YouSaid · the spoken record

Joe Studwell

lines on the record: 59
first: 2026-02-18
most recent: 2026-02-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I'm not sure what I'll do next. I'm kind of thinking about a developmental history of the UK because I've never written about my own country. And I think there are a number of things in the development of the UK that are not spelled out particularly clearly in what is generally a very good literature. I mean, there have been some excellent books written about the UK economy, but I think there are one or two things that I'd like to explore more that haven't really been covered. And I think it's also partly that I feel like I've done a lot of travelling and I'd like to not travel for a while.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I lived, but I really just lived in Italy for 10 years just because it was a sort of relatively cheap place to live.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's nothing particularly Interesting other than that, I suppose it was an area where there was a bit of land reform, an area where industry took off in rural areas. So there's kind of stuff to be seen there, which is not what the tourists normally looks for.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Could be, but there's so much For me, there's so much noise. In the data I find it personally just find it hard to sort of maintain credible attention.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, for me, policy makes a difference. And wherever I've looked in the world, I've seen clear evidence of policy making difference.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'd say that, I mean, actually, I'd say to an extent that Hong Kong did have industrial policy in as much as while Hong Kong was always. Very free in external trade the domestic economy was a kind of colonial stitch up and there was sort of two of everything, two supermarket operators, one firm running, the airport, the other firm running the airline and so on. And also that, you know, of course, when the textiles trade arrived in Hong Kong after 49, it was already highly efficient. It had gone through a very long period of development in Shanghai. So it wasn't like it was beginning with zero knowledge. But as to how much is ethnic, I mean ethnicity often embodies certain education backgrounds. It embodies some ethnicities have got to a point where they're better off than others. So I think it's kind of easy to confuse what might be ethnic with what is just something reflected in that particular group of people for reasons other than...”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I think it failed in India because people like Mahala Nobis after the Second World War were just absolutely clueless and India just never ran any kind of effective industrial policy. I mean, they didn't understand that competition is fundamental to effective industrial policy. They thought it was much more organizational and you just pick your winners and you don't subject them to competition. I think there are pretty straightforward reasons why industrial policy didn't work in India.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know Brazil terribly well. I mean, the first thing I'd say about Brazil is that, you know, it's underperformed for the last 200 years, not just the last 50. And the country is just a mess in terms of development. I mean, if you look at the agriculture sector, the dominance of scale agriculture, the appalling way in which smallholder agriculture is treated and how it's undervalued. And I think if I knew more about industrial policy in Brazil, I think what I would be saying is that, you know, it's been ineffectively applied patchually applied, not applied consistently over long enough period. And sure enough, a large part of it is a total failure. But at the same time, you can point to bits that are clearly a success. And the obvious one that everyone always points to is embryo.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Operates, and there's really no substitute for it because as has been shown, manufacturing is the only bit of the economy that really delivers the convergence that we're supposed to get across the whole economy in the sort of orthodox view of life. So I think that industrial policy has done very well. The problem is, of course, getting away from it then proves extremely difficult, not only getting away from industrial policy, but getting away from getting away from the trade surpluses that it tends to produce Japan or Germany or now China, the countries that have run the most effective industrial policy become a problem for the whole of the rest of the world. Economy is a means to raise your people up. I think it's had a very good performance.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's work takes extremely well and it's been refined over well over a century. Yeah, I mean the whole approach of targeting cheap money at manufacturing, putting some protection in place, rewarding exporters of manufactured goods you know it's created jobs”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think it certainly looks difficult. I mean, I tend to sort of not get much further when I think about this than being profoundly amused by the fact that we have spent the last 250 years being obsessed with a Malthusian view of the world and believing that we're going to breed ourselves into disaster. And of course, at the end of the day, there never was a Malthusian risk, at least in practical terms, but depopulation is way more serious than population growth ever was, I think.