Ideas Untrapped

In this episode of Ideas Untrapped we discussed the challenges and complexities of education, economic growth, and public health systems in developing countries with two brilliant guests James Habyarimana and Jishnu Das. We started off with an example on the rapid expansion of tertiary education in India and its unmet promise of better jobs, which led to discussions on similar dynamics in African contexts. The conversation explored the balance between market-driven growth and government intervention, emphasizing the need for robust processes and inclusive dialogues to address inequality, improve infrastructure, and shape a collective vision for the future. James Habyarimana is the Provost Distinguished Associate Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy. His research is focused on identifying low-cost strategies to address barriers to better health and education outcomes in developing countries. Jishnu Das is a distinguished professor of public policy at the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Jishnu’s work focuses on health and education in low and middle-income countries.TranscriptTobi: Welcome to both of you. This is actually the first time on the podcast that i'll be hosting two guests at the same time and i feel so lucky that it's both of you, so welcome to Ideas Untrapped it's fantastic talking to you.Jishnu: Great to be here, Tobi. Glad we're doing this.James: I feel privileged to be sharing this time with both of you. Tobi: Okay, thank you. You can take turn to answer as you choose. What inspired me to do this episode primarily was a very powerful article by Jishnu talking about(00:00:33):college education and how young people may have been shortchanged by the promises(00:00:40):and what the evidence suggests.(00:00:43):So briefly,(00:00:44):if you can just summarise for us,(00:00:48):Jishnu,(00:00:49):what inspired you to write that piece and what were the major findings?(00:00:54):Jishnu: Yeah, sure, Tobi.(00:00:55):And I'll ask James to talk about the African context.(00:00:58):I mean, I know India fairly well.(00:01:00):And one of the things that's so surprising and, you know, when people in the U.S.(00:01:05):or people elsewhere hear it,(00:01:07):they don't realise just how fast college education and college enrolment has(00:01:12):increased in the country.(00:01:14):Right.(00:01:15):So one of the statistics that I got wrong because I couldn't believe it is between 2003 and 2016,(00:01:22):India was building a new college every eight hours, right?(00:01:27):And you think about a number like that and you say, what happened here, right?(00:01:31):It's completely out of the experience that any of us has ever seen.(00:01:36):There's a real, real thirst for education among young people.(00:01:41):And it's not just a certain group.(00:01:44):We are seeing it in all kinds of socioeconomic status, girls, boys, men, women.(00:01:51):And it's interesting,(00:01:52):like in a country like Pakistan,(00:01:54):which is traditionally thought to be very patriarchal than it is,(00:01:58):there are more women in college now than men.(00:02:01):So there's this huge upsurge,(00:02:03):maybe a huge demand for college education that's being met by all kinds of places.(00:02:08):And, you know, education is a bit like looking at the stars.(00:02:11):You're going to see what happened in the past in terms of, OK, all these guys came into college.(00:02:16):What's going to happen to their lives after that?(00:02:18):And that part is not clear.(00:02:21):So India has grown a lot.(00:02:23):It's a huge success story on some fronts, kind of.(00:02:27):But really, more than 90 percent of the jobs are still informal.(00:02:31):And we keep thinking BPO, you know, business process outsourcing.(00:02:34):They're taking a lot of outsourcing jobs.(00:02:36):You know,(00:02:37):there's so little of that in actual numbers that it supports less than a percent of(00:02:42):the population.(00:02:43):So the question,(00:02:44):the big question that comes is,(00:02:46):OK,(00:02:46):all these guys who are going into college,(00:02:49):they're going in with the expectation that their lives are going to be a lot better.(00:02:53):And are we going to be able to meet that expectation?(00:02:56):And the phrase that people use is, you know, we have the so-called demographic dividend.(00:03:01):where we have lots of young people and fewer older people.(00:03:05):And the right way to think about it is how do we make sure that that demographic(00:03:11):fraction which we call a low dependency ratio is a dividend and doesn't turn into a(00:03:16):nightmare when you suddenly have these tons of people who are like,(00:03:20):look,(00:03:20):you sold us a dream.(00:03:21):You told us that if we make it through the schools,(00:03:24):which are not great,(00:03:25):and we go to college and we finish our college,(00:03:28):We'll get a decent job.(00:03:29):Where is that job?(00:03:32):That's why I called my blog a coming of rage story, because our college education has come of age.(00:03:38):And the big question now is whether it's going to come of rage as well.(00:03:42):And that's kind of, you know, where I left it.(00:03:45):But I don't know.(00:03:46):I mean,(00:03:46):James,(00:03:46):do you find kind of similar patterns in Uganda or in Tanzania where you work or(00:03:52):other countries?(00:03:53):James: Right.(00:03:53):I guess I want to start by saying, yes, I mean, Africa is in some ways pretty, pretty diverse place.(00:03:57):And so I'm going to focus a lot of my comments on the places that I'm familiar with,(00:04:01):which would be East and Southern Africa.(00:04:03):Tobi: Yeah.(00:04:04):James: But I fully expect,(00:04:05):as I was saying to Tobi,(00:04:06):I've done some work both in Lagos and in northern Nigeria on education.(00:04:09):So even though this is a little bit a while ago,(00:04:11):so I don't quite understand the long run trends and,(00:04:14):say,(00:04:14):demand for college.(00:04:16):But, you know, Africa is a very young continent.(00:04:18):In many parts of Africa, the share of the population is under 30, you know, is close to two thirds.(00:04:23):And so, yes, there is the same dynamics in terms of expectations of a better life.(00:04:29):And of course, I think this is the challenge for politicians.(00:04:31):So(00:04:31):So earlier when Tobi was saying maybe,(00:04:33):you know,(00:04:34):infrastructure projects get more attention than,(00:04:36):say,(00:04:37):education,(00:04:37):I actually think in the places where I work that,(00:04:39):in fact,(00:04:40):education gets much more attention because politicians are concerned about this rage,(00:04:45):right?(00:04:45):They're concerned about this gap between people's aspirations and essentially kind(00:04:50):of the opportunities that are available when they finish school.(00:04:53):I think that is a huge problem.(00:04:54):Even in places,(00:04:55):actually,(00:04:55):the northeastern Nigeria,(00:04:57):where I started to do some work on kind of apprenticeship programs,(00:05:00):there's a lot of attention being paid to addressing essentially kind of this gap.(00:05:04):Because I think ultimately,(00:05:06):and I think most political scientists have suggested that essentially kind of the(00:05:09):share of males between the age of 15 to 29 who are not engaged in school or active work,(00:05:15):in some ways can be a major source of instability.(00:05:17):And so I do see the same concerns.(00:05:21):There's certainly been an explosion in(00:05:22):in terms of tertiary institutions outside of government.(00:05:25):And so there are many more private institutions in East Africa than exist,(00:05:29):say,(00:05:29):you know,(00:05:30):20 or 30 years ago.(00:05:31):I don't think people are building universities or colleges at the same rate as they are in India.(00:05:36):But there's certainly kind of an attempt to respond to the exploding demand(00:05:40):And I think ultimately the question for whether there's a demographic dividend or not,(00:05:45):I mean,(00:05:45):I've certainly made the case in other fora where I've said,(00:05:48):look,(00:05:48):we need to essentially kind of take advantage of this opportunity and we need to(00:05:52):give these young people the skills to be effective in the world.(00:05:56):But I think ultimately there is kind of a bigger question about sort of can these(00:06:00):places produce the jobs and find the markets to really deploy these people?(00:06:05):Yeah,(00:06:05):so I hope we won't start the conversation by essentially kind of talking about rage(00:06:09):as opposed to the high hopes.(00:06:11):But yeah,(00:06:11):I think many places where I work are facing the similar sort of challenge of,(00:06:16):you know,(00:06:16):how do we convert this opportunity into prosperity as opposed to civil conflict?(00:06:22):Tobi: So I think for me, the rage...(00:06:25):question is sort of unavoidable.(00:06:29):Perhaps the evidence might tell us differently, but at least on some level of perception.(00:06:35):Certainly, it's a story that resonates with me.(00:06:39):I mean,(00:06:40):I live in Lagos,(00:06:41):Nigeria,(00:06:42):and I can certainly tell from my observation that you see an army of young men from,(00:06:50):say,(00:06:51):18 to 25 with(00:06:53):absolutely nothing to do, you know, just walking the streets, standing on the corner.(00:06:59):So what I want to tease out with my next question is the intersection of skills and jobs, you know.(00:07:08):So on the one hand, there's been this great expansion.(00:07:12):I think it's certainly true, also of Nigeria, the expansion in tertiary education is crazy.(00:07:19):Like private schools must be(00:07:23):Now,(00:07:23):I don't have the data immediately,(00:07:25):but I think private universities must now outnumber public universities in Nigeria.(00:07:30):You can certainly see the same trend in secondary schools.(00:07:33):But at the same time,(00:07:34):when you speak to employers,(00:07:36):the story they tell is that,(00:07:38):yes,(00:07:39):there's a lot of schooling,(00:07:40):but these folks are not really skilled.(00:07:43):And then recently,(00:07:45):the National Bureau of Statistics did a labour market survey and what they found is(00:07:49):like 97% of jobs in Nigeria are still in the informal sector,(00:07:55):right?