March Madness according to development economists

During grad school, one of my favorite books was White Man's Burden, by an NYU economist named William Easterly. In a nutshell, he argues for economic development that is bottom-up rather than top-down. He calls the bottom-up folks searchers and the top-down folks planners. His arch-nemesis is Jeffrey Sachs, a well known economist (and planner) at Columbia.

I'd read Sachs first, but ended up liking Easterly so much that during my graduation speech I referenced him multiple times. Since then, I've been following his blog, and while his perpetual snarkiness drives me a bit crazy, yesterday's post was a real gem. Basically, he takes all the main development economists who have recently written books for general audiences and applies their principles to the game of basketball.

If you're not familiar with the key players and issues in development, it may not do much for you. But if you've read guys like Sachs, de Soto and Yunus, I think you'll agree that Easterly is brilliant here.

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