"We hate ourselves, we'll probably hate you too"

I'm supposed to be coming back to Britain in about a month. But the British government and the Guardian are doing their best to discourage me.

 

Meanwhile, it's sunny every day in Kigali. Rents are roughly a third of London - £250 a month including bills, a full-time guard, and a part-time cleaner who does all of the dishes and the laundry. Beers cost £1 each in most bars, tennis lessons cost £5 an hour, and there are outdoor swimming pools all over. It's clean and safe and there is no crime and no malaria and no traffic and there are business opportunities everywhere. And I played my first moto polo game (NYT, Youtube) this weekend, which I can confirm, as if you had any doubt, is insanely fun. Can everyone please just come join me over here instead?

What Would Happen If We Let All The Immigrants In?

Sense from Matt Yglesias:

According to Gallup there are 150 million people around the world who say they'd like to move permanently to the United States. Right now the United States has about 89 residents per square mile. Add another 150 million people and we'd be at around 135 people per square mile. How would that stack up in context? Well, France has 303 people per square mile and Germany has 593. Japan has 873. The Dutch have 1,287! 

All those places have their share of problems (and so do we) but none of them are exactly post-apocalyptic hellscapes.

The equivalent Gallup number of people who say they'd like to move permanently to the UK is 45 million. That would take us from the already relatively dense 673 people per square mile to 1,153 people per square mile, edging out Rwanda, but still not quite as dense as the Netherlands or South Korea. I think we'd manage. Personally, I also think British people are great, and it would be great to have more of us.

Immigration in the UK

The case for migration is a compelling one. And it needs to be made. The OBR estimates current levels of migration boost GDP by 0.5 per cent. Current levels of population growth are no higher then they were in the early 1900s. And only just over one in 10 new jobs created in the UK goes to migrants, rather than British nationals. These are the facts about immigration, and they have to be pushed vigorously and consistently.

Barbara Roche, former Immigration and Asylum Minister, in the Independent (via TH)

There is no poverty in America...

... was the subject of a recent household debate. I'm talking, of course, about real, deep, absolute poverty, of the one dollar per day variety (at purchasing power parity, meaning already adjusted for the big price differences between rich and poor countries).

Exhibit A:

"By international standards the US poverty line of $23,050 corrected for exchange rates is around the average of world income, and is deemed a comfortably middle-class income in India" -- Deidre McCloskey.

Exhibit B:

A 1996 survey of users of homeless shelters and soup kitchens found a median monthly individual income of around $250 in inner cities in America (quite a lot higher than the $35 per month earned by about a billion people).

Exhibit C:

The housemate sent me a link to this paper which shows some quite shocking life expectancy outcomes for certain groups in America. If you pick out some of the very worst, you get life expectancy for black males in America of 68.7, or for Native Americans in South Dakota of 58 years. Compare this to the life expectancy of Rwandans, all Rwandans, not just those living in poverty, and you get 55 years.

And despite all this, it seems to be quite normal to feel more guilty about poverty in America or England.

Is there really poverty in America? Should we care? Can we just call it something different in America to be clear about the distinction?

---

Jina Moore's comments on this post below are excellent (though I think we still have some disagreements), as are her two articles in the CS Monitor about poverty in America here and here. 

What about diplomacy?

Finally, cutting aid just strikes me as a fundamentally lazy and cowardly choice. If you want to achieve political goals, how about bothering to spend the time engaging politically and talking to people? Diplomacy brought peace to Northern Ireland and diplomacy brought a 2005 peace agreement to North and South Sudan. That meant long hours of hard work, and real political commitment. How many international leaders have even been to the DRC? Maybe if the collective international political community had demonstrated even the slightest regard for the people of the DR Congo through any actual tangible action then all of this posturing wouldn't leave such a bad taste.

The fiscal cliff in East Africa

So, when South Sudan makes a strategic choice to temporarily (but drastically) cut government spending in order to achieve political objectives, it is being "reckless". And when Western donors decide to temporarily cut government spending in Rwanda and Uganda in order to achieve political objectives, they are being... what exactly? Is there any evidence that sanctions are even effective? And it's lucky that our whiter than white British government has a totally clean record on corruption, human rights, and interfering in other countries... ahem, MPs expenses, Leveson, our Prime Ministers acting as arms salesman to Middle Eastern despots, our financial services industry laundering exactly the cash stolen from foreign governments that we pretend to care about, the invasion of Iraq... good job our citizens don't rely on foreign aid for basic service delivery then.