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know. I mean, I know that there are people who think that they can. Yeah, I don't know what the answer is, but not crazy inflation, but just a bit of sort of steady inflation. I'd have to go back and look at what happened in the UK after the Napoleonic Wars in order to understand how it was. But I do remember that it was largely inflation that solved the problem.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, maybe they're relating, maybe they're relying on the robotics and AI that we were talking about. Do you not feel confident about robotics and AI solving the Korean depopulation problem?”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's certainly very interesting. And I mean, of course, China has a very low birth rate, a little bit higher than Korea, but still very low. But I mean, one observation I would make is that... China actually is much more cosmopolitan society than either Korea or Japan. And so having a falling population is more difficult for Korea and Japan because the populations don't want foreigners coming in to do the jobs. They don't want those Africans coming in to do the jobs. So then what else are you going to do? Well, you know, you're going to offer them these great big subsidies, but there is a very poor record for offering all kinds of subsidies in all kinds of countries around the world to try and get people to have kids when they don't want to. So I don't know. I mean, the only forecast I have is that the problem will have to become significantly more acute than it is now before they begin to talk about it seriously.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it hasn't gone so badly. I mean, Thailand's always had a pretty strong currency, partly as a result of tourism being a great big part of the economy. You know, the manufacturing has hardly been sort of hollowed out. And the politics has always been a total mess, right? I mean, I tell you thing the politics has become any worse and the position of the monarchy, you know, it's always been a disaster, but Thailand has always functioned fine despite all of that. So I don't to me, Thailand doesn't look like a big mess relative to what I've seen in the past at all. I suspect that they will... Will carry on with this very messy politics that they have until at some point the relationship between the monarchy and politics is confronted, but that's an almost kind of revolutionary thing to contemplate in terms of Thailand.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it may not matter in practice for the outside world, but it matters in practice for Africa. So the AU will retain its position. I mean, it's a bit like Morocco and Western Sahara. I mean, the AU still says that there are 55 states in Africa because it still counts Western Sahara as a state, even though the US is now in favor of that being turned over to Morocco.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“in the AU has been if you start changing borders in Africa, you'll never stop it. And I suspect that will remain the case going forward because the fear is there. I mean, really, the only case And that was the result of a referendum that was 99%.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Once in one state you open the door to absolute mayhem in this ethnically very diverse continent. So there is kind of very built in, hardwired AU opposition to any change in borders and so you get kind of classic cases where no one will even talk about it. I mean for instance the Somalis, you know, where the Somalis are split between Ethiopia, Northeast Kenya, British Somaliland Somaliland. I can't even remember that. It's a five-way split. And they went to the AU back in the 60s and have done it subsequently. He said, you know, this is ridiculous. We're all Somalis. Why are we living in five different countries? And the AU won't touch it. And as I say, that is because the received opinion of the senior leader.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think, Tyler, that we will continue to see the form that we've seen since independence in Africa. I'm sure you're aware that the African Union really since inception has operated to head off any changes in borders in Africa. And that is really because the leading politicians have always taken the view that if you let African borders”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that Africa should and probably will experiment with all sorts of things. I wouldn't offer it as a prescription, but if there's a government that's thinking, right, let's try this. You know good luck to them. It's not impossible. It's not impossible that it will work just as Hong Kong works for colonial Britain”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is if there's a clear demand there to begin with and private sector actors who are going to make it work. And in that case, yes, the zones should always be left alone. I mean, there are, for instance, outside Addis Ababa, there's a successful Chinese managed and Chinese-owned investment zone. And it does absolutely fine. that type of investment zone, I think, yeah, just let people get on with it and leave them alone. I was thinking more of state-led investment zones where there'd be many failures, and that's where African governments need to be more careful, more thoughtful, and more clearly committed when they open a zone to making sure that it works.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, Africa has already had a good number of special economic zones and they haven't worked well. But the seven that the Chinese have opened seem to have worked better. So I think the jury is out on that question. I think down the road, yes, Africa will need more zones, but there's no point in opening investment zones unless they get the political attention that is going to make them successful.