Abhijit Banerjee: evaluation

Transcript context

…But if we have countries — take Singapore as an example. Say they invest heavily in human capital, they actually have the political will to grow, and they very broadly have some kind of neoliberal policies, but tailored to their specifics. Don’t we know if they do that, they’ll grow? Singapore it worked, Dubai it worked, Republic of Ireland it worked. Don’t we know a lot about growth? Alas, no. You have these tiny, tiny countries, basically, with, I would say, very specific political configurations. I think Lee Kuan Yew knew very well that if he didn’t deliver a very specific set of environmental conditions, and if he were falling behind, there’s Malaysia around. Singapore was a very, very fragile project in 1960 and one that, I think, they were lucky to have him as the dictator. I think he was, in the end, committed to some things which were . . . But they could have easily had someone who had crazy views, and there were plenty of people with crazy views. I think small cities at the edge of other, less liberal societies also are very strange examples to use. I was at Dubai. You see so many people from Saudi Arabia, Iran, et cetera, who need to escape their own societies temporarily for pleasure or for just freedom. I think lots of rich people around — Iraq less so — Iran and Saudi Arabia, probably two big countries with lots of rich people who need a playground. I don’t know that that’s replicable at any scale. Why does Kolkata have the best sweet shops in India?…

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