(00:07:56):So is it that we are not creating enough formal sector jobs or the inadequate(00:08:06):formal sector job is itself a consequence of the quality of education?(00:08:12):James: That's a great question.(00:08:14):Let me try and take a stab at it.(00:08:15):So my view is that clearly causation is running in both directions.(00:08:19):But I actually would say that,(00:08:20):in fact,(00:08:21):I think it's the absence of better jobs that is possibly keeping down the quality(00:08:26):of education more than essentially kind of the other way around.(00:08:29):You know, we've written about the demographic dividend in, say, Southeast Asia.(00:08:33):I think those were places where, in fact, the export markets essentially kind of provided lots of jobs.(00:08:38):And it wasn't that the people first got education and then got the jobs.(00:08:42):I mean, you know, in some ways, the question is, why do people get educated?(00:08:45):There's a nice paper that talks about,(00:08:47):ultimately,(00:08:47):should we worry about education policy and improving quality of schools?(00:08:51):Or should we worry about how to essentially kind of grow the economy, expand opportunities?(00:08:56):And then in some ways, people will then respond(00:08:59):to those opportunities by getting the education that essentially maximises those opportunities.(00:09:05):One way we can generate lots of opportunities is to come up with great new ideas.(00:09:09):Great new ideas create new markets,(00:09:11):and you could argue that innovation requires a high-quality education system.(00:09:16):But I think for many countries that are growing from the levels where Nigeria,(00:09:21):Kenya,(00:09:21):Zimbabwe are at the moment,(00:09:23):My sense is I don't know that the kind of innovation that we're talking about is(00:09:27):essentially kind of the most important thing.(00:09:28):I think the lowest cost path is to find manufacturing related markets where,(00:09:34):in fact,(00:09:34):you can employ lots of people, where you don't need people to have PhDs and be(00:09:39):creating patents to get the economy started.(00:09:41):I suspect Jishnu might have a very different take on this.(00:09:43):But I think my view is it's the opportunities first that shape the education system(00:09:48):rather than output of the education system in some ways failing the country.(00:09:52):Even though I should say I think both of these directions are important,(00:09:55):I think, I certainly would put much more weight on the former.(00:09:59):Jishnu: So, Tobi, your podcaster is Ideas Untrapped?(00:10:02):And the second part you didn't tell us, it's like Speakers Trapped.(00:10:06):I mean, that's one of the deepest questions I've heard in a long time.(00:10:12):And I'm going to push it back as a question to you and James, but it's a question that worries me.(00:10:18):And just to quickly summarise,(00:10:20):you probably already know this,(00:10:21):but just to summarise kind of three big thought pieces that are out there.(00:10:26):So Dan Rodrik,(00:10:27):Kennedy School's been arguing that countries that are not already doing a lot of(00:10:31):manufacturing have basically missed the manufacturing bus.(00:10:36):And he's arguing that unlike, say, the U.S.(00:10:39):or U.K.,(00:10:40):which deindustrialised much later down the employment chain,(00:10:45):a lot of countries,(00:10:47):including Brazil,(00:10:48):including other places,(00:10:49):are deindustrialising prematurely,(00:10:51):right?(00:10:52):So he's saying, look, the manufacturing bus is lost.(00:10:54):I mean, if you think you're going to generate those jobs through manufacturing, it's gone.(00:10:59):I don't know how right these are, but let's just put these out there.(00:11:03):And then interestingly, Rohit Lamba, who is an economics professor, has this(00:11:10):very interesting book with Raghu Rajan,(00:11:12):who was earlier our central bank governor and professor at Chicago,(00:11:17):basically arguing that if India has to grow…(00:11:20):So this is similar to Dani and they're saying,(00:11:23):you know,(00:11:23):it has to kind of give up on this idea of manufacturing and move to really high(00:11:27):scale services and patents.(00:11:29):Right.(00:11:30):And for that, a whole host of changes are necessary.(00:11:34):So then it kind of comes back to this big question of if you are able to create(00:11:41):these really high skilled people coming out of the schooling system and the(00:11:46):university system,(00:11:47):will you be able to transition to a great service economy?(00:11:51):And I'm going to put that question back to you,(00:11:54):but kind of argue two pieces there,(00:11:57):which,(00:11:58):you know,(00:11:58):I didn't find in Rohit and Raghu Rajan's book or in Dani's thinking.(00:12:02):One is,(00:12:03):look,(00:12:03):if you ask people,(00:12:05):and I think this is definitely true for India,(00:12:07):I think this is true for many countries in Africa,(00:12:09):what do you want from the government,(00:12:11):right?(00:12:11):They don't get upset.(00:12:12):Like, I've never talked to a parent, and I've talked to many parents, but(00:12:16):they don't get upset at the schooling system.(00:12:18):You ask them, hey, why is your kid not doing great?(00:12:21):They'll blame the kid.(00:12:22):It's like, oh, she doesn't study enough or he doesn't study enough.(00:12:25):They will almost never say, look, the teacher is a disaster.(00:12:29):They'll never say, oh, the schooling is a disaster.(00:12:31):They'll say, it's my kid, right?(00:12:32):Because they see some kids do well and they see some kids not do well and they're like,(00:12:37):oh,(00:12:37):that's the kid.(00:12:38):On the other hand, so when you ask them, what do you want from the government?(00:12:42):The number one priority is we need jobs.(00:12:45):Now, I don't know, and I'd love to hear from you and James on two things.(00:12:50):One is,(00:12:50):do you think we can shift or do you think it's even worth saying,(00:12:55):you know,(00:12:56):how does the government shift expectations from we want a job to we want our(00:13:03):schools and universities to function at a totally different level,(00:13:06):right?(00:13:07):Do you think politicians are willing to take the risk of saying,(00:13:10):hey,(00:13:10):if we give you really good schools,(00:13:12):but you don't get the jobs,(00:13:15):you will still re-elect us.(00:13:17):I don't know.(00:13:17):And I want to hear what you guys have to say about that.(00:13:20):And the second one,(00:13:21):Tobi,(00:13:21):that people are underestimating,(00:13:23):and I'm more and more sure in 20 years is going to become a major dynamic,(00:13:27):is that Europe is running out of people,(00:13:30):right?(00:13:30):I mean, the fertility rates are really low now.(00:13:33):At some stage, they're going to have to get over their racism and bring people in.(00:13:38):I don't know who these people coming in are, right?(00:13:40):A big proportion of them are going to be nurses, right?(00:13:44):nurses who are comfortable working with old people, right?(00:13:48):So we used to think exactly, as James said, export-led.(00:13:51):Now, Nigeria already exports a lot of doctors, right?(00:13:54):I mean, we know exactly how big that export industry has been.(00:13:58):But are we also thinking about a totally different scale of migration into Europe?(00:14:05):And what do those skills look like?(00:14:09):Because I think in 20 years,(00:14:10):this conversation we're going to have is going to take on a completely different tone.(00:14:13):Migration is going to be a big part of it.(00:14:15):You know, how our countries are sending people to other countries is going to be a big part of it.(00:14:21):And I don't know where that leads.(00:14:22):So let me put those two questions back to you and James.(00:14:26):I mean,(00:14:26):this one about are we willing to transition to politicians saying jobs are really(00:14:31):the private sector and you guys,(00:14:33):we are going to give you the skills.(00:14:35):And second,(00:14:36):Are we thinking hard about the fact that given how much European fertility is(00:14:41):declining and other countries' fertility is declining,(00:14:45):that they're going to need people for all kinds of jobs?(00:14:49):And is that something on the political horizon?(00:14:52):And I don't know the answers to these two things.(00:14:54):So let me tee that back to you as a question.(00:14:58):Tobi: I think James should go first.(00:15:00):James: You know, this is the trouble with having Jishnu on.(00:15:02):He's supposed to be answering the questions, but now he's asking a lot of the questions.(00:15:06):No, these are the most important questions I think facing certainly our field of development economics.(00:15:12):And so I think on the second question about(00:15:15):Does the government, is the government willing to change the offer, right?(00:15:20):The social contract, change the terms of the contract to say, look, you're on your own.(00:15:26):We'll give you the tools you need.(00:15:28):You know, I don't know.(00:15:29):But let me just say that from what I've observed in a number of places,(00:15:32):including even in northeastern Nigeria,(00:15:34):in Adamawa State,(00:15:35):where we started some work,(00:15:36):but then it got caught up in essentially kind of the impeachment of a governor(00:15:40):there a few years ago.(00:15:41):No, I think that it's extremely hard to change the terms of the contract.(00:15:45):I think that voters are thinking about their bottom lines.(00:15:48):They're not thinking about,(00:15:49):you know,(00:15:50):give me the tools and I will do the work myself to put food on my table.(00:15:53):So I'm not sure that's an easy thing to do.(00:15:55):And if I think about sort of(00:15:57):what a number of governments in East Africa essentially kind of doing,(00:16:00):at least in this domain,(00:16:01):you know,(00:16:02):I think they find themselves having to come up with all sorts of cash transfer and(00:16:08):other labor market support programs because ultimately it's not enough for them to say,(00:16:12):hey,(00:16:12):you know,(00:16:13):schooling is free because ultimately,(00:16:15):as Tobi said,(00:16:16):when you see those guys walking the streets,(00:16:19):it's not like they stop asking,(00:16:20):where is the job that I was promised?