Ranil Dissanayake

I last (seriously) wrote for Aid Thoughts around 15 years ago. It's kind of amazing, reading back, how I've changed (both how little and how much) since then.

I often tell people I manage to write as much and as often as they can--you only get good at it through trial and error.

I miss blogging.

What amazing news. Another great public policy school at a time when we most certainly need to shine a light on public policy and the role of governments worldwide.

John Hopkins are lucky to have you, Michael. Hoping you go from strength to strength there.

Absolutely brilliant book. The narrators off-centre world view is my favourite thing about it.

A lesson: no matter how talented, working on the basics matters. True across basically all disciplines.

The Muppet Show: this thrilling return is so great I can’t even count how many times I laughed Sabrina Carpenter fangirling Miss Piggy, Beaker losing his eyes … yes, Kermit and co are back for a trip down memory lane – and it’s a perfect, saucy joy

Yes, everything sucks. But:

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Nothing says Christmas like the Australians traumatising 11 visiting Englishmen over a small wooden urn full of ashes.

Really looking forward to reading this update.

I need an explainer of that organogram to start with…

This is going to bankrupt me

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#Economics #EDI #EconSky

This is a spectacular reference.

Tolstoy and his confidante (a lizard).

From Gorky’s Fragments from My Diary

What is development economics? I asked development economists for their definitions of development economics.

What is development economics?

I find it more and more difficult to define what development economics actually is.

So, for this @voxdev.bsky.social blog, I asked development economists how they define development economics: voxdev.org/topic/what-d...

Reading Pearl on causality widened my horizons so much. Made it harder, though, but so crucial for thinking this all through from a practical policy perspective.

This is a crucial point. Still relatively few economists are explicitly trained on this point, and too many econ papers show it.

Can you share the table?

I haven't thought about this deeply, but how much do we think using PPPs adjusts for the Baumol effect here? On a scale of 100% to not at all

When thinking about how to get out of this mess we need to keep in mind 'asymmetric causation'. Knowing what caused a problem doesn't tell you how to solve it. The example that brought the point home to me was: If you're run over by a steamroller, the cure is not to have it reverse back over you

A wine that makes you think, @jowolff.bsky.social

Maybe he misread the title as 'complex organisms'?

"One star. TOO MANY WORDS!"

This is a truly mad review of Perrow's classic Complex Organizations:

New entrant to the J-Rock song name hall of fame

Cackling

Just a happy coincident he’s also incredibly good at cricket (another one I called spectacularly wrong in his early career)

Some people are cool because they’re good at something, and in others it’s just completely innate to their bearing. Jadeja is the latter. He could be a clerk in the bank and he’d be the coolest bank clerk in history.

I’m about a third of the way through, and absolutely love it. I feel exactly the same way.

And let’s be honest, I’d rather watch Jayawardene bat than read Brodsky, and I’ve done a lot of both.