 One of the sort of one of the changes in the in the recent years is kind of emerging the emergence of a large group of countries where aid doesn't really matter and The group of countries where aid really matters. So for a long period of development economics history Most developing countries ages been really important And I wanted to has that has that framed and shaped the kind of questions and the kind of debates and development economics And if there's an ever-growing group of countries where aid doesn't really matter Is that going to really shape the future of development economics? Because there'd be different types of questions, perhaps Okay There's another very quick one Be concise just on on Kunal. I wonder what you sort of bounce the Richard Dono type work about the importance or one of the one of the things he picks up on is is in East Asian growth in the development state is the the importance of elite cohesion due to Domestic insurgency or external threats so the the cohesion or the Coherence amongst the elite for economic development and growth is driven by internal external threats And I wonder how you fit that in and what you think of that. Thank you Okay, thank you. We will go here in the front pop out and then I go to the back afterwards Thank you so much everyone if I play the role of the devil's advocate the history of development economics Looks like the story which is filled with the brilliant ideas But these brilliant ideas did not have an impact on a single case of economic miracle Development economists can take credit for the failers And we all know that the basic ideas the initial ideas in development economics big push financing gap input substitution They kind of led to the failure of the beginning of 1980s the debt crisis in Latin America in Africa Then the ideas of the Washington consensus led to spectacular failures in former Soviet Union East in Europe and also in Other parts of developing world. Meanwhile, the success stories happened without any contribution of development economies I'm a little bit exaggerating But you know they happen by the experimentation of the strong hand politicians in East Asia So the question is would you agree with this interpretation? And I'm trying to be provocative and second can you name a single country? Which succeeded which? Manufactured engineered an economic miracle which was due to some contribution of development Economist because many people would say that East Africa did it despite the advisers of development economies. Thanks Thank you very much. So then we will go towards the back here Now you turn left So a couple of quick questions So one of the criticisms that people like Bill Easterly and McIntyre please speak into the Micah. Can you hear me? Yes, clearly. Okay, great so one of the criticisms that people like Easterly and McIntyre have made about macro development policy Especially in African countries is that there has been a lack of focus on individual rights and individual preferences in making macro development policy So, you know be in the kind of the the as a result of racism, xenophobia High-discount rates of policymakers. You've had this idea of the benevolent dictator who is supposed to you know Be a social welfare maximizer who creates policy or implements whatever policy that the bank or whoever Recommends. So my question is kind of going forward Is there a way to center or should we be trying to center kind of individual rights individual preferences? In in kind of development policy, especially in African nations or is this something that you know We kind of just push to the corner a second question is about the role of economic history and kind of also related to canal's presentation And of course African development has a history that goes beyond 1950-1960 mid-20th century So do you think that there is a role or there should be more of a role of the study of economic history? Especially in Africa in kind of development economics. So a couple of questions there. Okay. Thank you very much Ricardo you indicated in the back be concise, please So Thank you so much for the food of thought of thinking how this our field thought Changed and even has been changed and transformed. I was wondering picking a little bit on what Andy said and Gentleman on the on the left my left said also Think about us this institution called development community development industry. How does Institutional economic economics could tell us something about how us how we have been Doing our job throughout this time and maybe how this institution communicates with the the institutions that you can all mentioned Okay, thank you. Yes, please. Oh, sorry Alan I'll take since the mic is in the back Let's take mark in the back and then we will come to Alan and after that I'll turn over to the panel Thank you. So very quick question. So I'm a fan of this new work on institutions But it seems very political economy. So it seems like I've always thought it seems like very old economics It seems like when I read the classical economists, they basically talk about this stuff and it seems to me like Some of the economics is some of the economists of maybe this early period seems about economic history We're kind of tone-deaf to history and if we when people talk about deals not rules I mean that was feels to me that was the USA not that long ago. Really. It was the UK not that long ago It was France not that long ago. So what explains the economics? profession Suddenly imagining that the entire world operates like the world that they all live in Why did they stop thinking that that this stuff mattered? Okay, thank you and then here in the front alone and then after that we will turn over to the panel Three great presentations But one dimension which seems to me has been systematically missing is the role of the people that deals have limits The street exists revolutions have happened and there is indeed a limit to how much you can exercise power And the limit to power is how much people are going to bear and this we have to take it into account Thank you and I I would turn now over to the panel Can I ask that we do it in the sequence of the presenters so Eric first Tony next and Kunal last One of the very few and and sorry and the and the sort of more concise you are the more questions we can get The more concise you are in your your reactions your replies the more questions we can get before we stop Did you want me to start? Absolutely One of the very few advantages