Chris Blattman
Economist and political scientist at the University of Chicago's Harris School, studying conflict, organised crime and development; author of Why We Fight.
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Where they publish
Blog chrisblattman.com His blog on development economics, conflict and research. Has a feed.
Recent
- Cyber Warfare Is Getting Real: The risk of escalation from cyberattacks has never been greater—or the pursuit of peace more complicated 18 Dec 2022 My piece in Wired
- The Hard Truth About Long Wars: Why the Conflict in Ukraine Won’t End Anytime Soon 29 Nov 2022 My Foreign Affairs piece on how ideals and ideology explain so many long wars, including this one
- Presentation to the Joint Chiefs Operations Directorate 11 Nov 2022 A 30-minute lecture on the book, followed by Q&A
Show 16 more
- Spectator picks WWF as a best book of 2022 10 Nov 2022 Journalist and foreign correspondent Michela Wrong chooses Why We Fight
- From street fights to world wars: What gang violence can teach us about conflict 10 Nov 2022 The Irregular Warfare podcast at West Point interviews me and Teny Gross, director of Chicago's Nonviolence Institute
- The prospects for war with China: Why I see a serious chance of World War III in the next decade 27 Oct 2022 When I wrote my book on war, I avoided ongoing conflicts because I didn’t want the book to be dated the moment it came out. The roots of war and the paths to peace are timeless, and I wanted examples that made this perm…
- When is War Justified? 24 Oct 2022 Top of Mind podcast
- 20 Oct 2022
- Vox FuturePerfect50 20 Oct 2022 Profile: Economist Chris Blattman has reshaped our understanding of violence and poverty
- The 5 reasons wars happen 14 Oct 2022 Book excerpt from The Modern War Institute
- The roots of war: To discern why we fight, we should ask why we do not 14 Oct 2022 Book excerpt in the Boston Review
- Advanced Master’s & PhDs 10 Sept 2022
- High school 10 Sept 2022 Teaching Why We Fight to high schoolers My students love the book. One thing that jumps out is how clearly Blattman writes. For high school students who are encountering a big topic for the first time, clarity is incred…
- Center for Strategic & International Studies 7 Sept 2022 An interview by Erol Yaboke
- If we elected more women would there be less war? Yes but not for the reasons you think 7 Sept 2022 Opinion piece in Newsweek
- Predicting and preventing violent crime before it happens 6 Sept 2022 NPR's Hidden Brain podcast on violence from Monrovia to Chicago, and an amazing new way to stop it
- How to cut short the long slog in Ukraine 14 Aug 2022 Opinion piece in The Hill
- Interview in Die Zeit (Germany) 11 Aug 2022 With Alexandra Endres
- The terrible trade-off: Why governments must choose between more violence or stronger gangs 22 Jul 2022 My piece for the Modern War Institute
Link verified 20 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 12 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Cash transfers are the index fund of development: the benchmark every actively managed aid programme should have to beat.
You can think of cash transfers like the index fund of development (making GiveDirectly the Vanguard).
Are cash transfers overrated? Said 14 Mar 2014
Judging aid programmes against each other on cost-effectiveness is the right standard, even when it counts against the programme you champion.
If it’s becoming standard to judge interventions by their cost effectiveness, then I can’t be more thrilled.
Are cash transfers overrated? Said 14 Mar 2014
Many aid programmes will beat cash on cost-effectiveness, and the ones that do will be those that fix a market failure or a supply problem.
There will be, I am confident, a great many interventions that do better than cash on any number of metrics. Ones that solve market failures or supply problems are big candidates, just like Starr and Hattendorf say.
Are cash transfers overrated? Said 14 Mar 2014
Show 9 more
Comparing randomised trials of cash against NGOs’ own claims for their programmes is not a fair comparison.
The evidence they cite in favor of cash points to peer reviewed randomized trials. The evidence on better performing programs point to… NGO home pages.
Are cash transfers overrated? Said 14 Mar 2014
Some aid programmes will beat cash at solving a specific problem, but few will beat it at simply making poor people less poor.
I’m more skeptical we’ll see better alternatives for pure poverty-alleviation, but we’ll see.
Are cash transfers overrated? Said 14 Mar 2014
Aid is not development: transfers can relieve poverty, but the work that actually lifts a country out of it is not work donors do.
Third, a cash transfer to help the poor build business is like aspirin to a flesh wound. It helps, but not for long.
Why cash transfers to the poor are not the next big thing Said 27 Jun 2013
The case for giving poor people cash is not that it is a cure, but that it is less bad than most of what aid already does.
It is not, “Cash transfers to the poor are a panacea.” More like, “They probably suck less than most of the other things we are doing.” This is not a high bar.
Why cash transfers to the poor are not the next big thing Said 27 Jun 2013
Cash helps a poor person whose only obstacle is a lack of capital, and does little for anyone whose obstacle is something else.
If a poor person is enterprising, and their main problem is insufficient capital, terrific. If that’s not their problem, throwing cash will not do much to help.
Why cash transfers to the poor are not the next big thing Said 27 Jun 2013
What keeps poor countries poor is political and economic instability, not a shortage of well-designed programmes.
The real problem is the absence of firms small and large to employ people productively. The root of the problem is political instability, economic uncertainty, and a country’s high cost structure, among other things. A government’s attention is properly on these bigger issues.
Why cash transfers to the poor are not the next big thing Said 27 Jun 2013
The most valuable thing a young development researcher could do is try to destroy the cash transfer movement.
If I were an enterprising young researcher looking for an idea and experiments that will prove powerful in five years, I would try to find the stake I can drive into the heart of the cash transfer movement.
Why cash transfers to the poor are not the next big thing Said 27 Jun 2013
A research paper that makes the newspapers will usually be shown wrong within a year.
My rule of thumb in this profession: “If the New York Times covers a research paper, the next year we will learn that it’s wrong”.
Why cash transfers to the poor are not the next big thing Said 27 Jun 2013
Watching a panacea get crushed by later studies is science working, not a reason for despair.
That is not depressing. That is science. We should welcome it.
Why cash transfers to the poor are not the next big thing Said 27 Jun 2013
Beliefs others hold too
Aid is not development: transfers can relieve poverty, but the work that actually lifts a country out of it is not work donors do. 2 hold this
Third, a cash transfer to help the poor build business is like aspirin to a flesh wound. It helps, but not for long.
Why cash transfers to the poor are not the next big thing Said 27 Jun 2013
What keeps poor countries poor is political and economic instability, not a shortage of well-designed programmes. 2 hold this
The real problem is the absence of firms small and large to employ people productively. The root of the problem is political instability, economic uncertainty, and a country’s high cost structure, among other things. A government’s attention is properly on these bigger issues.
Why cash transfers to the poor are not the next big thing Said 27 Jun 2013
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