Blattman on Cameron and the UN

Well worth a read in full if you haven't already:

This is a big leap for the UN. Cameron is trying to haul them into the 1990s. He’ll get a lot of credit for that. You’ll forgive me, though, for wishing we didn’t live in a world where we’re delighted when our global government is just 20 instead of 40 years behind the times.

I also liked a line that a friend told me on Friday:

But this "golden thread" just isn't really a "thread." It's just a list.

Are Oxford Admissions Fair?

Chris Cook at the FT wrote an article a few months ago breaking down admission rates to Oxford by type of school at different stages of the process (see graphic below). Jonathan Portes summarised the stages thus;

• first, the relative probabilities that students from different types of school got "very strong GCSEs"; ranging from 3.4% for a student from the poorest tenth of schools, to 23.4% for those from independent schools;

• second, the probability that a student from each type of school who got "very strong GCSEs" did in fact apply to Oxford at all, ranging from 14.1% to 24.6% (even higher for pupils from the richest tenth of state schools;

• third, the probability that such a student who did apply got admitted - over half for pupils from independent schools, but only about 15% for students from the poorest schools. 

So there were disparities at each stage of the process. Students from state schools in poor areas were less likely to get very good GCSEs, less likely to apply, and less likely to be accepted.

Oxford Application Success probabilities (FT Analysis) 

Source: FT

Which sounds pretty damning. I sent this analysis to a friend involved in the admissions process, and he highlighted the important role of the special admissions aptitude test in the process, ignored by the FT and Portes.

There is now some evidence backing up his position, from a new working paper by Bhattacharya, Kanaya, Stevens, all at the Economics department in Oxford, and two of whom who have also been involved in admissions themselves (and thus had access to that test data, which is not in the public domain).

They describe the admissions process as follows:

About one-third of all applicants are selected for interview on the basis of UCAS information, aptitude test and essay, and the rest rejected. Selected candidates are then assessed via a face-to-face interview and the interview scores are recorded in the central database. This sub-group of applicants who have been called to interview will constitute our sample of interest. Therefore, we are in effect testing the academic efficiency of the second round of the selection process, taking the first round as given. Accordingly, from now on, we will refer to those summoned for interview as the applicants.

They then find no difference between admission rates for independent and state schools for those invited for interview. This implies that all of the gap in admission rates between independent and state school students (with equal GCSE scores) found in the FT analysis, is down to poorer performance by state students in the Oxford-set aptitude test. Now, of course the average independent school applicant is undoubtedly better prepared for this aptitude test than the average state school applicant, but this does seem to somewhat let Oxford off the hook.

And finally some advice for potential applicants from a survey of admissions tutors (52 responded) contained in the paper; don't spend too much time on your UCAS statement. Do make sure you get good grades and prepare well for your interview. 

Weight attached to different factors in Oxford admissions process 

Source: Bhattacharya, Kanaya, Stevens survey of Oxford admissions tutors

David Cameron doesn't care about poor people either

“The problem is policy is being run by two public school boys [Cameron and Osborne] who don’t know what it’s like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can’t afford it for their children’s lunchboxes,” says Nadine Dorries, another Conservative MP. “What’s worse, they don’t care either.”

And he doesn't care because those poor people live in Northern cities which never voted tory anyway.

Unemployment in traditional Labour areas is currently much higher than in traditional Conservative areas. In north-east England it is 11.2%, in Yorkshire and the Humber it stands at 9.9%, in the north-west at 9.3% and in Wales at 9%. By sharp contrast, unemployment in the south-west is 6.1%, in the south-east it is 6.3% and in the east of England it is 7%.  

Zooming into even more local figures reinforces this picture. The national rate of people claiming jobseekers' allowance is currently 5%. In Labour-held seats, the rate is an average 5.2%, while in Conservative-held seats it is considerably lower at 2.9%. In the 50 most marginal Conservative-held seats it is 3.6%, well below the national average and that of Labour-held seats. 

History shows that it is perfectly possible for Conservative governments to oversee sluggish growth, rising unemployment and public spending cuts while winning re-election. As Stanley Baldwin in the 1930s and Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s proved, the crucial factor is that enough people are doing comparatively better to sustain an election-winning coalition.

Part of me was quite relaxed when Labour lost the last election. They had been in power for over a decade,  which is never healthy, and a break would probably do them some good. And the Conservatives probably wouldn't be that bad. Especially with the Lib Dems there to tone down their worst excesses. I was wrong.

Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson make a good point about asymmetric risks;

Europe’s experience in the 1970s and 1980s demonstrated that persistently high unemployment can become entrenched, leading to further unemployment in the future -- a process economists call hysteresis. Skills atrophy, hope fades and people lose contact with the networks that can help them find work. If this occurs with the millions of U.S. workers who have been without jobs for more than a year, it will be costly and very difficult to undo. 

In other words, the cost of too little growth far outweighs the cost of too much. If we readily bear the burden of carrying an umbrella when there’s a reasonable chance of getting wet, we should certainly be willing to stimulate the economy when there’s a reasonable risk that doing nothing could yield a jobless generation.

Christina Romer suggests that

European policy makers just don’t get it.

What is scarier is the notion that they do "get it", but just don't care.

David Cameron doesn't care about black people

to paraphrase Kanye, that is pretty much the impression that I got from Lord Ashcroft's interesting new report on ethnic minorities and the Conservative Party.

At the 2010 election, only 16% of ethnic minority voters supported the  Conservatives. More than two thirds voted Labour.
...
by polling white voters alongside those from ethnic minorities, we demonstrated that the Conservative Party’s unpopularity among black and Asian voters is not simply a matter of class and geography. There were sometimes strikingly different results between white and non-white voters living in the same area, and between different ethnic minority groups. Among ethnic minority voters the Conservatives’ brand problem exists in a more intense form. For many of our participants  - by no means all, it is important to state  - there was an extra barrier between them and the Conservative Party directly related to their ethnic background. If Labour was the party that helped their families to establish themselves in Britain, had represented people who did their kind of work, and had passed laws to help ensure they were treated equally, the Conservatives, they felt, had been none to keen on their presence in the first place. Enoch Powell was often mentioned in evidence, as was the notorious Smethwick election campaign of 1964 in which a poster appeared - not distributed by the Conservatives, but remembered as such - saying “if you want a n****r for a neighbour vote Labour”. The failure, on the Conservatives’ watch, properly to investigate the murder of Stephen Lawrence was also cited. Most thought that if prejudice had been widespread in the party, then  the  Conservatives had changed in recent years, whether through principle or necessity. But significant numbers  - which particularly included people from a black Caribbean background  - felt the Tories remained indifferent or even hostile towards ethnic minorities. Many felt the Tories, and David Cameron in particular, had unfairly blamed ethnic minorities for last summer’s riots. 

Via Rob Ford

Why oh why can't we have a better head of state

28 April 2025

UK immigration rules tightened to keep out human rights abusers

29 April 2025

Bahrain despot says Yes to the Queen’s Jubilee lunch invitation

British MPs on UNMISS

This comment from Tom is worth repeating:

It's worth quoting the whole of the section of the executive summary of the Commons International Development Committee on South Sudan: "UNMISS...has been slow to produce a peacebuilding strategy. UNMISS is also a hugely expensive operation, costing the UK taxpayer £60 million in its first year—two thirds of DFID’s annual development and humanitarian budget. UNMISS does not currently provide value-for-money and its resources have not been deployed most effectively. The UK Government should press the UN for an urgent review of UNMISS’s cost, mandate, assets and operations."

Here is the link to the full report.

When the counterfactual *really* matters

Jonathan Portes, the Director of Britain's National Institute of Economic and Social Research has a great post up discussing the slightly controversial mandatory work experience placements in supermarkets for unemployed youngsters. Whether the scheme constitutes slave labour or not, it would be interesting to think for a second about its effectiveness.

The Minister in charge of the scheme has proudly trumpeted:

The fact is that 13 weeks after starting their placements, around 50 per cent of those taking part have either taken up permanent posts or have stopped claiming benefits.

Mr. Portes, formally a Chief Economist at the same government department, considers the counterfactual: claimants of job-seekers allowance (JSA) who do not participate in a work experience placement:

Off-flows from JSA remain high - almost 60% of claimants leave within three months

So you have a 60% chance of leaving benefits in 3 months unless you take part in this scheme, after which you only have a 50% chance. Awk-ward. Of course:

Now this is not definitive - without a proper control group and a counterfactual, we do not know what would have happened to the participants without the programme. Maybe I am wrong, and in fact those who go on the programme have very poor characteristics, and would have done even worse without it. Without proper evaluation, we just don't know. But certainly the evidence and analysis so far published by DWP does not make a good case.

Bottom line #1: if you're interested in smart and well-presented UK economic policy analysis you should really be reading Jonathan Portes.