(00:16:22):I think this deep implicit promise is very, very hard to shift.(00:16:25):But to your second question, I'm curious what Tobi will have to say to this.(00:16:29):The second question on the global demographic structures and maybe the future of jobs,(00:16:35):and yes,(00:16:35):the Rodrik and Raghu and Rohit kind of claim that the manufacturing bus has left(00:16:41):the station.(00:16:42):First of all, I'm not entirely sure that I completely buy it, but of course, we're also in the age of(00:16:47):AI and more powerful machines that are essentially kind of around the corner.(00:16:50):So it is possible that maybe that bus has left the station.(00:16:53):And so maybe the future of,(00:16:54):you know,(00:16:54):the kinds of jobs that will create opportunities for this large group of young(00:16:58):people in Africa and in India is essentially kind of in the service sector.(00:17:01):And,(00:17:02):you know,(00:17:02):I already see some of that,(00:17:04):you know,(00:17:04):so in East Africa,(00:17:05):they're big migrant worker,(00:17:07):essentially kind of programs with the Middle East.(00:17:09):They are straddled with lots of problems around abuse and exploitation.(00:17:14):But I can tell you that if you get on a plane to Dubai or Qatar,(00:17:19):that in some ways many of the people that will be surrounding me will be a lot of(00:17:23):very young people going to work(00:17:25):Either essentially kind of inside people's homes or in some cases as baristas and construction workers.(00:17:30):So I think that's already started.(00:17:32):And in the places where it's politically, I guess, feasible to do.(00:17:35):I mean,(00:17:36):I think,(00:17:36):yes,(00:17:37):Europe,(00:17:37):Japan,(00:17:38):North America,(00:17:39):you know,(00:17:39):yeah,(00:17:40):I think those are places where in some ways the political barriers remain(00:17:42):quite strong.(00:17:43):But I do think that politicians are certainly looking at a lot of these programs.(00:17:48):I believe in Kenya just recently signed an agreement with Germany along these lines(00:17:52):of basically being able to essentially kind of having some guest worker programs.(00:17:55):So I think this is top of mind and it in some ways reflects perhaps the difficulty(00:17:59):of kind of changing this contract between voters and their governments.(00:18:03):Jishnu: Ah, super.(00:18:03):And I just wanted to add one more thing to this,(00:18:05):Tobi,(00:18:06):for your next question,(00:18:07):which is,(00:18:08):you know,(00:18:08):if you look at Kenyans,(00:18:09):Nigerians,(00:18:10):I suspect,(00:18:11):Indians,(00:18:11):I mean,(00:18:12):we are ingenious people,(00:18:14):right?(00:18:15):When I came to the US for my PhD, you know, they would teach that the US is a free market.(00:18:19):I was like, you guys have no idea what a free market is.(00:18:22):A free market is when,(00:18:24):you know,(00:18:24):there's a traffic jam and the bus breaks down and you have 30 vendors come to your(00:18:28):spot in five minutes.(00:18:30):Tobi: Yep, Jishnu: right?(00:18:31):Selling everything under the sun.(00:18:33):That's a free market.(00:18:35):A free market is not having any clue what your tax is going to charge because(00:18:38):everyone's going to negotiate depending on whether it's raining,(00:18:41):where you're going,(00:18:42):what time of day it is,(00:18:43):right?(00:18:44):That's a free market.(00:18:45):And very fascinating,(00:18:46):you know,(00:18:47):Rem Koolhaas,(00:18:48):the architect,(00:18:50):he worked in Lagos for like eight years and they have this wonderful book called Lagos: How it Works.(00:18:55):And recently, well, not, I don't know, recently, a while back, I think, his co-author, Kunle Adeyemi(00:19:01):I hope I'm pronouncing it right.(00:19:04):And it's fascinating what they said.(00:19:05):They have a Guardian interview where they said,(00:19:07):look,(00:19:07):Lagos in 1997 was this fascinating city where the government wasn't there,(00:19:12):but still people created a lot of structures that allowed that city to function at(00:19:17):a fairly high level.(00:19:18):I don't know whether you agree with that.(00:19:20):I don't know Lagos at all.(00:19:21):And in that interview, you know, at that point, the state had really withdrawn from Lagos.(00:19:26):The city was left to its own devices, both in terms of money and services.(00:19:31):That, by definition, created an unbelievable proliferation of independent agency.(00:19:36):Each citizen needed to take in any day maybe 400 or 500 independent decisions on(00:19:42):how to survive in an extremely complex system.(00:19:47):That was why the title of the book became Lagos: How it Works,(00:19:49):because it was the ultimate dysfunctional city.(00:19:52):But actually, in terms of all the initiatives and ingenuities,(00:19:56):It mobilised an incredibly beautiful, almost utopian landscape of independence and agency.(00:20:02):At this point,(00:20:03):you know,(00:20:04):and James,(00:20:04):I don't know whether that social contract will be able to change it,(00:20:07):but the ingenuity of our populations is just through the roof.(00:20:13):So we have a sense of how to move it forward and thinking about what are the(00:20:17):guardrails we need,(00:20:19):right,(00:20:19):in this kind of new world that's coming up is,(00:20:23):I think,(00:20:23):the key question.(00:20:24):Tobi: Hmm.(00:20:25):Before I jump to my next question, I'm certainly not as skilled as you guys.(00:20:31):So my observations are just going to be a layman's observation, basically.(00:20:37):On Jishnu's point, first of all, Rodrik has to at least I’ve extended an invitation to him.(00:20:46):He has to clarify a lot of things with that new paper.(00:20:49):Because for years, he has been arguing the opposite.(00:20:55):When people point out that,(00:20:58):yeah,(00:20:59):a lot of low income countries are stuck in low productivity,(00:21:03):informal services jobs.(00:21:04):And, you know, perhaps the question should be how to make those productive.(00:21:11):I think Rodrik is one of the people that has been arguing that,(00:21:14):no,(00:21:14):you need manufacturing to really,(00:21:16):really,(00:21:16):you know,(00:21:17):do the structural transformation.(00:21:19):So I don't know why or if the evidence that he has now is sufficiently robust to(00:21:25):like shift really,(00:21:27):really big.(00:21:28):But I mean, for Rajan and… Rajan, for example, has been like pushing that view for a while.(00:21:37):I think I've heard a few speeches before that book.(00:21:41):especially on the construction question.(00:21:43):So I'll give you an example.(00:21:44):In Nigeria,(00:21:45):for example,(00:21:46):the two largest private employers are construction firms,(00:21:52):Julius Berger and the other Chinese company.(00:21:55):The third largest is a microcredit bank, right?(00:21:59):So I agree with Rajan that construction is something that might(00:22:07):provide that sort of soft landing in terms of large-scale employment creation that(00:22:13):manufacturing is for some countries.(00:22:17):But as for manufacturing bus leaving the station,(00:22:22):again,(00:22:22):I'm skeptical because if you look at what Bangladesh has been able to do,(00:22:27):yes,(00:22:27):they are struggling with diversification away from textile.(00:22:32):If you look at what Vietnam has been able to do,(00:22:36):on manufacturing, then you see that, okay, well, maybe there's still some hope there.(00:22:44):In my own view,(00:22:45):I think the challenge would be how democracies manage to create… low income(00:22:54):democracies manage to create a highly productive industrial sectors.(00:23:00):So, and I think all eyes will be on India for the next decade.(00:23:05):you know, how the attention, the investment and everything coming in now can create that(00:23:13):China-like story.(00:23:15):All eyes will be on India.(00:23:16):And if India manages to make that a success story,(00:23:20):I think it provides a good example for how other democracies will… where the social(00:23:26):contract provides a bit of tension,(00:23:29):like you said.(00:23:30):And I agree with James.(00:23:31):It's difficult.(00:23:33):Again, if I want to use Nigeria as an example, electoral politics right now is largely redistributive.(00:23:42):You know,(00:23:42):if you want to shift spending and public investment towards something with,(00:23:48):you know,(00:23:49):a little more delayed gratification,(00:23:52):I'm not sure that politicians are willing to take that risk.(00:23:58):And secondly,(00:24:00):I would say that even if you find a government that is willing to take that leap,(00:24:05):you're going to run into some serious fiscal challenges that you need to figure out.(00:24:12):Macroeconomically, a lot of our economies in Africa are challenged.(00:24:17):The debt burden is a huge, huge topic.(00:24:21):So the kind of financing necessary to improve your education sector,(00:24:28):I think a lot of governments look at that and they would rather spend a fraction of(00:24:34):that on cash transfer schemes and expanding(00:24:39):public employment, public sector jobs.(00:24:43):So if we are able to figure out the finance and the level of fiscal investment that(00:24:51):that is going to take,(00:24:52):that is a question mark that would need to be resolved,(00:24:55):which,(00:24:56):I don't know,(00:24:57):then leads me to my next question.(00:24:59):Again, on the quality of education, what are the low-hanging fruits that(00:25:09):are available.(00:25:10):If we are trying to, say, improve the quality.(00:25:14):You know,(00:25:14):like I said earlier,(00:25:15):you speak to a lot of employers,(00:25:17):they tell you that a lot of graduates,(00:25:19):yes,(00:25:20):they are schooled,(00:25:21):but they are not skilled enough.(00:25:23):They are poorly matched to the job they are applying for.(00:25:28):For example,(00:25:29):most of the people you find in the financial sector in Nigeria are people who(00:25:35):graduated from STEM subjects.(00:25:39):Mathematics students,(00:25:40):engineering students,(00:25:42):physics students,(00:25:43):chemistry students,(00:25:44):they come out of school and they go straight to the financial sector,(00:25:48):to the banking jobs,(00:25:49):investment banking,(00:25:50):advisory consulting.