State Fragility, the Curse of Denmark, and Non-Linear Progress in Development

In this interview, Prof. Tim Besley of LSE highlights issues in development economics and introduces a series of new concepts such as "fragile states" and "the Curse of Denmark" that provide much needed nuances in discussions about development. As an introduction to this interview, we want to highlight one important point from Prof. Besley’s talk on state fragility in Princeton. He noted how the U.S., U.K., and stable states as such are all recent human contrivances. Humans have really only existed 73 seconds past midnight if we normalize the existence of Earth to 24 hours, and we’ve had stable political systems for merely 0.01 second. How do we know whether our current systems are stable? “To say that we've transitioned to some new world that is inevitably stable and will never revert would be a very dangerous belief to have,” as Prof. Besley also commented during our interview. It’s dangerous to think that human progress will be linear, and we have to stay vigilant and humble as we continue to tackle the issues in our world. Here are a few additional comments on normative economic frameworks by our host Tiger: "On our way back to Prof. Besley’s office after our interview, I asked Prof. Besley about his research and how he sees the future of economic studies shaping up. Prof. Besley told me that when he thinks of a complicated question, he tends to break it down through a few frameworks. One of those frameworks particularly attracted my attention – a normative one that brings a values component into economic analysis. For example, a utilitarian framework or one about happiness could add a much different and helpful dimension to our understanding of certain socioeconomic issues. "As little as I may know about this new normative approach, I do feel that such interdisciplinary discourse will be highly constructive for our exploration of economic issues. If someone’s knowledge in political theory or moral philosophy could somehow play a bigger role in economic research, that creates a much more exciting future than simply adding more variables into the model. As someone not well-versed in real analysis at all, I am quite excited to be part of that future if we ever come to it."