of old age is that you got to be deaf so And of course you can use it in a selective way selective But I must confess that I That I really did not Capture most of the questions. I did capture a few so let me try to answer at least one that I heard And I think it was yours Can you name any country where the development economists had any impact? I Think I can name quite a few and let me just given of the time given the time constraint. Let me just mention one Indonesia I I was personally involved in Indonesia. I would say from about 1870 to 2000 now this was This was a very difficult period period where human rights were not respected where clearly You did not have a democratic form of government But for a number of reasons particularly the survival of the regime It was essential for the government to try to achieve economic development And that was essentially for political reason. They knew that the if the poor did not benefit if the Growth and the benefits of growth were not spread among the various regions and various islands this would create more conflict and They really needed the advice of Development economists now it so happened that the Ford Foundation had Started a program at the University of California at Berkeley to train PhD Indonesian PhDs in economics that led to what has been called the Berkeley mafia at one time there were four ministers in the cabinet who had PhDs in economics and These people were extremely influential and basically followed eclectic policies But pro development pro poor policies so Very respectfully I would disagree with I think the assumption behind your question Which is that development? Economists did not make any contribution and of course I could give you many other examples Okay. Thank you very much Eric Tony I guess as I reflect on the questions I think about the The role of medicine and economists to my mind Resemble nutritionists and physiotherapists and people engaged in preventative medicine and in some ways We're we're here to advise countries to On things that they should really avoid I mean you can see that in the natural resource sector, which I've been working on we know that If you have oil gas and mining sectors you can get yourself into terrible terrible trouble and get the revolutions that Alan referred to And then the trouble is that you know once the patient has not taken the advice or taken it badly and is on the table We're in crisis management And we're in crisis management with with often very kind of rusty Surgical tools because we don't have enough finance. We don't have a proper Trade system etc etc And in in other ways the the issue Also comes down to the role of technical assistance in development for which I still think there's an enormous Need and this comes to Andy's question about the role of aid in countries that have Plenty of funds because they're middle-income countries or their raw resource rich low-income countries the the need for good economic advice is still there and That is the role of External economists with working with domestic economists, and I think aid you know really needs to think and reflect on that aid has kind of got its stuff into a kind of a little bit of a rut where it's simply We are going to spend more and more money on basic services either funded from tax revenues or from aid We're going to do a randomized control trial of everything and that will give us Prosperity well it might do but countries need that advice about Do not regard the international credit market as your friend if you're a debtor they will come after you Do not misalign your exchange rate try and diversify your economy etc etc So technical assistance and lessons actually from economic history because economic history Thankfully has is full of crises and they're excellent lessons. It's like military disasters Military historians always look at military disasters the most illuminating things you can see Okay, thanks, Tony. So now let me answer Andy the second question I think Tony's answer the first of your two questions Question of elite cohesion what drives it is as absolutely central to understanding economic development, right? So there's no question in South Korea the understanding of the external factors are very important where its behavior did but think about Africa Think about Kagami and RPF They've you know, the memory of the genocide is absolutely central to the understanding that they need to skip the settlement Settlement stable inclusive and also generate inclusive growth think about for example You know what happened after so many came to power the understanding what happened in the chaos before that is very central now that might weaken over time as Incentives become different But certainly I think those memories of what has happened in the past. It's also very important explaining why elites behave in a particular way I think that's something we need to think bit more in economics because unless you understand it behavior by the way I don't know when it was published But there was a very good book that by the publish the role of elites and economic development Robinson and the late Alice I'm still just thought one of the most interesting things that I've read. So, you know, we need to understand that better So that's question of what is it that brings about a stable settlement and elite cohesion is central But there may be really different things working in different countries and not just to do with exogenous or external threats Yeah, um, or the question marks your question Let me just start to your question on why have we not thought about informal institutional deals? well and Absolutely absolutely right that the US had a very much a deals based world and for a very long time So did many of the other Western countries problem in economics is we want to measure and we want to measure We're going to run our you know regressions and what can we find to measure formal institutions? That's one problem And that's a measurement problem because to measure informal institutions for example in our case deals is very tricky How do we do that? So that's one problem. The other problem I think it's still a kind of I'm just feeling that if you really somehow get this rule of law this property rights that are codified this You know contracting mechanics which are all working very well Economic growth will happen and that still drives this kind of move to best practice institutions That's still very much a donor The donor still feel that's the