In my conversation with Chris Anderson, he mentioned in passing that free was as cheap as things can get. I answered that no, you can actually go lower than free. You can pay people to use your product, what is essentially a negative price, better than charging zero.

Much of this is for the good. In particular, the tilt towards governance has the virtue that it helps shift the focus of reforms towards objectives that are desirable end-goals in and of themselves. The items on the original Washington Consensus agenda were all of instrumental value at best. Playing around with tariff and tax schedules and with the composition of public expendi

We know that a large part (half or more) of the difference in incomes per head between rich and poor countries is due to differences in total factor productivity (TFP)--i.e., the efficiency with which capital, skills, labor, and other inputs are transformed into final output--with the rest being due to differences in physical or human capital levels.