(00:25:52):And to be honest,(00:25:55):you can say that if you have a thriving STEM sector,(00:25:59):they will be poorly matched because they did not actually get that STEM education.(00:26:06):You know, I went through the Nigerian schooling system.(00:26:09):I can tell you how much practical, laboratory or experimental work I did.(00:26:16):Very little, you know.(00:26:18):So what are the low hanging fruits to improve the quality of education?(00:26:25):Because we seem to have gotten ourselves into,(00:26:29):to use a phrase I first learned from Lant,(00:26:32):isomorphic mimicry,(00:26:34):you know.(00:26:34):We have graduates,(00:26:36):we have tertiary institutions,(00:26:37):but the quality is certainly not the same across the world.(00:26:43):James: Let me give this a crack and then I'll let Jishnu polish up my response.(00:26:46):So I don't know that there are necessarily low-hanging fruit.(00:26:49):I mean,(00:26:50):in some ways,(00:26:51):I think the way to think about an education system is that the people who are(00:26:54):producing the outputs are also essentially kind of products of that education system.(00:26:58):And so,(00:26:58):yes,(00:26:58):I certainly think that if you want to improve the education system,(00:27:01):you have to start with the teachers.(00:27:03):And then you have to make it easy for the teachers to essentially kind of do their job.(00:27:06):And in a context of a historical and,(00:27:08):you know,(00:27:09):pretty unprecedented expansion of schooling,(00:27:12):you know,(00:27:12):over the last 50 years,(00:27:13):you know,(00:27:13):these school systems have expanded very,(00:27:15):very rapidly.(00:27:16):The curriculum that essentially kind of is being taught,(00:27:18):I mean,(00:27:19):you know,(00:27:19):when you were talking Tobi,(00:27:20):I thought,(00:27:20):OK,(00:27:21):you probably had the same curriculum that I went through,(00:27:23):which was,(00:27:23):I think,(00:27:24):in some ways quite challenging.(00:27:25):And if you went to a good school,(00:27:27):you had good teachers and you were surrounded by students who actually were well(00:27:31):prepared to learn.(00:27:32):But my sense is an expanding kind of school system cannot maintain the same degree(00:27:37):of difficulty of the curriculum.(00:27:38):Or even these things like,(00:27:39):you know,(00:27:40):the language of instruction is a language that nobody speaks at home.(00:27:43):And so the teachers might be struggling to teach in English or French or whatever language,(00:27:48):you know,(00:27:48):in many places.(00:27:49):Tanzania and Kenya may be in some ways a little bit different.(00:27:52):So I do think making it easy for teachers requires changing the curriculum and(00:27:56):making it easy for students to learn.(00:27:57):But,(00:27:58):you know,(00:27:58):also realising that teachers now deal with,(00:28:01):you know,(00:28:01):in Tanzania where I work,(00:28:03):the average class size for a first grader is on an order of 80 to 100 kids.(00:28:07):And teaching in that environment is not easy.(00:28:10):And so the low-hanging fruit, I think the low-hanging fruit, in fact, is not that low-hanging in my view.(00:28:15):It's really essentially kind of to have to invest a good deal more in early childhood(00:28:19):education and to really try and make it easy for that first grade teacher to(00:28:23):actually be able to give kids the skills they need.(00:28:26):There's a really nice paper,(00:28:27):and Jishnu can say a bit more about this,(00:28:29):that sort of looks at a panel of kids from four countries,(00:28:32):I think is Young Lives Data,(00:28:33):and compares Vietnam,(00:28:35):Chile,(00:28:35):and I believe India and Ethiopia.(00:28:37):And of course, you know, Vietnam is a high-performing education system.(00:28:41):But it suggests,(00:28:41):at least to some extent,(00:28:43):that much of that great performance actually comes from the fact that the kids at(00:28:47):age five are doing much,(00:28:48):much better in Vietnam than they are in the other countries.(00:28:51):And that if you condition essentially kind of where they start,(00:28:54):you know,(00:28:54):the trajectories don't look so,(00:28:55):so different but if you focus their starting at a much better level.(00:28:58):that in fact, they're going to learn much more.(00:29:00):That I don't consider a low-hanging fruit.(00:29:02):I actually think that's a pretty significant investment.(00:29:05):And I think a number of countries are starting to take this seriously,(00:29:08):which is to say,(00:29:09):should we expand the age range for which we publicly fund education,(00:29:14):say from age six,(00:29:15):and maybe even think about starting to fund education from age four?(00:29:19):Because I think it makes it much,(00:29:20):much easier to give kids the foundational skills that then make them,(00:29:23):I think,(00:29:24):much more productive workers.(00:29:26):So I don't think it's low-hanging fruit, but in fact, I think of these two things.(00:29:29):Start young and make it easy for the teachers to teach,(00:29:32):whether that includes changing the language of instruction,(00:29:35):whether it makes it easy for teachers to spend more time teaching kids the(00:29:39):foundational skills.(00:29:40):So don't make kids at age six learn five or six different subjects.(00:29:44):Maybe focus it on two or three.(00:29:46):I think all of those things for me are ways to make it easy to really give kids the(00:29:50):skills that they need to learn when they're 10,(00:29:52):12,(00:29:52):and 16.(00:29:54):Jishnu: I guess I'm confused about things a little bit, but I'll tell you where my confusion is.(00:29:59):So I've heard people say, you know, our education systems are not actually designed to build skills.(00:30:05):They're selection systems, you know, by which they mean.(00:30:09):We are remnants of the British systems.(00:30:11):And the idea was,(00:30:13):can we squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and see who's going to be a good person for(00:30:17):the British to take on or something?(00:30:20):I don't think they're a selection system at all,(00:30:21):because if they're a selection system,(00:30:23):then we should see that in every grade as we go up and up and up,(00:30:28):only certain kids are making it forward who are the best kids with the best test scores.(00:30:32):And that's not happening.(00:30:34):[No] Data showing that, you know.(00:30:35):There's just no evidence that the kids who are very smart are invested in a lot more in our system.(00:30:43):So I think one thing that I think is or not is actually sitting down and chatting(00:30:49):about what the hell do we want our education systems to look like.(00:30:53):And a good starting point is to say what kind of budgets are reasonable.(00:30:57):So, you know, I think this is right, right?(00:30:59):But the Nigerian education budget 2024 was what, about $2.2 billion or something?(00:31:05):Is that right?(00:31:06):Tobi: Yeah, something like that.(00:31:07):Yeah.(00:31:08):Jishnu: And I think Nigeria should have, what, about 35 million students.(00:31:12):You know, that's like $60 a student.(00:31:15):The place where I live in the U.S.,(00:31:17):which is called Montgomery County,(00:31:20):the public school system has about 160,000 students and a budget of 3 billion.(00:31:27):We might be just off the mark.(00:31:30):by hundreds and thousands of dollars in how much we're leaving on the table by not(00:31:36):investing in the education system.(00:31:38):So I think the biggest low-hanging fruit is the mistake that we have made.(00:31:43):I mean,(00:31:43):I think it's incumbent on us as researchers and profs and scholars to say,(00:31:49):give the politicians the damn numbers,(00:31:52):right?(00:31:52):We need to give them very clear numbers on if you manage to invest and improve the quality of schools,(00:32:00):then 15 years later, these are the wage returns you're going to see.(00:32:05):The mistake is ours.(00:32:07):The deficiency is ours because I am sure that if we were able to give them the(00:32:12):right numbers,(00:32:12):there would be a groundswell,(00:32:15):both among the politicians and among people to say we should be increasing our(00:32:20):education budgets not by 1,(00:32:21):2,(00:32:21):20%,(00:32:21):30%,(00:32:21):but by 6,000%,(00:32:21):right?(00:32:26):And hopefully,(00:32:27):you know,(00:32:27):in a couple of years,(00:32:28):at least from a few countries like these Young Lives or other places,(00:32:30):we'll have some of those numbers.(00:32:32):And I think we'll all be shocked at how big the returns could really be.(00:32:38):So I think the big low hanging fruit is to actually put the evidence and have that(00:32:44):discussion on what is it that we want our education system to do,(00:32:48):right?(00:32:48):And how much should we be investing in it?(00:32:50):And at what point?(00:32:51):And I think that discussion, including James's idea of how much should we invest in early childhood?(00:32:56):Do we want it to be a selection system or not?(00:32:58):Given our money, where can we go?(00:33:01):You know, how do we invest in the teachers, given that so many teachers are tenured?(00:33:05):Should we park some older teachers?(00:33:07):Getting some young guys who are teched up, know how to use the technology, the AI may change things.(00:33:12):You know,(00:33:13):all of these,(00:33:14):I think we need to have a forum where we are discussing it in our countries on a(00:33:19):regular monthly basis.(00:33:21):I think that's going to make a huge change moving forward.(00:33:24):And our big job is to give you the evidence to take that forward.(00:33:28):Great point.(00:33:29):I fully agree that there are high returns.(00:33:31):I'm not sure that I agree necessarily that people are not sharing this evidence.(00:33:35):You're right that in some ways I think the kind of evidence that is shared perhaps(00:33:38):is more short-term in nature,(00:33:40):right?(00:33:40):But I wonder whether in fact, and this is a question for you, Tobi.(00:33:43):Whether,(00:33:44):in fact,(00:33:44):the political system as it is and essentially kind of this,(00:33:47):you know,(00:33:48):electoral competition makes it very,(00:33:50):very difficult for any sort of policymaker to say,(00:33:53):I'm going to make this deep investment that pays off in 10 or 15 years.