Evidence receipt / evaluation
Published · transcript-backedTyler Cowen: evaluation
9 Apr 2025 Conversations with Tyler Jennifer Pahlka on Reforming Government
“On net, it passes a cost-benefit test, but the agency internally never seemed willing to actually get rid of the bad stuff, all the contracting arrangements which made American Congress people happy because it was dollars sent to America, but way inflated overhead and fixed costs.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Tyler Cowen
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- evaluation
- Recorded
- 9 Apr 2025
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
Transcript context
…I don’t know. [laughs] Say you’re approaching USAID, where I think the best programs are great. A lot of it they shouldn’t be doing. On net, it passes a cost-benefit test, but the agency internally never seemed willing to actually get rid of the bad stuff, all the contracting arrangements which made American Congress people happy because it was dollars sent to America, but way inflated overhead and fixed costs. Why isn’t it better just to blow that up — some of it is great — and then rebuild the great parts? It’s so hard to say. [laughs] I’ve had the same thought. In fact, before inauguration, I wrote about the Department of Defense. It’s the same thing. There’s a clear recognition by the people in the institution, as you saw with USAID, that this is not okay, that this is not working. It’s just strange to be in an institution that large where so many people agree that it’s not working, from the bottom to the top, and yet nobody can make really substantive change. You look at efforts like Unit X, this book out by Raj Shah and Chris Kirchhoff about their efforts to start the Defense Innovation Unit.…
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