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like the look of both for different reasons, certainly Nigeria tops out in terms of venture capital money coming into Africa at the moment. But when you've got a country like Ethiopia with 150 million people, that's an attractive market if you develop a business that works. So I think that it won't necessarily be about east to west going forward. I think that early entrance and whether they're hedge funds or whether they are multinational companies, they'll think first about the most populous countries on the continent so they will think about Nigeria and Ethiopia and then go down the list from there. I think that they'll also be differentiation based on regions, based on what's grown in agriculture, what's manufactured and so forth.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very possibly it's already happening to a significant extent. There'll be Mauritius trying to compete as an offshore center. But certainly when you get up to the Horn of Africa, UAE is already the sort of preferred destination.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that you can find cases that bear that out, but I'm not sure that it's a great rule of when you're just looking at duration rather than also Colonialism operated what it did, you know, when you look at the qualitative difference, for instance, between, oh, French colonialism in West Africa and Japanese colonialism in Taiwan, it's not just about duration. Yeah, I don't have a great answer to that question. And most colonial stories in Africa were pretty short and fairly similarly short, right? Because most colonization happens in the 1880s and most colonization is over in the 1960s.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I haven't looked in sufficient detail country by country to be able to say where I think. Again, I mean, I would say that in Central Africa, that Rwanda's done very well on health. I'd say that Ethiopia has done very well on health. But I do think that just a generally positive story across the continent, what has been done in terms of reducing this horrific disease burden that really has dominated African history.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But again, I'd say that there's been huge progress continent-wide because partly because outside institutions like the WHO or the Gates Foundation have operated in multiple states, but partly also because African states themselves have made it a high priority. I mean, the performance in terms of the reduction of deaths of under fives, for instance, which fairly critical measure when you look at demographics, I don't know where in the world beats Africa in terms of what's been done over the last 50 years.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of them, yeah, but there's also a question of timing. I mean, I think that the point that you make about very high performing institutions in Africa begins to become more relevant now. You know, the order of priorities in Africa after 1960 was to get the population literate and numerate. And that's where resources went. Now there's a change, yes, Africa going forward needs really elite universities. There's a beginning of efforts to create that in Rwanda where there's a couple of US universities that have gotten involved in the random tertiary education system. So, yeah, I mean, I hear what you say, but I think that's a problem for Africa going forward and not a problem around which we should judge Africa today.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think so in the sense that I wouldn't point to the IITs in India as evidence of the strength of India's education system. I mean, I agree the people who come out of the IITs are fantastic, but they're only 30,000 people in the IITs. I mean, they're just like numerically inconsequential.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Classic was again Tanzania, right? So we can talk about how terrible the politics are in Tanzania, but Nairi's government increased literacy from just over 10% to 80% in one generation. And that was a huge mobilization of resources to achieve that. And that's another thing that African governments had to do, that Asian governments didn't have to do after independence. Asian governments didn't have to worry about having an illiterate and innumerate population.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Proximate start of the independence era, Africa had the least educated population in the world by a long, long way. I mean, in 1960 literacy in Africa was sixteen percent one sixth. According to a World Bank report that came out in the 80s, they rolled out across Africa the fastest developed formal education system that the world has ever seen. And in some measures, education performance in Africa now exceeds South Asia, which is pretty remarkable given that South Asia was very far ahead in 1960. So I don't think that it's fair to criticize Africa too aggressively on its education performance. I think that governments around the continent have taken education very seriously.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, in West Africa, I mean, if we're just looking here at the statistics about people graduating at different levels of education, of course, Ghana and Nigeria always did pretty well, always accounted for a high proportion of Africa's university graduates. I don't think that Kenya does badly in terms of the human capital, it turns out very well-educated and entrepreneurial people. Again, the problem is the politics. Ethiopia, big investment in vocational education that's made a significant difference. Rwanda similarly has made a significant investment in vocational education. So I think there's a lot of stories around that are really not too bad. And I also think that we have to be fair to Africa and remind ourselves that back in 1960, start”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anybody really who follows Nigeria has been fairly impressed by what Tinubu has managed to do there. I mean, the guy came in and ended a petrol subsidy that everyone said would never end because it was too politically difficult to do it. It cost $10 billion a year, which is a lot of money in Nigeria. And he did it and he came in and he ended it and there was no serious violence around that.