(00:33:58):And, you know, we will all be better off because of it.(00:34:01):And I hope to persuade the voters that they should essentially kind of,(00:34:04):you know,(00:34:04):carry this burden with me.(00:34:06):And, you know, things might not be great in the short run when I'm up for re-election.(00:34:10):But this is something we need to do.(00:34:12):I don't know the Nigeria numbers as well as I know the numbers in East Africa.(00:34:16):You know,(00:34:16):Nigeria's education still accounts for,(00:34:18):you know,(00:34:19):20 to 25 percent of the budget in many places.(00:34:22):And it's coming down because,(00:34:24):in fact,(00:34:24):there's actually now pressure from other sectors to say we need roads and we need(00:34:28):other kinds of investments.(00:34:29):But I get the sense that teacher,(00:34:31):you know,(00:34:31):enrolments are essentially kind of the largest category of worker they pay.(00:34:35):They spend a lot of their government resources on remunerating teachers.(00:34:39):I don't know that there is actually a lot of additional money around to really make(00:34:44):these big investments.(00:34:45):Sure,(00:34:45):they could go to the World Bank and other bilateral donors and say,(00:34:49):you know,(00:34:49):give us the billions we need to buy ed tech or do this big teacher training program.(00:34:54):I think they are in some ways, you know, quite constrained.(00:34:57):And I don't know that it's the evidence that's lacking as kind of the most binding constraint.(00:35:02):I think that the politics and the budget are more important, but I could be wrong.(00:35:06):Tobi: That's fantastic.(00:35:09):I still partially think that Jisnu is right.(00:35:12):And from my experience, so one example I'll give is I was at a conference two years ago.(00:35:18):And an outgoing state governor was on the panel.(00:35:23):And one of the things he said, which actually kind of resonated with me, was that we are politicians.(00:35:32):We don't know everything.(00:35:34):As a matter of fact,(00:35:35):he said that their knowledge is pretty limited and that the way the political(00:35:40):system… now,(00:35:41):it may as well just be describing Nigeria,(00:35:43):possibly.(00:35:44):The way the political system is,(00:35:46):is that when there is a knowledge vacuum,(00:35:50):other things tend to fill that,(00:35:53):which is a lot of political sycophants surround them.(00:35:58):And of course, lots of interests.(00:36:00):You know, I want you to give my cousin a job.(00:36:03):And these are political connections.(00:36:06):He basically said that within a short period of time,(00:36:09):they are surrounded in this bubble where almost no real actual knowledge about the(00:36:16):society they are making policy for penetrates that bubble.(00:36:22):For me, it certainly rings true.(00:36:24):And I'll tell you,(00:36:25):part of the reason why I started this podcast is to sort of create a connection(00:36:30):between policy and research,(00:36:34):you know,(00:36:35):with the politicians and the citizens as well.(00:36:38):Because if citizens are also quite well informed, they can ask the right questions.(00:36:44):So I think that while we are focused on(00:36:47):a lot on the incentive problem for our political system.(00:36:51):The knowledge problem is there, but it's not getting all the attention.(00:36:57):So you can have a senator or a House of Representatives member in Nigeria with as much as 50 to 70 aides.(00:37:07):And they are all media people.(00:37:10):There are no technical people on their staff.(00:37:13):People that can actually pass them briefing notes on(00:37:17):what policy is,(00:37:19):what the current evidence is,(00:37:21):what is the latest research on the particular committee that that rep member or(00:37:28):senator is chairing in the National Assembly.(00:37:32):So there's a disconnect(00:37:34):in how knowledge penetrates the political system, certainly.(00:37:39):And I don't know if it is researchers that can make a lot of difference here.(00:37:43):There are certainly a lot of other players,(00:37:45):stakeholders,(00:37:46):people in the non-governmental sector,(00:37:47):people like me,(00:37:49):media,(00:37:49):that can make a lot of contribution here to make sure that the evidence,(00:37:54):the numbers,(00:37:55):the knowledge really,(00:37:56):really rings and it's loud enough to get the attention of political players.(00:38:03):So that's my view.(00:38:05):Jishnu: I appreciate both sides of this debate(00:38:08):And I want to know whether,(00:38:10):you know,(00:38:11):I almost feel,(00:38:12):Tobi,(00:38:12):that we need to do some experiments like,(00:38:15):you know,(00:38:15):like if you put in aides who actually know the policy a little bit,(00:38:20):if we bring in some students and work with the governors and this kind of stuff on this,(00:38:25):will things start changing?(00:38:27):I'd love to get some answers to that because, frankly, you're right.(00:38:32):We need to get these answers down.(00:38:34):Tobi: Yeah.(00:38:35):James: So Tobi, a lot of these senators and governors, they are pretty sophisticated actors.(00:38:40):There's no shortage of very technical and experienced folks in Nigeria and outside(00:38:45):of Nigeria that these guys could talk to,(00:38:47):right?(00:38:47):And by the way,(00:38:48):I do agree with you that your podcast is a really powerful vehicle for connecting(00:38:53):ideas and policy and implementations.(00:38:56):This is an important avenue,(00:38:57):also because in some ways,(00:38:58):I think sometimes the ideas that researchers produce and other technical folks are(00:39:02):locked away in formats that are just generally not readily available to the kinds(00:39:07):of people who actually need them.(00:39:08):And so I think a conversation is a good way to essentially kind of get that started.(00:39:11):And I think even the pressure that will come from voters who listen to your podcast(00:39:16):is powerful.(00:39:17):Stefan Dercon has a book called,(00:39:19):you know,(00:39:19):I think,(00:39:20):Gambling on Development,(00:39:21):which is to say,(00:39:22):you know,(00:39:22):ideas in the abstract can be powerful ways of transforming systems.(00:39:27):But the actual work of actually translating ideas and implementing them is risky.(00:39:33):And so for a politician to take on these risks,(00:39:35):I don't think many are going to be willing to say,(00:39:37):I'm going to sink all my political capital in this big program.(00:39:40):It takes a long time, is uncertain, is subject to all sorts of other essential kind of shocks.(00:39:45):and fiscal risks and reversals and so on.(00:39:48):You know,(00:39:48):so that for me weighs a bit more heavily than he's a guy who wants to do great(00:39:53):things and is just casting around for ideas and they're just nothing to be found.(00:39:57):I think they meet with lots of technocrats and other people who tell them this and that,(00:40:02):but ultimately they have to think,(00:40:04):can I pull this off?(00:40:05):Can I do good and still essentially be successful as a politician?(00:40:08):And I think that calculus is still maybe as important as the landscape of ideas that they're exposed to.(00:40:14):Jishnu: Yeah, I mean, I don't know that much about politics and politicians.(00:40:18):I always have a hopeful view of the future and of our compatriots.(00:40:23):And I feel politicians should be creatures of our own creation.(00:40:28):And I've seen the democracy work,(00:40:31):you know,(00:40:31):and when we put democratic pressure and bring a coalition together,(00:40:34):it matters.(00:40:35):So I'm going to be the hopeful guy here.(00:40:38):Look, I think, Tobi, what you're doing is super important.(00:40:41):And I think as it starts to deepen and these kind of engagements deepen,(00:40:45):you know,(00:40:45):as long as we on our side are providing reasonable data,(00:40:49):evidence that you can have good discussions on the basis of,(00:40:53):maybe things will start evolving.(00:40:56):Tobi: So along the line of this conversation, I was thinking one curious question about health.(00:41:03):of generally what we call healthcare here.(00:41:06):Again, this might just be my imagination going wild.(00:41:11):So from an incentive point of view,(00:41:15):how much do you think that global public health interventions interferes with the(00:41:23):incentive to invest in healthcare locally?(00:41:27):So I'll give you an example.(00:41:29):Recently,(00:41:30):Bill Gates was in Nigeria a couple of weeks ago to talk about malnutrition,(00:41:35):which is now a very big problem,(00:41:38):particularly in northern Nigeria,(00:41:40):because in the last decade or so,(00:41:43):consistent with even previous years,(00:41:46):it's been one region of the country that is most ravaged by poverty,(00:41:51):lack of education,(00:41:53):a lot of violence and political instability,(00:41:57):and(00:41:58):Essentially, it's created this crisis.(00:42:02):The latest being malnutrition about one in four kids in northern Nigeria are now(00:42:09):chronically malnourished.(00:42:12):So recently,(00:42:13):Bill Gates was in the country to promote micronutrients and some form of technical(00:42:20):intervention that is supposed to make all the difference.(00:42:23):And(00:42:24):Yeah, of course, it's giving some money, about $600,000 for that initiative.(00:42:30):And,(00:42:30):I mean,(00:42:31):low-income countries like Nigeria are never short of such global public health interventions.(00:42:38):But at the same time,(00:42:39):I kind of worry how it interferes with the incentive,(00:42:45):again,(00:42:45):talking about politicians here,(00:42:47):to invest locally,(00:42:50):whether it is in primary health care or whatever.(00:42:53):So...(00:42:54):How does global public health interventions interfere with the incentive to invest locally?(00:43:01):Because there's always state neglect on some level when it comes to healthcare investment.(00:43:07):Jishnu: I think James will be a perfect person to answer that.(00:43:13):James: Let me take a crack.(00:43:15):I do think that the interaction of external actors in health can sometimes do more harm than good.