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Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

lse.ac.uk

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Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#11

Post by travisoneill1 »

padolsey wrote: post #2

These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…

The end of your comment seems to imply that meritocracy is intended to generate equality, but actually it's intended to do the opposite.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#12

Post by postingpals »

sul_tasto wrote: post #5
abhinav22 wrote: post #3

For those who want a TL;DR, below is an extract of the summary. I think they did a good job, the article was well written. Poverty traps are one of the most fundamental concepts in development economics. The contri- bution of this paper has been to provide evidence for their existence using the combination of a randomized asset transfer and an 11 year follow up in rural Bangladesh. Our key finding is that people stay…

If only there was some person or some group to realign society and correctly place everyone according to ability.

For those that are inevitably about to argue and downvote the above... It seems the economy is returning, smartly, towards keynesian models because we've seen first hand how destructive the past 50 years of austerity and free market economics has become. Its clear to me that we need to have a strong government to save the economy from market failures, including but not limited to job guarantees echoing those of the new deal in the 30s. Don't have to be a marxist to see that.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#13

Post by iridium_core »

abhinav22 wrote: post #3

For those who want a TL;DR, below is an extract of the summary. I think they did a good job, the article was well written. Poverty traps are one of the most fundamental concepts in development economics. The contri- bution of this paper has been to provide evidence for their existence using the combination of a randomized asset transfer and an 11 year follow up in rural Bangladesh. Our key finding is that people stay…

How much of this is due to over-population? If the population of Bangladesh was 80 million instead of 160 million - giving each person access to theoretically double the amount of resources and land - would the net improvement be greater than 2x?

What about 40 million - would the improvement be 4x?

The solution may ultimately be a one-child policy, as demonstrated successfully by China.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#14

Post by sul_tasto »

padolsey wrote: post #2

These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…

“ Above all we need to focus on delivering opportunity via improved circumstances and empowerment, irrespective of merit or success: that is the only path to actual equality.”

Please consider that you are advocating for communism. I hope you will consider reviewing the histories of China and the USSR, et al. after World War 2. The critique and solution you offer do not lead to “actual equality.”

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#15

Post by fartcannon »

padolsey wrote: post #2

These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…

So, how do you decide who gets the rewards? Assuming not everyone can have every job/house/life.

Do you tell the people who get the rewards that they were given a chance at random (compared to their neighbor who was not) or do you let them believe they earned it?

For the record, I agree that merit is a bad system. Im curious to explore the ramifications of doing away with the system and how it would be different, if at all, from the current system.

For example, in a post-scarcity society, everyone has what they need, but some houses still have nicer views than others.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#16

Post by AsyncAwait »

padolsey wrote: post #2

These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…

I suspect many who believe in meritocracy are already successful people who like to tell themselves they got there by merely being so much smarter than everyone else around them, dismissing the access, luck, (i.e. quality of schools they were born near), family wealth etc. almost entirely as a factor.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#18

Post by postingpals »

iridium_core wrote: post #13
abhinav22 wrote: post #3

For those who want a TL;DR, below is an extract of the summary. I think they did a good job, the article was well written. Poverty traps are one of the most fundamental concepts in development economics. The contri- bution of this paper has been to provide evidence for their existence using the combination of a randomized asset transfer and an 11 year follow up in rural Bangladesh. Our key finding is that people stay…

How much of this is due to over-population? If the population of Bangladesh was 80 million instead of 160 million - giving each person access to theoretically double the amount of resources and land - would the net improvement be greater than 2x? What about 40 million - would the improvement be 4x? The solution may ultimately be a one-child policy, as demonstrated successfully by China.

China's policy wasn't all that successful

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_women_of_China

Population control is a very outdated idea, we have enough resources for the population, we just don't know how to distribute them using free market models.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#19

Post by throwaway8085 »

padolsey wrote: post #2

These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…

Anecdata that agrees with you follows.

Meritocracy is still a factor but the bar is currently very low. My own father came out of the impoverishment of war torn Bangladesh to be a successful real estate developer in the west. Why did his elder brother not have the same results? Very simple: the elder brother was responsible for the family. The family has rewarded the elder brother by taking care of him for years now and he is the happiest old man I know. He will die satisfied.

The truth that no one wants to admit is that we have to put (very minimal) resources behind the youth to become independent of their families so they can grow.

For all his faults, my father understood this for everyone except me (long story) and funded the education of a few people back home. For two boys I'm aware of, that was about $5-7K/year. The two boys lived in a one room shack that routinely got flooded. One is now an accountant, the other is a working chef. Trust me, neither of them are particularly smart.

What's needed is so minimal but the problem we have is too much grifting occurs. Levels and levels of middleman bullshit.

I would start experimenting with Kiva-style microloans if you want to make a difference, tbh.

Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]

#20

Post by theelous3 »

padolsey wrote: post #2

These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…

This is all well and good to argue around a very literal meritocracy, but I don't think anyone actually argues for this. It's not just "lol, 1 - 1 = 0, meritocracy is impossible".

The underlying principal, as I understand it, is that it's unreasonable to think for example, that mark zuck literally does millions of time more work than say, a senior software dev at a middle size company, or a farmer. Yet zuck is compensated as such. We can recognize the "unique" value facebook creates by giving unique compensation, but should that compensation really be x1m times more than the farmer?

Reworking wealth distribution is the goal - not rewarding everyone equally for everything in some meme level paradox.

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