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, some people say the leader who's got Talon who's got his hands around the developmental situation. And, you know, and I think that that... Is quite possibly the story. I mean, we are seeing some genuinely positive leadership in Africa. And Benin, yeah, I mean, there's a sensible approach to agricultural development. You know, the beginnings of an industrial policy and just getting things done and delivering things. But then, you know, go back to Nigeria. I mean, Nigeria's defense, I would say that.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The exception. No, I mean, I agree, but again, what I've read in World Bank reports suggests that situations still bad, but better than it was 10 and 20 years ago.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Their World Bank projects and they were misconceived, not least actually in relation to demographics because there were projects which actually needed more labor and bigger markets than were there. And this is the reason that they fell into disuse very often. But what you have now all over Africa, and there's already three, four million hectares of irrigated land that's been added in the last couple of decades and it's been added by individual farmers who buy pumps and get and either themselves dig boreholes or get them dug by people who are providing that service. And it's this much more micro approach to building business, whether it's agricultural business or otherwise. That's what I think gives some cause for optimism.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yeah, I mean, but again, Tyler, you know, this goes back to what I was saying about if you look at the government staff, you can still be pretty miserable about Africa. But what we're seeing on the continent is a level of traction from the private sector that we haven't seen before. And I think so also if you think about use of water, for instance, a big reason for the very good agricultural performance in the last 20 years and for around cities, African farmers now getting up towards Asian yields. A big reason for that is farmer-led irrigation. So you referred to kind of State led projects that have just failed, and there were loads of them. And to be fair, they were not always just African government projects in the past. If you go back to the 60s and the 70s often, there would be UN projects. Sure.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No reason why Africa can't get towards cheap industrial electricity. And in terms of road connections, I mean, an awful lot of road connections have been built. I mean, Africa is not great, but road density has been actually a significant success story, not only of the last 20 years, but of the last fifty years. If you go somewhere like Rwanda, you're kind of blown away by the quality of the roads. And of course, since 2013, Belton Road, you know, the Chinese have put in $150 billion.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I mean, on energy costs, these have traditionally been very high in Africa because there has not been the investment in energy, but with the development of massively reduced cost for solar and wind, actually things look quite good and the development of geothermal as well. There's no reason that I can see why African countries aren't going to be able to produce very cheap electricity, which, as you say, is a critical input for a manufacturing economy. And in fact, we've seen that in Ethiopia already. Ethiopia has electricity which is at a fraction of the cost of other African countries because they set out with an aggressive industrial policy to make that happen. Quite a lot of it's through hydro because, of course, they are one of the great sort of water towers of Africa, but also wind and solar are being built out as well and geothermal. So I think that”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, oddly enough, I mean, pre the end of apartheid, the manufacturing performance of South Africa was really not bad at all. With classic industrial policy, quite high levels of protection and so forth, I think that demand for manufactured goods will continue to be high around the world and that the labor cost will continue to be a prime determinant of where producers go for low value added goods. And so I think that the opportunity is there for African countries.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I mean, just one example, you know, during COVID, when everybody was having home deliveries of supermarket goods, the price of a UK firm called a Cado, which was runs a supermarket, but was also developing the software and consulting around building blind warehouses went up through the roof. Now it's down through the floor. And only last week Kroger supermarket in the US said we're closing five of these supermodern blind warehouses. And the reason fundamentally is because they lack the flexibility that human labour brings to the job. So I'm not saying that robots, automation and AI are not important. They are important. What I am saying is that they are not going to derail a manufacturing future for a number of African countries that aggressively pursue it.