Chris Blattman
@cblatts
Followers
102K
Following
12K
Media
1K
Statuses
32K
Economist & political scientist @UChicago @HarrisPolicy studying conflict & organized crime. My book is Why We Fight: https://t.co/pwWjDnYzvo
Chicago, IL
Joined September 2009
Phone stolen in Brazil while open/unlocked. If I email or WhatsApp you asking for money, feel free to donate your funds to the Rio thieves guild. I'm fine. No emergency cash requests from me forthcoming.
8
3
136
The current state of PEPFAR, which is disturbingly difficult to know, despite being the primary bulwark against a resurgence of AIDS epidemic in Africa (and hence world).
I got a couple of different DMs asking about the same thing so I figured I'd answer it here, save people some time. The Qs were 'how much of PEPFAR is currently operational? is there anywhere we can donate as private individuals to preserve the stuff that got cut?'.
1
11
48
RT @ettingermentum: She got into right wing politics (specifically foreign policy) in the 60s and spent decades trying to distance herself….
0
43
0
RT @michaeldweiss: Obama refused to send lethal aid to Ukraine, whose first invasion by Russia he characterized as not having anything to d….
0
2K
0
RT @k_sonin: As a political economist, I am constantly searching for good answers - why voters made @realDonaldTrump president? The Anchor….
0
4
0
RT @BeckerFriedman: Economic underperformance in autocracies is largely a personalist penalty: concentrated power lowers investment, weaken….
bfi.uchicago.edu
Decades of research on regime type and development have debated whether autocracies grow more slowly than democracies. This paper highlights a critical oversight: not all autocracies are alike. Some...
0
34
0
Why do gangs rule? Thats something @BigBigBLessing and @SantiagoTobon and I looked at in Medellin. Short answer: partly for $$ (extortion = “taxes” for security) but also because keeping order keeps police away and protects other criminal activities, especially drug selling.
Here's a story of unintended consequences, of academic theories and government policy gone wrong, of how damn hard it is to tackle organized crime, and of insights into what criminal organizations really want and do. It starts in Medellin. [Paper:
1
0
16
One of the least known, most important facts about life in Latin America: most people can turn to police for order & security, but 1 in 6 are also governed by gangs and criminal groups—that’s 77–101 million Latin Americans under some kind of gang rule.
NOW OUT ON FIRSTVIEW!!. #Criminal #Governance in #Latin #America: Prevalence and Correlates. By Andres Uribe, @BigBigBLessing, @noahschouela & @ElayneStecher.
6
67
192
RT @AgnesCallard: Sorry but 5.0 is still not good enough to pass the benchmark test I've been using on each model. the test is to correc….
0
3
0
RT @DaveEvansPhD: "Effective policy tools hinge on accurately diagnosing this local context." @CBlatts on key facto….
0
8
0
RT @KelseyTuoc: I'm grateful to Jeremy Lewin for appearing on Ross Douthat's podcast to talk about how he sees the future of foreign aid, a….
0
49
0
Full thread worth reading.
Let me expand on this a bit more, because what you may not grasp is how much of a normie move this is for Bukele. Boring even for our favorite based, tech-inflected quasi Caesarist.
1
2
4
RT @itsalexvacca: Facebook once bought a VPN app for $120M and turned it into a surveillance tool that spied on 33M+ users' entire phones f….
0
26K
0
I have to think the science effect partly comes from starting a lab and last authoring your way onto papers where a social science prof would just be an advisor. I also predict significant heterogeneity by school ranking.
2
0
11
If you want a Spanish tutor by Zoom, DM or email me and i'll introduce you to mine. He's amazing.
0
0
3
My next advice is, once you have the basics, get a Zoom tutor from Brazil (probably $20-30 and hour) and meet 1-2 times a week for conversation. There are many platforms that let you do this & you can always set up something with them off that platform after you find one you like.
0
0
0
Best language program I have used as a beginner is hands down Pimsleur. I've begun learning Portuguese ahead of starting some field work in Brazil. Those of you who have tried to learn a language, you will know that Duolingo is terrible. I love Pimsleur.
refer.pimsleur.com
Pimsleur is great! Use my link and we both get rewarded.
3
0
10
Regarding Brazil tariffs, this interview is the best thing I’ve encountered laying out the stakes, and why it’s so difficult for Brazil to make any of the concessions that Trump states he wants. (Assuming they’re what he wants.).
NEW: A major confrontation is brewing between the U.S. and Brazil, driven by the deepening legal troubles of Trump's close Brazilian ally, former president Jair Bolsonaro. What's at stake? And what could a path forward look like? . Listen to our podcast:
2
2
6
… a growing industrial sector, tends to compete for labor and overtime. Drive up wages and working conditions. It’s a bumpy imperfect process but outside of oil. I’m not sure any other country has reached middle or high income another way.
8
10
327