A while back I read this article by Hickel, which was based on the book. See this EA forum post which I made after reading it, and also the comments which I wrote down at the time:
The article was much better than I thought it would be based on the first few paragraphs.
Still a few dodgy bits though—e.g. it quotes FAO numbers on how many people are hungry, but neglects to mention that this is good progress (quote from FAO): “The proportion of undernourished people in the developing regions has fallen by almost half. One in in seven children worldwide are underweight, down from one in four in 1990.”
I also tried to factcheck the claim that the specific number $1.90 is a bad metric to use, by reading the report he said was a “trenchant critique” of it. There was a lot of stuff about how a single summary statistic can be highly uncertain, but not much about why any other poverty line would be better.
Overall I do think it’s fairly valuable to point out that there’s been almost no movement of people above $7.40 if you exclude China. But the achievement of moving a lot of people above the $1.90 number shouldn’t be understated.
This graph seems like the most important summary of the claims in the article. So basically, the history of poverty reduction was almost entirely Asia, the future of it (or lack thereof) will be almost entirely about Africa.
Note that the graph displays absolute numbers of people. The population of Africa went from 600M in 1990 to 1.2B today to 1.6B in 2030, apparently. So according to this graph there’s been a reduction in percentage of extreme poverty in Africa, and that’s projected to continue, but it’s at a far lower rate than Asia.
The population of China is slightly higher than the population of Africa, so it seems odd to exclude it. By symmetry, I can say that poverty in the world is a lot lower if you exclude Africa, and I think the point is approximately equally valid.
(Of course, poverty reduction in different provinces in China are correlated, but so are different countries in Subsaharan Africa! )
Point taken, but I think the correlation in China is so much larger than the correlation between African countries (with respect to the things we’re most interested in, like the effects of policies) that it’s reasonable to look at the data with China excluded when trying to find a long-term trend in the global economy.
I agree that if you’re trying to predict the future of extreme poverty, excluding China when looking at trends seems reasonable.
If you’re trying to understand living conditions of the past/present (which was my impression of what Hickel was claiming to be doing?), excluding >1 billion people seems not the best.
More broadly I’m a bit worried about a specific argumentation pattern where statistical boundaries are gerrymandered around the edges to get the desired result. There was a politician’s Tweet I saw a long time ago (paraphrased, can’t find it anymore) where
a [junior US politician] did poorly except for LGBT people, ethnic minorities, women, and those under 65.
I can’t find the original post so it’s possible my memory’s embellishing, and certainly I don’t think what Hickel’s doing is quite that bad, but I’m still worried about the broader pattern of excluding groups that don’t fit your narrative well, rather than a careful impartial look at the evidence.
I agree. I’m concerned about the same, and want to look at both
some of the evidence for myself; and
some of what others think, both through my new stack of books on development (from Abhijit & Banerjee to Acemoglu & Robinson to Jeffrey Sachs to Ha-Joon Chang—I’m excited!) and through conversations.
I just haven’t been able to do it yet, since I’m in the middle of an internship. That’s why I wrote this post with some first thoughts.
This is fair, although I take Richard’s point below as well. (I’m not sure about its truth, because I don’t know enough about China or Africa.)
I think the point is that there are two points
Poverty in China has decreased recently
Poverty in Africa has (arguably) increased recently
(Hickel claims that China’s very non-neoliberal policy enriched its people, while African countries’ mandated structural adjustments impoverished its people. I don’t know enough to say if this is true, but it’s another reason Hickel excludes China.)
Hickel claims that China’s very non-neoliberal policy enriched its people
China’s post-1979 reforms are one of the textbook examples of neoliberalism! They privatized many businesses, allowed the creation of markets for many goods and services, opened up to international trade and reduced capital controls. While there is still a great deal of central control, the level is dramatically lower than it was in the 1970s. Their economic freedom ranking improved from a terrible 3.59 in 1980 to a respectable (though still not great) 6 in 2002, a very rapid rise. This is a similar increase to other countries undergoing neoliberal reforms at the same time, like the UK, Chile and Sweden, though many of these started from a higher base.
EDIT: Unless you are talking about the One Child Policy, which I would agree is very non-neoliberal, and is a major policy.
The ‘freedom to trade internationally’ composite, which is basically not-being-protectionist, saw one of the largest improvements of any of their scores over this time. They are still protectionist relative to many richer countries, like the JV requirements. But they are dramatically less protectionist than they used to be, and this change coincided with / preceded their dramatic growth.
Fascinating! Thanks for this. I tried to point out your 4th bullet point and I’m definitely a little sceptical, since Hickel’s book is clearly a polemic with an agenda, but I think it’s a valuable contribution (like you say).
That said, the ‘this article by Hickel’ link isn’t working for me.