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think so. I mean, I think South Africa is deindustrializing because the ANC has followed a hyper-liberal approach to economic policy. I don't think the ANC has ever really understood economic policy, frankly. So South Africa is an outlier in that respect. There are many other states in Africa, whether Nigeria or Ethiopia, which understand they've got to have a manufacturing future and intend to pursue one. You know, what people miss is the flexibility with robotics and AI. There's very limited flexibility with robotic and automated production. When demand goes up, you can't just stick in more robots. You can stick in more people and produce more.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“sixty dollars or sixty five dollars to make the new order that you just got and if the order doesn't come through you can sack them so you see what i'm saying there's a point about about the cost of robotics and the”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And AI are going to change the story. I personally just do not buy. And principally for two reasons. One is the cost reason, because whenever people talk about what's happening with robotics, no one ever talks about the cost of robots. In garmenting, for instance, even a basic robot will cost you in excess of $100,000 and you pay the cost up front. And you've then paid that whether there's demand for your products or not. Also in garmenting and in textiles, robots don't work very well because they can't work with material very well. They're much better at working with solid things. So you've spent $100,000 for aerobot when you can go out in somewhere like Tana in Madagascar and get another skilled because they've been doing it now for 20 years, garmenting employee for”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there was a future for manufacturing. It will depend on the extent to which African governments understand that you don't really move forward fast for very long without manufacturing, that every developed country, apart from a few petro states and financial centers, has gone through a manufacturing phase of development. It depends on the extent to which African governments engage with that. But some without doubt will. The Ethiopians, for instance, have already attempted to do that what they're trying to do has been somewhat derailed by the two-year civil war that took place from 2020, but they're back on it now, and they're trying to move forward. And the idea that robotics”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They will start as everybody does, producing garments, producing textiles, which in certain enclaves is already going on in Madagascar, in Lesotho, in Morocco, and they'll move on to other things. And they'll start with those things because they are the most labor cost sensitive products. And Africa is now in a position where depending on which state you're looking at, taking China as a reference point, the cost of labor is now between a half and one tenth of what it is. In China. So factory labor is now around six hundred dollars a month at its cheapest. In a country like Ethiopia or Madagascar, it's sixty or sixty five dollars a month. So it's a tenth of the cost. And that's already beginning to have a bit of effect. And often with Chinese firms moving production to Africa. So I think there is a...”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“East and Southern Africa. It's moved into all sorts of other businesses. They own a football club. They own a TV station. They're in petroleum products. They're in all sorts of stuff. I mean, there are proper diversified conglomerates of the kind that we would associate with or I would associate with Southeast Asia. All that's going on in the private sector, despite the still concerning politics that you rightly refer to.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Africa compared with anywhere else in the world. It's been faster than anywhere else in the world. And that's really a kind of night and day change to where Africa was at in the 70s, 80s, 90s. So those sorts of things are very important. The growth of the agricultural sector is also creating the first large private sector firms in Africa because, of course, agriculture has a manufacturing component as well when we process all the stuff that is grown. And we're getting large firms operating across borders in Africa now in the agribusiness sector. I mean, you just, you know, we're talking about the politics of Tanzania as a cause for concern, but I mean, equally, you could look at Bakraza, the biggest Tanzanian agribusiness firm. It now operates in eight, nine, or ten different countries in”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When it's presenting optimism on what is going on in the private sector and particularly what's going on in agriculture and which doesn't require a lot of state input and state activity. And the numbers there are really pretty good. I mean, we've had the fastest average rate of agricultural GDP growth since 2000 about 4.5%.”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Certainly continue to be a lot of problems with politics, but you don't see the levels of civil strife in Africa that we saw in the 1990s. You don't see the number of coups in Africa that we saw in the 1990s. I mean, what we have at the moment, if you think of violence, is mainly violence that is focused on the Sahel, all really relates to a very particular problem that's partly climatological, it's partly demographic, and it's just very difficult to manage. So I don't think that the political story is great, but the data tell us that there is considerably more democracy in Africa than there was in the 80s and 90s. And that states are more stable. But is there still a lot of bad governance? I think that there is, but that is why my book concentrates”
2026-02-18 · Conversations with Tyler · Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source