your words to the contrary, the way in which you discussed the MDVs suggested strongly that you hold a preference for vindication of your worldview over the alleviation of suffering. That is why Mr. Sachs’ was so appalled by your comment. I don’t believe you consciously feel/think that way. Perhaps you came off that way because of the defensive nature of the conversation. But at least to me, particularly when considering the eagerness with which you helped Nina Monk elaborate on her critique, that is how your position “read”. That you were willing to have Mr. Sachs’ on the program is evidence that you truly are interested in objective truth of the matter. But I would encourage you to re-listen to both episodes and to consider how your personal biases may have affected the resulting conversations.

On that note, I would suggest that the program released yesterday, in which you mediated a conversation was a massive success. You did a great job at facilitating a fascinating conversation that explored points of agreement and disagreement. I would be very interested in hearing more of these types of discussions, in which you can leverage your skepticism more broadly, allowing different viewpoints to be explored more faithfully.

Thanks Russ for continuing to offer episodes that stir, ignite, and foster debate. Sometimes things get messy – ain’t that wonderful? Individuals have difficulty seeing their own biases and sometimes it takes a jostle or two to help us at least see where our bias boundaries lie.

Personally, I don’t find this format too long. I’m here because it is longer than a soundbite. I’m also here because I want to have my own preconceptions jostled so I can learn and maybe improve my world view rather than merely confirm I’ve been right all along. Kudos, Russ, on your continuing efforts to focus on learning.

In the microeconomic world of commercial innovation, there’s a good body of evidence that solely relying on financial examination of innovation projects is the least effective way to determine which new ideas will likely succeed. Comparing this information to this much larger, much messier, macro-economics project makes me wonder if relying only on what can be easily measured in any way predicts what may happen.

This series of interviews seems very off kilter, being mostly accusatory, from what is routinely scholarly and exploratory. All the data and evidence is off somewhere else in a paper, or a book, or a village in Africa, or is anecdotal. Prof. Roberts hadn’t read Munk’s book. Munk’s book seems ambiguous. Sachs is trying fiat and has a lot to answer for and the results aren’t in. So what exactly are we talking about? Would Prof. Roberts let one of his students get away with a citation from a book review and not the source? Could a student get away with so much ambiguity?

This lecture series has always appealed to me because when the guests share ‘ideas’, the burden of proof, salient points, theoretical models, etc. are spoken of as such, and when empirical evidence is available the guests speak specifically about them. Prof. Roberts is best when he says, “so, does this mean…” and then references how Coase would talk about this, and Hayek would be dubious of that, and Friedman would remind us how he was taught this, etc. Great stuff. All of these great minds with their best (not worst, wrong, or mistaken) ideas, put in context, in a relevant way. This is what is appealing about social science.

Prof. Roberts is always reaffirming and reminding the listener of why Economics, Political Economy, data-driven research, and other topics which are just plain interesting, are so important because ideas and good research matter, and also why ideas and research have limitations and require ‘grit’. We are reminded of confirmation bias, causation, correlation, scope, scale, the complexity and limits to what can be known, etc. This is what is exciting about social science in the era of Big Data.

And then we have Sachs on trial and Prof Robert’s comment on trial, and Munk’s book on trial… right or wrong or whatever, this did not seem scholarly. This could have been better.

It is admittedly very hard to separate emotion from economic issues when confronting the incredible challenges of endemic poverty. Historical vestiges of racism, imperialism, and mercantilism can perhaps create a sense of personal culpability or promote an emotional “gut” response to poverty. Additionally, emotional factors play a huge role in supporting fundraising and charity efforts. Such efforts have their place of course, and I endorse charity wholeheartedly.

But developmental economics is not charity. That differentiation came through clearly in these interviews, and I think separating them is very critical in a click-bait world. I applaud Sach’s efforts wholeheartedly, but his emotion and need to defend himself belie an emotional position rather than an economic argument. Again, that is not wrong; it is just different from what he is claiming.

Thank you for this series.

I was not sure which side to support at the end of this discussion. On the one hand, if Sachs tries one integrated project with private contributions for ten years in the villages of ten countries of Africa, even though there is no independent end of project assessment yet (typically one generally finds a concurrent assessment, a mid term assessment and an end of project assessment vis a vis the baseline)of the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of this initiative, the fact that he atleast tried something in itself can not be undermined, even if it is not likely to be sustainable. If the host governments can take something from this experiences and incorporate the lessons in their own programmes, it should provide enough justification for the effort and resources spent. I am not sure that all development projects should or can be sustainable after the project completion; should that mean the projects are not worthwhile in a definitive sense? Sachs is well meaning and that is what counts. Don’t the governments and multilateral agencies waste huge amounts on worthless projects all the time? Have they always been sustainable, effective and efficent? The answer is NO. The economist rationale in project review and analysis often discounts the ground level challenges and realities. If no one takes a risk, it is likely that there will be no mistakes and no failures or no means of making improvements in project formulation or implementation. Russ tried to be incisive and that is good; after all, it is a debate without rancour. Everyone learns in the process. I have enjoyed this podcast, even though it did not give me a definitive answer.

Russ
The post podcast discussion seems even more interesting and informative than the podcast itself.

After having listened to numerous podcast by Russ Roberts my view of the world of economics and development can be summed up in a single statement -‘chicken or the egg’ -‘human development (health care, housing, education etc) or sustainable business’ which came first.

Should we provide development or a viable business that will pay for the human development?

Jeffery Sachs is of the view human development will promote entrepreneurship which will create the sustainable business. Russ believes human development is the benefit of a sustainable business.

So who is right ? Perhaps it is a mix of both. May be a venture fund at marginal interest rate could promote a viable business case in theses underdeveloped regions, with a certain amount spent as charity for human development. It should be done in such a way that once the business stabilises, it should pay for the human development activities
Sri

I am somebody who would usually place himself much more firmly in the Sachs camp than the Russ Roberts camp. I enjoy listening to Econtalk immensely but with the usual crowd (Munger, Kling, Eppstein etc.) I do so critically to detect the weaknesses and flaws in their arguments. Still, you have to give it to Russ that he decided this one fair and square in his favor. He kept calm and to the (economic) point throughout the episode, whereas I found J. Sachs immensely disappointing. He employed Filibuster tactics, never answered questions and did his cause a great disservice by this strategy. Chapeau to Russ. He should be employed to mediate bipartisan agreements in congress.

Russ Roberts episodes with Munk, and the Sach follow up, resulted in a home run for “ … illustrate economic principles. Exploring how economics emerges in practice is a primary theme”; the stated purpose of EconTalk. Who cares if the Sach’s program style was different than the normal program format – it worked to display Sach’s positions, opinions and his self evaluation. Roberts used the excellent Brian Lamb hosting technique of being a catalyst for making the time spent mostly on the guest’s self display i.e. a few questions prompting active and predominant guest responses. Sach avoided direct answers most of the time and instead, used the time for self-salesmanship. Fortunately, Roberts wasn’t able to get in a word with Sach’s grueling self-proclamations, rather than evaluating economic points, and that displayed the true colors of Sach’s motivations. I hope Prof. Roberts doesn’t shy away from trying this program approach in the future – it delivered listeners with a great opportunity of “illustrating economic principles” in action, even ones that are not working well. Thank you for the great learning opportunities offered in your programs.