A while back I read this article by Hickel, which was based on the book. See this EA forum post which I made after reading it, and also the comments which I wrote down at the time:
The article was much better than I thought it would be based on the first few paragraphs.
Still a few dodgy bits though—e.g. it quotes FAO numbers on how many people are hungry, but neglects to mention that this is good progress (quote from FAO): “The proportion of undernourished people in the developing regions has fallen by almost half. One in in seven children worldwide are underweight, down from one in four in 1990.”
I also tried to factcheck the claim that the specific number $1.90 is a bad metric to use, by reading the report he said was a “trenchant critique” of it. There was a lot of stuff about how a single summary statistic can be highly uncertain, but not much about why any other poverty line would be better.
Overall I do think it’s fairly valuable to point out that there’s been almost no movement of people above $7.40 if you exclude China. But the achievement of moving a lot of people above the $1.90 number shouldn’t be understated.
This graph seems like the most important summary of the claims in the article. So basically, the history of poverty reduction was almost entirely Asia, the future of it (or lack thereof) will be almost entirely about Africa.
Note that the graph displays absolute numbers of people. The population of Africa went from 600M in 1990 to 1.2B today to 1.6B in 2030, apparently. So according to this graph there’s been a reduction in percentage of extreme poverty in Africa, and that’s projected to continue, but it’s at a far lower rate than Asia.
The population of China is slightly higher than the population of Africa, so it seems odd to exclude it. By symmetry, I can say that poverty in the world is a lot lower if you exclude Africa, and I think the point is approximately equally valid.
(Of course, poverty reduction in different provinces in China are correlated, but so are different countries in Subsaharan Africa! )
Point taken, but I think the correlation in China is so much larger than the correlation between African countries (with respect to the things we’re most interested in, like the effects of policies) that it’s reasonable to look at the data with China excluded when trying to find a long-term trend in the global economy.
I agree that if you’re trying to predict the future of extreme poverty, excluding China when looking at trends seems reasonable.
If you’re trying to understand living conditions of the past/present (which was my impression of what Hickel was claiming to be doing?), excluding >1 billion people seems not the best.
More broadly I’m a bit worried about a specific argumentation pattern where statistical boundaries are gerrymandered around the edges to get the desired result. There was a politician’s Tweet I saw a long time ago (paraphrased, can’t find it anymore) where
I can’t find the original post so it’s possible my memory’s embellishing, and certainly I don’t think what Hickel’s doing is quite that bad, but I’m still worried about the broader pattern of excluding groups that don’t fit your narrative well, rather than a careful impartial look at the evidence.
I agree. I’m concerned about the same, and want to look at both
some of the evidence for myself; and
some of what others think, both through my new stack of books on development (from Abhijit & Banerjee to Acemoglu & Robinson to Jeffrey Sachs to Ha-Joon Chang—I’m excited!) and through conversations.
I just haven’t been able to do it yet, since I’m in the middle of an internship. That’s why I wrote this post with some first thoughts.
This sounds like a good battle plan! And do let us know what you finally decide on!
Oh, also I want to be clear that what I was concerned about is the broader structure of argument, rather than being critical of your post! :)
Any update here? Did you ever come to a conclusion on Hickel?
This is fair, although I take Richard’s point below as well. (I’m not sure about its truth, because I don’t know enough about China or Africa.)
I think the point is that there are two points
Poverty in China has decreased recently
Poverty in Africa has (arguably) increased recently
(Hickel claims that China’s very non-neoliberal policy enriched its people, while African countries’ mandated structural adjustments impoverished its people. I don’t know enough to say if this is true, but it’s another reason Hickel excludes China.)
China’s post-1979 reforms are one of the textbook examples of neoliberalism! They privatized many businesses, allowed the creation of markets for many goods and services, opened up to international trade and reduced capital controls. While there is still a great deal of central control, the level is dramatically lower than it was in the 1970s. Their economic freedom ranking improved from a terrible 3.59 in 1980 to a respectable (though still not great) 6 in 2002, a very rapid rise. This is a similar increase to other countries undergoing neoliberal reforms at the same time, like the UK, Chile and Sweden, though many of these started from a higher base.
EDIT: Unless you are talking about the One Child Policy, which I would agree is very non-neoliberal, and is a major policy.
I think his point was related to development via protection, etc., that was then loosened somewhat. But not sure.
The ‘freedom to trade internationally’ composite, which is basically not-being-protectionist, saw one of the largest improvements of any of their scores over this time. They are still protectionist relative to many richer countries, like the JV requirements. But they are dramatically less protectionist than they used to be, and this change coincided with / preceded their dramatic growth.
Fascinating! Thanks for this. I tried to point out your 4th bullet point and I’m definitely a little sceptical, since Hickel’s book is clearly a polemic with an agenda, but I think it’s a valuable contribution (like you say).
That said, the ‘this article by Hickel’ link isn’t working for me.
Ooops, fixed.