(00:43:23):I've seen both sides of essentially kind of this,(00:43:25):where in some ways an external intervention doesn't really improve outcomes and in(00:43:30):some ways distorts a lot of the decisions that people are making.(00:43:33):But I've also seen it in many ways actually sort of bring attention to populations(00:43:37):that perhaps don't have the political clout to get the services they need,(00:43:40):right?(00:43:40):So I don't know that,(00:43:42):you know,(00:43:42):in some ways that we could conclude comfortably that in fact,(00:43:45):if these guys sort of stayed out of our business and(00:43:48):that, in fact, would make better decisions in the health sector.(00:43:51):In some ways,(00:43:52):I go back to environment where these systems are essentially kind of cash strapped(00:43:56):and they can't provide a lot of services to most of their populations.(00:44:01):And I think Jishnu has done quite a lot of work on this,(00:44:02):where in some ways,(00:44:03):a lot of these health systems in some ways have a big urban bias.(00:44:06):We spend more on hospitals and less on public health or primary health care.(00:44:12):In some ways,(00:44:13):I do think that sometimes the arrival of,(00:44:15):you know,(00:44:16):not Bill Gates per se,(00:44:17):but,(00:44:17):you know,(00:44:17):if I think about the other actors,(00:44:19):the WHO and other international actors,(00:44:22):I think they sometimes actually try and rebalance these programs to some extent.(00:44:26):But yeah, I think they can certainly do more harm than good.(00:44:28):I mean,(00:44:28):despite their maybe good intentions,(00:44:31):I certainly don't want to start any rumours that they don't have good intentions(00:44:34):because I think there's also a lot of discussions out on social media that suggest that,(00:44:38):in fact,(00:44:38):they are malevolent forces.(00:44:40):They actually don't mean well.(00:44:42):I think many times they mean well,(00:44:43):but there are sometimes unintended consequences of those interventions.(00:44:46):Jishnu: So, Tobi, here I'm going to go all Shakespearean on you.(00:44:49):And, you know, the fault, Brutus, lies not in the stars, but in us.(00:44:56):In this case, at least, you know, in the following sense, right?(00:44:59):I mean,(00:44:59):I know that Bill Gates was in Africa and there's been a bunch of articles,(00:45:03):including in the Mail and Guardian and in other places,(00:45:07):talking about farmer Gates and what he's getting wrong.(00:45:10):And in Zambia,(00:45:10):for instance,(00:45:11):there's been this big concern that,(00:45:12):look,(00:45:13):Bill Gates really,(00:45:14):according to the Mail and Guardian,(00:45:16):Simon Allison writes that he really pushed monoculture.(00:45:20):And now the country's been in a massive drought and people are suffering.(00:45:23):And earlier, people used to plant many crops.(00:45:26):And that's been a standard problem ever since the British tried to introduce indigo(00:45:30):in West Bengal,(00:45:31):right,(00:45:32):from a long time ago.(00:45:33):Now, my point is the following, which is we are a democracy.(00:45:38):So Zambia,(00:45:39):Nigeria,(00:45:40):India,(00:45:40):you know,(00:45:41):we may argue about how effective we are,(00:45:43):but frankly,(00:45:44):we gave universal suffrage to our citizens long before we got rich.(00:45:48):And it has mattered.(00:45:49):It has made a difference.(00:45:51):So my question is the following.(00:45:52):We absolutely should not go down the line of saying,(00:45:56):oh,(00:45:56):we can do everything indigenously and we'll do everything in country.(00:46:00):And who are these foreigners to come?(00:46:02):No.(00:46:02):I mean,(00:46:03):if somebody has a good idea,(00:46:04):somebody has something interesting to say,(00:46:06):absolutely listen to them.(00:46:07):It sounds to me completely bizarre to say,(00:46:10):oh,(00:46:10):we'll not take penicillin,(00:46:12):even though it's been invented because it came from a foreigner.(00:46:14):No, ideas belong to humanity.(00:46:16):And we should celebrate ideas.(00:46:18):It doesn't matter to me where the idea came from.(00:46:20):If it's a good idea, let's use it.(00:46:22):Where I think we run into problems is when we say and when we allow rich people to(00:46:30):have privileged access to our political leaders.(00:46:34):I think that's the big problem, right?(00:46:37):And it's not just rich people.(00:46:39):You know, these guys are like super rich.(00:46:40):But frankly, we allow all kinds of people access to our political leaders outside the democratic system.(00:46:46):So Bill Gates wants to come and say,(00:46:48):you guys should be growing monocultural maize or whatever he's saying.(00:46:50):I'm not an agriculturist.(00:46:51):And I do know that,(00:46:52):you know,(00:46:53):there are huge differences in productivity between African farms and American farms.(00:46:58):You know, whatever he's saying, put it in a damn newspaper.(00:47:01):Get on your podcast.(00:47:04):Make the case to the public.(00:47:06):Tobi: Yep.(00:47:07):Jishnu: That I'm totally fine with.(00:47:09):And if you want to put your money behind your case, great, right?(00:47:14):Don't go and try and sell it to the cabinet or to a particular minister without(00:47:20):going through our democratic processes.(00:47:22):And we are the people who have to go to our politicians and say,(00:47:25):look,(00:47:25):what the hell are you doing while listening to this guy without going through our processes?(00:47:29):So I don't find it a question of(00:47:33):foreigner, foreign money, not foreign money.(00:47:35):I find it a problem when it becomes this idea that somebody can come in and whisper(00:47:41):in the ears of the finance minister.(00:47:42):I think that's totally anti-democratic.(00:47:45):And we have to fight tooth and nail to make sure that that's not happening.(00:47:49):James: But Tobi,(00:47:50):I guess to this point,(00:47:52):I fully agree that there should be a very transparent process of adjudicating ideas(00:47:57):and offers of support from outside.(00:47:59):But I guess in this case,(00:48:00):what is your concern with saying here's a very short term urgent intervention to(00:48:06):address malnutrition in the context?(00:48:09):And I don't know the context very well.(00:48:10):So please inform me where,(00:48:12):in fact,(00:48:12):you know,(00:48:12):states in northern Nigeria are really struggling to really intervene.(00:48:16):Like what is the distortion that is being created by the arrival of this idea and support?(00:48:21):Tobi: I do not really have a strong objection.(00:48:25):I don't even have a strong view.(00:48:27):It's just a question of curiosity because prior to some of these issues,(00:48:34):intervention or when the problems become serious enough to get some form of(00:48:39):international attention,(00:48:42):almost often,(00:48:44):at least I can speak for Nigeria to a certain degree,(00:48:47):there have been a long neglected advocacy or(00:48:52):noise that politicians or whoever makes decisions ignore, usually for years.(00:49:01):So malnutrition in Northern Nigeria,(00:49:03):I know so many local activists who are actively involved in Northern Nigeria who(00:49:08):have been making noise about this problem for a long time.(00:49:12):In some cases,(00:49:13):four or five years ago,(00:49:14):that this is what we are seeing on the ground and this will become a problem(00:49:20):Down the line, this is a disaster we tend to happen, you know.(00:49:24):And all of a sudden,(00:49:25):Bill Gates can fly in,(00:49:26):talk about micronutrients,(00:49:28):meet the president,(00:49:29):put some money,(00:49:31):you know,(00:49:31):and then it becomes a problem that commands urgency.(00:49:35):And,(00:49:36):you know,(00:49:37):again,(00:49:37):James,(00:49:37):I hear you on the question of resources,(00:49:40):but at the same time,(00:49:42):for example,(00:49:43):if you go to northern Nigeria and you see the way the political class,(00:49:46):state governors live,(00:49:48):Of course,(00:49:49):there is resource constraint,(00:49:50):but you can also say with some level of confidence that there is misallocation(00:49:56):going on.(00:49:57):If you don't even want to lean too hard on the corruption question,(00:50:00):which is,(00:50:00):you know,(00:50:01):perennial,(00:50:02):you know,(00:50:02):there is some form of misallocation going on.(00:50:05):So I just wonder, it's more of a curiosity for me.(00:50:09):I don't have a strong view, particularly.(00:50:12):James: But I think my response to this would be to say that in some ways that the(00:50:15):political process is not tuned to really reallocate resources in the way that you(00:50:21):and I think it should.(00:50:22):So ultimately, these activists who are organising and making a lot of noise, they're not being heard.(00:50:28):So one interpretation would be to say,(00:50:29):well,(00:50:29):Bill Gates comes in and has this idea and suddenly everybody thinks,(00:50:32):you know,(00:50:32):this is something you should be paying attention to.(00:50:34):That's one interpretation.(00:50:35):And yes, going back to Jishnu's point, I mean, you know, I think the power belongs to the people.(00:50:40):in Nigeria and not to wealthy and influential outsiders.(00:50:43):But I think another view is that the activists have actually sort of broken through(00:50:47):and that sometimes you might need this assist.(00:50:50):As much as,(00:50:50):you know,(00:50:51):it's undesirable,(00:50:52):I think we all wanted a system where we don't need outsiders to advocate on behalf(00:50:56):of the people on the ground.(00:50:57):But that's another view too,(00:50:58):which is to say that suddenly these people now have a champion who can actually get(00:51:03):the attention of the political class.(00:51:05):Tobi: Yeah.(00:51:06):Jishnu: Can I add one more thing?(00:51:08):Tobi: Yes, please.(00:51:09):Yes.(00:51:09):Jishnu: So it's worth going back and saying, OK, what was maybe it's worth going back.(00:51:14):I won't claim that it is,(00:51:15):but it might be worth going back and saying,(00:51:18):OK,(00:51:18):what did people write about,(00:51:20):say,(00:51:20):colonial medicine?(00:51:21):Right.(00:51:22):Which we know is a big, big part of what anthropologists and historians have looked at.(00:51:26):Right.(00:51:27):The person whose work I found most interesting in this is David Arnold,(00:51:31):and he has this book called Colonizing the Body on British medicine in India.