Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires

Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. Learn more at Mercatus.org. For a full transcript of every conversation, enhanced with helpful links, visit conversationswithtyler.com. Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. Tyler.

Today I'm speaking with Joe Studwell. Joe has a long and distinguished career as a journalist for many publications, but I know him best for two of his books. The first is How Asia Works, which is extremely well known and has had major impact. And now, this winter he has a new book coming out which I thought was great and enjoyed very much. It is called How Africa Works: Success and Failure on the World's Last Developmental Frontier.

Joe, welcome. Thank you. It's nice to be here. I have many questions about Africa. If lack of population density has been a major problem, does that mean we should now be especially optimistic about the Nigerian Delta, which is densely populated?

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