Month: February 2019

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What happened to the Workshop of West Africa?

Despite recent decades of economic growth, absolute poverty is on the rise in Nigeria, as population increases continue to outpace the reduction in poverty rates. Manufacturing industries, which have the potential to absorb large numbers of workers into better paying jobs, have expanded only very modestly, and most workers remain employed in low productivity sectors … Continue reading What happened to the Workshop of West Africa?

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Making the GDP sausage. Episode 0: Introduction

Everyone knows Otto von Bismarck’s supposed opinion about sausages and laws. Butchers and legislators, however, tend  not to display much anguish about the production process. Artisans of historical statistics, in my experience, tend to get embarrassed even amongst themselves at the shortcuts and guesswork necessary to manufacture their product.  It didn’t use to be this … Continue reading Making the GDP sausage. Episode 0: Introduction