Bottom line #2: There is probably a very good business case to be made for sending Mr. Iain Duncan Smith on the J-PAL Exec Ed course on evaluating social programs. Training budgets must be tight with all the cuts going on and that though, so - genuine offer - if you're interested Mr. Smith I'll pay your tuition fees out of my own pocket :)

The economics of the UK housing benefit cap

I'm as liberal as they come. Economically and socially. I believe in markets, but I also believe that we need massive redistribution to ensure effective safety nets and fair life chances for all children. But sometimes, the Guardian, you just take bleeding heart liberalism to whole new levels.

Yesterday you invited us to feel sympathy for Amira and her four children, who are losing their publicly-funded £812 a week flat near Edgware Road because of the new cap on housing benefits. Eight hundred and twelve pounds a week.

Median earnings in the UK are around £500 a week. Yes, we need a safety net. But should we really be paying 160% of average earnings in housing benefit alone for people out of work so that they can live in very desirable postcodes in central London?

£812 a week is £42,224 a year. Considerably more than what most working people earn. Paid by the state in rent.

Homelessness is scary. Moving kids to new schools can be disruptive. These adjustments needs to be handled delicately. But if we drop the status quo bias for one second, paying £812 a week in housing benefits for one household (PLUS other benefits) is insane.

(The win-win solution here, by the way, is remove planning restrictions, ignore the nimbys, let the private sector build the extra houses that it would if it could, and watch rents fall).

The culture that is Britain

Or how foreigners view the British:

From a VSO report on "The Live Aid Legacy," via @nathanyaffe

Englishness at-a-glance

From the very excellent "Watching the English" by Kate Fox, "self-appointed national ethno-shrink." This is pretty old and has been on my to-read list for some time, but I suppose I never got around to it as I had the impression that it seemed a bit frivolous. It is not. Whilst some of it may seem obvious, it is obvious in the same kind of incredibly simple but incredibly powerful way that the theory of supply and demand is obvious, with wide explanatory power. There are all sorts of rules of behaviour which I follow, without ever knowing that I did, or why. 

Essential reading for basically everyone who suffers from, is close to someone who suffers, or lives amongst those who suffer from Englishness. Especially those awkward teenagers who have no idea that their social dis-ease is a defining national trait rather than a personal failing (I certainly didn't).

Do any readers have any other pop anthropology recommendations?

NAO Report on DFID Funding for Cash Transfers

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, says "transfers show clear immediate benefits, including reduced hunger and raised incomes [for some of the most impoverished and vulnerable people in developing countries]."

How many aid projects can we say that for?

Social protection gets 4.5% of DFID's bilateral aid budget.

More at the Guardian and the full report here.  

Relative Poverty Silliness #45364

The Queen is coming perilously close to joining millions of her subjects in “fuel poverty” as energy bills for four palaces and a draughty castle absorb a rising share of her income. 

About 4m households in England have fallen into fuel poverty, a situation in which a homeowner must spend 10 per cent of their annual income to keep their abode acceptably warm. (FT)

Any poverty line which puts the Queen in poverty = a silly poverty line.

Evil Aid-Cutting genius

Now if only there were a way of convincing those liberals that aid is bad. You would want to think of some clever way in which foreign aid is totally at odds with fundamental liberal values.

The British government says it will cut aid to African countries that persecute LGBT people.
International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell revealed the UK has already cut funding to Malawi by £19 million after two gay men were sentenced to 14 years in prison last May reports the Daily Mail.

"We only provide aid directly to governments when we are satisfied that they share our commitments to reduce poverty and respect human rights."

What say you now Liberal! Should we feed the starving if they are homophobic!? Mmmmm, thats right liberal, squirm, mmm let me taste your discomfort....

[Bit rich coming from a government intent on repealing the Human Rights Act though right?]

Child Poverty in the UK

...is defined by the 2010 Child Poverty Act. According to the IFS report just out, 

The Act defines an individual to be in relative poverty if his or her household’s equivalised income is below 60% of the median in that year; and he or she is in absolute poverty if the household’s equivalised income is below 60% of the 2010---11 median income, adjusted for inflation.

So by "absolute poverty" we are still actually talking about inequality. Now, I care very deeply about inequality, and in particular inequality in life chances (i.e. starting points rather than outcomes).

But I just can't decide whether I should be irritated by imprecise and misleading language about poverty, or impressed by the re-branding of inequality (which is clearly something only loony socialists should care about) as child poverty (who wouldn't care about child poverty? Surely only a heartless monster. Even Conservatives should care about child poverty).

So points for clever marketing. But do we really want people to think for a second that the absolute poverty of living on £23.50 a day in the UK is in any way comparable to the absolute poverty of the billion or so people worldwide who live on less than 80 pence a day?