Research in Uganda

I am currently in Kampala, Uganda, for about a two month stint which will include some fieldwork, some office time, and some coursework.  I am primarily here as part of a research project I'm working on with my dissertation advisor back at CU as well as an ever-increasing number of scholars from an ever-increasing number of institutions.  These, at present, include UAS, CU, UCONN, U. Michigan, Indiana U., IIASA in Austria, and research institutes in Poland, Bolivia, and Uganda.  Here, in Kampala, I'm working with a group of foresters, environmental scientists, and geographers at Makarere University.

The research project itself is an investigation of (among other things) the conditions under which institutions (that is, for you non-Ostromites, rules, norms, and patterns of behavior) emerge that can permit effective resource management.  Of course, the resource we're focusing on is forests, but we hope our findings will be applicable to a range of other types of resources.  In particular, we're interested to see if (a) communities with greater diversity have a harder time managing resources, (b) if communities with greater inequality have a harder time managing resources, and (c) if communities with greater familiarity with forests will have an easier time managing resources.

There is also another major component of the project, which is (d) if payments for ecosystem services will tend to promote forest conservation, or if they won't make any difference.  This last one deserves a little bit of explanation:

Basically, the UN and other international organizations, as well as some governments (Costa Rica comes to mind) have taken up this idea that if people who own or control forests are paid for the benefits that those forests provide (by doing things like cleaning water and taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere), there will be more of an incentive for people to conserve forests. Sounds like a simple idea that is likely to work, but the devil is in the details.  One argument is that unless payments are very large, they are unlikely to motivate people to conserve for economic reasons alone, and there's a concern that when you start to pay people, other motivations (like love of the outdoors and altruism) might get pushed into the background.  So if payments aren't big enough, or if they start big and then go away, and if they encourage people to stop thinking about how much they love nature, then plans like this could really hurt over the long run.

Our research plan has a number of components, but we basically have two big things that we're doing.  The first is that we're using behavioral experiments to test peoples' behavior in a hypothetical environment in which they receive payments for conserving forests.

We're also using survey data to try to link these abstract experiments--basically games rural Ugandans and Bolivians will play--to reality on the ground, although there are some things that we can only do in the experiments, or (conversely) we can only do with survey data.

Blogging Again?

So, I haven't been blogging in quite a while.  It really has been since my fieldwork (in 2009) that I last blogged consistently.  Somehow seems like, between facebook and twitter and between the pressures of day to day life (and to top it all off, the fact that I seem to have much less to say that I think is interesting), it sort of went by the wayside.

So I'm going to give this a stab here, and perhaps I'll stick to it.

If you're reading this on facebook, by the way (the blog and facebook are linked), you can get to the actual blog at http://moustachewax.blogspot.com.  Note that moustache has an o.  As I always write, a "mustache" is what Hitler had.  A "moustache" is what Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata had.  And of course, a "moustachio" is what Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy had.  That dude had some badass facial hair.

If I post any pictures on the blog, it may not be possible to see them on facebook...

Evo cree que EEUU filtró archivos secretos · la-razon.com

We can't win; Evo Morales believes that Wikileaks is part of a US government plot to sow dischord in the Latin American region.

Evo cree que EEUU filtró archivos secretos · la-razon.com

W.T.O. Upholds U.S. Tariffs on Chinese Tires - NYTimes.com

Wow... after all that, the WTO rules on our side. I'm really surprised!

W.T.O. Upholds U.S. Tariffs on Chinese Tires - NYTimes.com

AFP: Mogadishu's 'first tourist' puzzles immigration officials

Hilarious.

AFP: Mogadishu's 'first tourist' puzzles immigration officials

What’s the most effective development intervention we know? – Chris Blattman

A fascinating and brief post on the role of immigration in promoting economic development.

What’s the most effective development intervention we know? – Chris Blattman

The Fair Trade Challenge to Embedded Liberalism1 - Ehrlich - 2010 - International Studies Quarterly - Wiley Online Library

An interesting paper here that argues that fair-trade advocates shouldn't be treated as traditional protectionists, because, in fact, they have different concerns from protectionists. Something that intuitively makes a great deal of sense, but which I had never considered very deeply.

The Fair Trade Challenge to Embedded Liberalism1 - Ehrlich - 2010 - International Studies Quarterly - Wiley Online Library

Property Rights and Financial Development: The Legacy of Japanese Colonial Institutions

An interesting paper here that, like other work by Daron Acemoglu, uses military action--in this case, by the Japanese prior to the second World War--as a natural experiment examining the effects of property rights on later economic development. They find that the creation of formal property rights are associated with economic growth and infrastructure improvements around the Pacific basin.

Property Rights and Financial Development: The Legacy of Japanese Colonial Institutions

New cables reveal frank U.S. views on Latin America, from Argentina to Venezuela | La Plaza | Los Angeles Times

More incredible revelations about US foreign policy, including:

1. Cuban intelligence has a lot of influence in Venezuela

2. The US is concerned about Iran's influence in Bolivia and Venezuela, and

3. Everybody thinks the Kirchner family is nuts, including the Chileans.

Any actual _news_ coming out of this?

New cables reveal frank U.S. views on Latin America, from Argentina to Venezuela | La Plaza | Los Angeles Times

Santa Cruz será sede del cuartel del ALBA · la-razon.com

Haven't blogged in a long time, but this seemed worthwhile to highlight; Bolivian newspaper _La Razon_ is reporting that the city of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, will be the military training headquarters for Hugo Chavez's ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America) left-wing alliance, including a new military academy.

The irony is that Santa Cruz is the center for right wing anti-Morales types.

We'll have to follow this in the weeks to come.

Santa Cruz será sede del cuartel del ALBA · la-razon.com