Last Wednesday, we had Professor Nicolas van de Walle talking about issues of economic development and government politics worldwide especially in African.

He began with some projects established last century and discussed their disadvantage. For example, he mentioned that at the beginning, financial aid between governments was largely used to build pure capital project. Later on, people realized that solely depending on capital would not solve the problem. Then, they turned to human capital, which related to investment in education as well as public health. After that, some new issues still arose and that eventually forced government to make economic policy adjustment. One of the focuses was the government corruption because corruption would be in the way of making rational policy. It was also interesting to see a trend that a dictator would perform worse and worse, as he control the realm for longer period.

Professor also listed some example of autocracy through which some dictators make a fair amount of money.  Indonesia had a restriction on import of chocolates. Some people use their privilege to gain huge profit from the scarcity of such goods. That was astonishing.

Overall, this was the first Rose Cafe this semester. This informative session gave us a large scope to look at. I enjoyed it. At last, wish everyone a good start of the semester~