(00:51:35):And he basically argues that,(00:51:37):look,(00:51:37):I mean,(00:51:38):there was a huge give and take happening between both systems that gradually got(00:51:42):transformed into kind of British ideas becoming,(00:51:47):you know,(00:51:47):the British starting to think that their idea should be widely used and whatnot.(00:51:52):And it met with massive resistance.(00:51:54):But the very interesting point he makes in the last chapter of his book is because(00:51:59):of various missteps they took,(00:52:02):the Indian group started mistrusting any advice that they gave,(00:52:08):thinking that all of their advice was coloured by,(00:52:10):you know,(00:52:11):colonial,(00:52:12):how do I get the labour kind of ideas,(00:52:15):right?(00:52:16):And as a result,(00:52:17):you know,(00:52:17):one of the most troubling things for me has been there were all these sanitation(00:52:21):commissions that were set up in India.(00:52:23):And there's very nice work that Guha has done,(00:52:26):that Harrison has done,(00:52:28):showing that when these sanitation systems were put into cantonments,(00:52:32):the mortality went down dramatically.(00:52:33):Right.(00:52:34):What's really interesting is they didn't make it out of the cantonments.(00:52:38):And part of the reason seems to me and David Arnold's book kind of talks about this,(00:52:43):is people really started mistrusting the Brits and saying,(00:52:46):look,(00:52:46):you're just doing this because of X,(00:52:48):which is self-serving.(00:52:49):And that's,(00:52:50):I think,(00:52:51):one big piece that we need to avoid,(00:52:52):which is we don't want to end up in a system where we are saying no to good ideas(00:52:57):coming from outside.(00:52:59):Because we think they are corrupt.(00:53:01):No, I think that's the big risk that we need to avoid.(00:53:04):And then on the flip side is how do we actually make sure that bad ideas don't come(00:53:10):through because they are actually being supported by money that is outside the system.(00:53:15):You know,(00:53:16):the World Trade Organisation has this idea of anti-dumping,(00:53:18):which is you can't just put products at highly subsidised prices in other countries.(00:53:23):It's this anti-dumping law.(00:53:25):I think we would have an anti-dumping law for bad ideas.(00:53:28):Tobi: That sounds interesting.(00:53:31):James: But as Tobi said earlier,(00:53:32):we need essentially kind of a pretty good constellation of actors to make judgments(00:53:37):on what's a good and bad idea.(00:53:39):Jishnu: Yep.(00:53:39):And I think that given how he described essentially kind of the people around a lot(00:53:43):of these decision makers,(00:53:45):I worry that that's actually sort of not trivial.(00:53:48):Jishnu: Yeah, and I think part of that, James, is we have to do it, right?(00:53:51):I mean,(00:53:52):yes,(00:53:52):we have to suck up to the fact that our funding gets in danger,(00:53:55):that we run into all kinds of issues when we take on these things.(00:53:59):But, you know, part of our job is all to say, sorry, man, that's a really bad idea. Like,(00:54:04):Gabriel Demombynes did that for,(00:54:06):you know,(00:54:06):Sachs when they had this article on their big push, millenium covering…(00:54:10):he said,(00:54:10):look,(00:54:10):the data is not there.(00:54:11):And they had a big fight and it turned out the data was not there.(00:54:14):So I think part of what we should be doing is taking that forward and saying when(00:54:19):it's a bad idea,(00:54:20):giving people the ammunition,(00:54:21):giving Tobi the ammunition,(00:54:22):giving others the ammunition to say,(00:54:24):sorry,(00:54:24):this is a bad idea.(00:54:26):Tobi: So, I mean, this has been a wonderful conversation beyond my expectations.(00:54:31):I just have a couple of questions left.(00:54:33):So I'll go back again to another piece you wrote, Jishnu,(00:54:39):which also quite literally lit a fire in my belly,(00:54:43):where you basically challenged your colleagues in the development economics subfield,(00:54:50):you know,(00:54:51):about some moral questions that they should be asking and are not.(00:54:58):I don't know why you chose to write that piece or what you saw,(00:55:02):but the way I'm going to phrase the question to both of you is like this.(00:55:07):I know that economics generally is going through some sort of empirical phase.(00:55:15):Do you think that that has been traded up for asking the big questions that I(00:55:23):certainly believe are still relevant,(00:55:25):which is(00:55:27):Essentially, for me, how does Nigeria double its average income in the next 10 years?(00:55:35):How does places essentially get out of poverty?(00:55:41):Do you think we've abandoned trying to find answers to those kinds of questions for(00:55:48):maybe what Lant has militantly called “kinky stuff?’(00:55:55):Jishnu: James has been going first, so.(00:55:57):James: No, no, no.(00:55:58):This is a question posed and motivated by your writing, Jishnu.(00:56:03):So you should go first.(00:56:04):Jishnu: I'm happy to take a first glance at this.(00:56:06):But, Tobi, you have to warn us even to, you know, completely put us over the wringer.(00:56:11):I mean, these are very difficult.(00:56:13):So two things, I think two things.(00:56:15):I was at the World Bank when there was this whole Spence report on what causes growth.(00:56:19):And they had this line,(00:56:21):if you go back to that,(00:56:22):they had this line saying,(00:56:23):if there was a magic bullet or if there was a specific set of policy recommendations,(00:56:28):we would have come up with it.(00:56:29):We spent a lot of time on this and there isn't, right?(00:56:32):And I think if you look at what Abhijit writes,(00:56:34):if you look at Esther's idea of the plumber,(00:56:38):the economist as plumber,(00:56:39):it's saying,(00:56:40):hey,(00:56:41):can we be modest and humble about where we are and what we know?(00:56:45):And the fact of the matter is we don't have a really good set of prescriptions for(00:56:50):what growth should look like.(00:56:52):But(00:56:53):By working on all these different issues, we do start to make progress on people's lives.(00:57:01):So if you think about the Millennium Development Goals,(00:57:03):I feel the biggest thing the MDGs did was it created a deliberative process to say(00:57:09):it's not only about growth.(00:57:11):We should care about the fact that fewer children are going to die.(00:57:14):We should care about infant mortality regardless of whether it affects growth.(00:57:18):And I completely agree with that viewpoint.(00:57:21):Then what our discipline does or is doing, look, it's always the case that there's a seesaw.(00:57:28):You know, we are always on a seesaw.(00:57:31):Right.(00:57:32):And one part of that seesaw is what's going on in the world.(00:57:37):And the second part of that seesaw is let's close off a lot of things,(00:57:43):otherwise we cannot make progress,(00:57:45):right?(00:57:45):Every discipline needs to build walls around itself because if you let too many(00:57:50):things in,(00:57:51):then you don't make progress,(00:57:53):right?(00:57:54):So around the early 2000s,(00:57:56):we really had a lot of work that said what's going on around the world,(00:58:00):right?(00:58:00):So we had, oh, lots of kids are in school, but they're not learning.(00:58:03):Look, people go to doctors and they don't get the right diagnosis.(00:58:06):Look, the teachers are absent.(00:58:07):Lots of stuff, right?(00:58:09):On a lot of different things.(00:58:10):And we've made,(00:58:11):I think,(00:58:12):tremendous progress over the last 15 years in saying,(00:58:16):hey,(00:58:17):on some things and less on others,(00:58:18):saying,(00:58:18):hey,(00:58:19):these were great pieces on what's going on around the world.(00:58:22):Let's now put that wall around it and make progress on these issues.(00:58:26):And some places we've made a lot of progress, others less so.(00:58:31):I feel that now that we had the seesaw that said the real world, make progress by building walls,(00:58:38):Now I think we need to push that seesaw back.(00:58:41):So it's not necessarily the type of work that we're doing.(00:58:45):It's more within the disciplinary core because you always need both types of work.(00:58:51):It's within the disciplinary core.(00:58:53):Which one do you privilege?(00:58:55):So I think it's time to go back to saying we need to privilege the basic work that(00:59:01):starts re-examining the world and saying 20,(00:59:04):25 years later,(00:59:06):what are people's lives like?(00:59:08):And I'll give you one example.(00:59:09):Right.(00:59:09):I was in Delhi over the summer and it struck me,(00:59:12):you know,(00:59:13):so many of our cities because of climate change are now on the verge of being unlivable.(00:59:20):Right.(00:59:20):If you look at a place like Delhi,(00:59:22):you know,(00:59:23):January pollution levels that are at 500,(00:59:26):600 on the P2 at 2.5.(00:59:27):Right.(00:59:27):It's unlivable.(00:59:31):February, same thing.(00:59:32):March is kind of OK.(00:59:34):April starting to get hot.(00:59:35):May, 52 degrees.(00:59:37):June, 50 degrees.(00:59:38):Heat stroke through the roof.(00:59:40):July, humidity, wet bulb thermometers above what is livable.(00:59:44):August, same thing.(00:59:45):October, kind of livable.(00:59:47):November, the pollution is back.(00:59:48):You put it together and you say, how is a poor person going to live in this damn city?(00:59:54):And somebody who can put that together,(00:59:56):somebody who can start to say,(00:59:58):OK,(00:59:59):here's how I want you to think about the year and climate change.(01:00:02):That kind of stuff we solely need now.(01:00:05):And I think we are almost there.(01:00:07):So it's not a question of fighting the discipline.(01:00:09):It's saying what part of the discipline should at this point get the emphasis?(01:00:15):And I think that, you know, it's going to move.(01:00:17):It has to move.(01:00:18):It has to move.(01:00:19):There's just no two ways around it.(01:00:21):James: So let me just add a few comments on,(01:00:23):you know,(01:00:23):maybe going back to Tobi's question,(01:00:25):like where is the advice about how can we get Nigeria to double its income over the(01:00:30):next 10 years or so?