way to do it because they don't know what else can work in many country contracts But I think we need to kind of move away from best practice of thinking of what I call what we call best fit What works in the country college needs to be thought through which may or may not actually follow the standards kind of Criteria that you tend to see in the good governance mortality. So that's the tricky but bit because once you move away from Formal institutions best practice. What do we get? What else is there? It's tricky I think but that's what we need to work on because otherwise we own might get much progress in terms of economic Development or anything else. So that's really important. I think For I think it's been a challenge for donors to think through what is it that best fit might mean in different country contexts? On the question of the you know, not the not actually now our argument And then we have our argument that the problem is that growth often happens in what we call closed-order deals in other words somebody in the among the political elite say Mussolini in Uganda or Jerry Rawlings in Ghana offers certain diesel certain political economic actors because they want to see growth happening But the closed-order deals often gets challenged by non-elits We saw that in India in the 2000s I have a paper on this and a book where the argument I made is that the deep the growth was fantastic in India at that time But it was essentially built around closed-order deals around chronic capitalism and that was challenged by civil society But the middle class by by anti-corruption agents so on so the problem really is that you at some point At some point it's not a revolution But some other way the civil society the middle class are non-elits can play a role in mobilizing against elites And that often explains why we often see a situation where growth simply starts but for very good reasons with the growth is built around Institutional foundations, which were very weak Thank You Kunal I love two more questions Be very brief because otherwise I will be blamed okay Two very quick questions Like Asimov and Robinson who have been telling us that the U.S. and the UK are the gold standard of institutions What are they going to say now that both of those countries have demonstrated that their political institutions are inherently fragile Okay, the lady just behind are you dropping out? Yeah, no, okay What one last one Can you comment on gender equality in the development economics research? I've recently read in the economists the number of female Economists going into the field is going down. Is there something more we should be doing? Yeah Thank you very much for that question. I could add something in the very very end But can I ask Kunal to address the first question and then Tony and then Eric? I think all over the point really is that there's nothing that's sort of set in stone, right? I mean the so-called that's why I was saying that this inclusive institutions argument of as well Robinson is not particularly very interesting to Me because what is inclusive and why exactly remains inclusive is a very open question Because what we see in the UK are it certainly goes against some of the tennis of the argument they make about institutions So institutions themselves change and maybe the argument is that it's all in a continuum, right? Things are changing and even in developed countries decision change because for various reasons are the fact a lot of factors come to play Trump is a good example where when we talk about rules capital capitalism is that the case now in the US, you know So so I think there's our important question, which is why I think we should not start seeing things in sort of where in black and white And we understand institutions are themselves all those all that I'm evolving for very good for very different reasons Okay, Tony Yeah, I think we have a real problem as the speaker indicated of the gender balance in economics and if I could speak for for wider because You know, we could make broad statements about the need for us to all, you know Move towards gender equality in economics as a profession, but if I could speak for wider over the last Ten years at least we've been pushing very hard to raise the number of female economists Particularly from the developing world and involved in our programs, and I think our current metric. Is it 40%? I don't know what specific measure you're referring to but basically have a widest research output is co-authored by women Yeah, or single authored So we count it in various ways and we have those metrics and you know, we hold ourselves against that I've been at a number of conferences. The reason I've made the remark is I've been at number of conferences where The balance has been completely out of line We try and maintain the balance across the conference just for various rather dull reasons We just have an all male panel at this conference If I may briefly just say to Oliver It's very interesting that David Cameron launched a commission on fragility After also launching a referendum, which has made Britain a fragile state, but I'll pass over that And I will just say follow on me on Twitter for my rants about Brexit Okay, Eric. I'm sure you're getting hungrier. I'm getting hungry. So 30 30 seconds I think your question is is very well taken We are now testing whether the Institutions that we believed Were perhaps if not the gold standard the best institution is available US UK whether they can withstand the ongoing storm and and I the question I mean if you had asked me five years ago I would have been quite optimistic. I would have said no question the Democratic institutions in place are strong enough to withstand the real storm Today I am much less Optimistic and this really raises the issue of What is a democracy? You can have a democracy in in form in name but not in reality and I think what we see happening Certainly in the US. I don't want to speak about the UK is that the form of government right now is no longer democratic or or at least the Democratic institutions the Constitution is not being followed in the way it should be followed and this raises the issue of are there really optimal institutions or institutions something that context-specific have to be Have to be created in the light of the initial conditions which exist in countries And I would tend to believe that that is a case I don't think you can come up with one model that fits all possible cases