(01:00:31):And there's a really nice characterisation of the two kinds of development economists.(01:00:36):And I will not name the person who has shared this characterisation.(01:00:40):But there's a small ‘d’ development economist and there's the big ‘D’ development economist.(01:00:45):And I think historically,(01:00:46):if you think about the big push ideas of the 60s and 70s,(01:00:49):or even essentially kind of the Washington consensus in the 90s,(01:00:53):I think much of that advice was really about the big D development economists.(01:00:57):And maybe the conclusion there, you know, at least it has been going back to sort of the Spence report.(01:01:03):Maybe we just don't really have, you know, a very clear set of guidelines.(01:01:07):We thought we did, right?(01:01:09):We thought we did, you know, reduce your fertility, make markets work.(01:01:13):It doesn't seem to kind of produce the benefits, I think, that we would like to think.(01:01:17):And, you know, Dani Rodrik has a book, I think, I wish it were more accessible to the general public.(01:01:22):You know,(01:01:22):we have one economics,(01:01:23):but many recipes,(01:01:25):which is to say the solution for Nigeria might be very Nigeria specific.(01:01:29):It might require essentially kind of a very untraditional path,(01:01:33):which is not coming out of a 10 point or 20 point economic plan.(01:01:37):But my sense is that, you know, what's happened perhaps to the field is(01:01:41):is maybe being honest with ourselves that we don't have all of the answers,(01:01:47):at least for essentially kind of the big question that you asked,(01:01:49):Tobi,(01:01:49):that that answer is not going to come in a nice big report.(01:01:53):That that answer,(01:01:53):in fact,(01:01:54):is a process of,(01:01:56):you know,(01:01:56):trying a bunch of things,(01:01:58):establishing,(01:01:59):you know,(01:01:59):maybe let's go back to Dani's idea.(01:02:01):Like, let's do industrial policy, but let's try and do it well.(01:02:04):And we're going to fail.(01:02:05):And maybe we might discover one or two great ideas where Nigeria can be quite successful, right?(01:02:11):But that's in some ways kind of saying,(01:02:13):rather than,(01:02:14):you know,(01:02:14):do this and this will happen,(01:02:16):this is basically,(01:02:16):you know,(01:02:17):establish,(01:02:18):and this is… Jishnu will like this,(01:02:19):establish a process for discovering essentially kind of good and bad ideas.(01:02:24):And maybe that's essentially kind of the way forward.(01:02:26):I'm not going to give you a guarantee that you'll be successful.(01:02:29):But in fact, this process will essentially kind of at least help you shut down bad ideas.(01:02:33):There's nothing wrong with actually sort of disinvesting in essentially kind of(01:02:36):things that are not working in general.(01:02:38):And then I think the other part of this,(01:02:39):for the small ‘d’ development economists,(01:02:42):I certainly sort of think I'm in that category,(01:02:44):is what can you do today,(01:02:46):right?(01:02:46):So maybe there are the big questions about sort of growth over sort of the next 10 years.(01:02:51):But I think it's important to also try and improve the outcomes of people today, right?(01:02:56):And so I do think that there should be room under the umbrella for both types of economists.(01:03:01):But yeah, I certainly think that there's been a shift.(01:03:03):Like in order to make space for the small ‘d’ development economists,(01:03:06):I think the big ‘D’ development economists in some ways have had to take a backseat.(01:03:10):And, you know, it might be a good time, as Jishnu says, to bring them back to the front of the class.(01:03:14):Tobi: Final question for both of you.(01:03:18):So this is a bit of a tradition on the podcast.(01:03:21):What is the one idea?(01:03:22):It may be something you're working on, maybe someone else's idea.(01:03:27):Can be anything.(01:03:29):But what is that one idea that you would like to see spread everywhere,(01:03:35):have a lot more influence,(01:03:37):have a lot more people believe in?(01:03:40):What is that one idea?(01:03:42):I'll start with James.(01:03:44):James: Put it this way,(01:03:45):you ask this question at a really challenging time where in some ways there's more(01:03:49):dark clouds on the horizon and maybe,(01:03:51):you know,(01:03:52):less room to be very optimistic.(01:03:55):But let me just say that I think, you know, this might not be a completely original idea.(01:04:01):We need to rethink what investment in any infrastructure means today.(01:04:08):I certainly think that markets are ultimately at the centre of driving a lot of(01:04:12):progress and prosperity and markets work well when people are very well connected.(01:04:16):And we are pretty well connected in terms of communications infrastructure,(01:04:20):but we're not as well connected on the hard infrastructure.(01:04:23):If I think about the prospects that are happening in the parts of the world that I(01:04:27):do work in,(01:04:28):I worry that,(01:04:29):you know,(01:04:29):Jishnu was talking about temperature and pollution.(01:04:33):I'm worried also about, you know, whether we have(01:04:36):roads that are climate proof, whether we'll have schools and hospitals that are climate proof.(01:04:43):And while essentially kind of this idea in some ways raises the cost of doing(01:04:46):business in general,(01:04:47):that I think we really need to start thinking about how we can climate proof the(01:04:52):infrastructure we have and what we already have.(01:04:54):And so,(01:04:55):you know,(01:04:55):I don't think this is wildly kind of original,(01:04:58):but I just finished doing some work in Rwanda and (01:05:02):a big chunk of that work is affected on every rainy season where roads get washed away.(01:05:08):And, you know, communities are essentially going to cut off for a long time.(01:05:11):And,(01:05:11):you know,(01:05:11):we're certainly seeing this around the world,(01:05:12):not just in East Africa,(01:05:14):in Nepal and in North Carolina,(01:05:16):you know,(01:05:16):not far from here.(01:05:17):And so my concern is that we need to start preparing for a world in which life is(01:05:21):going to be much more challenging.(01:05:23):Tobi: Your turn, Jishnu.(01:05:25):Jishnu: You know, so a while back, I had this conversation with this politician, right?(01:05:29):And he said,(01:05:30):look,(01:05:30):around the early 90s,(01:05:32):you know,(01:05:32):all of you guys said,(01:05:34):bring in the market,(01:05:35):start to liberalise and everything will improve for everybody.(01:05:39):And he said,(01:05:39):basically,(01:05:40):what I've seen is that things have improved massively for very rich people,(01:05:44):but the poor are still where they are.(01:05:46):And in fact, they would be much worse off if the government was not doing all kinds of things.(01:05:49):And I think that's roughly right, right?(01:05:52):So, you know, I want to go back and say, look,(01:05:55):I think we are at times, exactly as James said, that are very challenging.(01:06:01):And one more thing which is worth emphasising and worth remembering is we are at a(01:06:07):time of exceptional,(01:06:09):I don't know whether it's exceptional,(01:06:10):but we are at a time of massive change,(01:06:13):right?(01:06:14):And I think what we keep doing as policymakers and economists is we keep saying, do this, do that.(01:06:21):And I think we need to start thinking seriously about what kind of robust processes(01:06:28):do we need to put in place so that our populations have,(01:06:32):you know,(01:06:33):serious democratic and deliberative discussion about what they want to do,(01:06:37):where they want to go next.(01:06:39):Right.(01:06:41):So it could well be that our democratic discussions and all of that throws up,(01:06:47):hey,(01:06:47):we want Nigerian incomes to double over the next 10 years.(01:06:52):But it could also be,(01:06:53):Tobi,(01:06:53):that that conversation throws up,(01:06:56):I'm fine with our incomes going,(01:06:58):I'm not fine with it doubling,(01:07:00):if what it means is that the rich are now 30 times richer and the poor are 5% richer.(01:07:07):which is what, you know, we measure it as doubling.(01:07:09):But look, I mean, if you look at India, you look at the US, you know, what was the thing?(01:07:13):Real wages haven't changed since 1980, 1985 for the poor, right?(01:07:18):I mean, that's crazy to me, right?(01:07:21):I mean,(01:07:21):a lot of the growth in incomes that we're seeing in India is coming from some rich(01:07:25):people basically exploiting the environment.(01:07:27):So I want to say, how do you, me, how do all of us work on saying(01:07:33):What's the process that we need to have robust conversations about who we want to(01:07:39):be and where we want to be 20 years,(01:07:41):10 years from now?(01:07:43):Do we want to be working like crazy and have more money?(01:07:46):Great.(01:07:47):Or do we want that medicines are available to everyone?(01:07:50):That's also great.(01:07:52):We should not stick to an ideological position of markets are good regardless of what they do.(01:07:58):We have to stick to this is who we want to be.(01:08:01):And if the markets are not working or something else is not working, let's change it.(01:08:05):So if there's one idea I want people to take away,(01:08:07):look,(01:08:07):the power really is in us and we need to get together and say,(01:08:12):what are the processes that we want to live by that makes at least our kids have a(01:08:16):much better lives than we?(01:08:19):You know, that's our aspiration as all parents is that our kids have a better lives than we did, right?(01:08:24):And I would urge that we start thinking about what processes do we need to put in(01:08:28):place to navigate us through these difficult times.(01:08:32):Tobi: Thank you very much to both of you. It's been fantastic having this conversation.James: Thank you so much, Tobi. Thanks for having us on and for grilling us with these really challenging questions.Jishnu: Oh, my goodness. I feel like we've been put through the ringer on this one. No, Tobi, this was really a pleasure. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ideasuntrapped.com/subscribe