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Andrew Fischer

@andrewmfischer.bsky.social

2.1K followers 530 following 160 posts

Prof at Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Chair of Development and Change @devandchg.bsky.social, Canuck in Europe. Working on development economics, demography & social policy, Tibet & western China. Wrote Poverty as Ideology (2018) & other stuff.

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Nov 22

Ex-bird algorithms didn't seem to like me, so I'm reposting here:

@devandchg.bsky.social 2024 forum issue on the political economy of global #reparations is out, with an amazing line up of leading thinkers on this issue. A must read, as antidote to politics going in the opposite direction.

🧵(1/x)

FORUM 2024: Development and Change: Vol 55, No 4

Click on the title to browse this issue

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · 3d

Policy based evidence making.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3d

RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · 10d

This trope has been the right wing go-to explanation for the unequal & dysfunctional US health care system for decades now. Fox was blowing this dog whistle during Obama’s attempts to reform, as far as I recall.

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · 10d

You are doing fantastic work on this Saloni. I really appreciate your correctives to the population collapse panic.

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · 25d

Given that the late Thandika Mkandawire was a massive inspiration for me, I am incredibly honoured to have been invited to give this memorial lecture and, now as the day approaches, also increasingly nervous about it.
tinyurl.com/Thandika-2025

Reposted by Andrew Fischer

Daniela Gabor @danielagabor.bsky.social · Sep 5

This looks smashing

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Sep 5

Epic article on Palestine by @rafeefz.bsky.social just published by @devandchg.bsky.social based on her keynote at the recent AHE conference.

"Development as Erasure: Palestine, Genocide and ‘Reconstruction’"

A must read!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Sep 5

Indeed, through successive tweets, I am convinced that Elmo thinks that negative growth will result in something becoming exponentially negative, rather than just dwindling out slower and slower...

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Sep 5

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Aug 30

My thoughts exactly.

Also, besides all the other questions with the simple correlations in the FT piece, what if the interpretation is actually the opposite? If having kids makes people more conservative? Then the opposite conclusion follows (just to say how silly it is as an argument).

Reposted by Andrew Fischer

Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · Aug 29

"Progressives" and "leftists": You must understand that we have urgent problems and the most important way to address them urgently is to saddle healthy young, productive women with 30 years of intensive parenting, and spend a million dollars each, so their kids can make a difference in the future!

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Aug 16

We know. And the rest of our trade is actually in deficit with the US.

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Aug 10

Superb article by Adam Hanieh on renewables and fossil fuel capitalism in the Gulf states just out in @devandchg.bsky.social, as part of our forthcoming forum issue (the image shows a different issue).

doi.org/10.1111/dech...

Greening the Gulf? Renewables, Fossil Capitalism and the ‘East–East’ Axis of World Energy

This article examines the place of the Gulf Cooperation Council states in the global energy transition, with a focus on the recent and rapid expansion of renewable energy in the region. It argues tha...

doi.org

Reposted by Andrew Fischer

Karen Benjamin Guzzo @karenguzzo.bsky.social · Jul 28

In case you missed this piece on Friday (or want to be reminded that humanity is not facing imminent demise), here's your chance to learn why demographers aren't panicking about low birth rates.

The Conversation U.S. @us.theconversation.com · Jul 28

Fears that falling birth rates in US could lead to population collapse are based on faulty assumptions theconversation.com/fears-that-f...

Fears that falling birth rates in US could lead to population collapse are based on faulty assumptions

While the changes in population structure that accompany low birth rates are real, the impact of these changes has been dramatically overstated.

theconversation.com

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jul 19

As far as I can tell, Japan and South Korea are way ahead of China in per capita terms. Even Germany is ahead. Just the US is behind among those top five.

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jul 15

Yes, the “this is the biggest crisis of the century” crowd annoys the heck out of me. The worst is that it plays into far right Elmo politics.

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jul 15

Good to know. It is just that you cited econ dev and cultural contagion as the reasons, and I thought you were citing the article.

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jul 15

I really wish economists would read demographers, realise that they have been showing & saying this for decades, but that it is not fundamentally due to econ dev, but to mortality.

My latest short commentary on this: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A Demographic Case for a Global South Focus in Development Studies - The European Journal of Development Research

Although demographic transitions across the Global South have been progressing towards what might be considered as convergence with the Global North, an understanding of this core socio-structural tra...

link.springer.com

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jun 28

I meant that social scientists often complain about the 2 yr IF, that it is biased towards medical & physical sci where things get cited much faster after they are pub’ed. So, there is a pref for the 5-yr bc it gives more time for getting cited. But I find it makes almost no diff to the rankings.

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jun 27

The logic is that it takes longer to get cited in social sciences than in medicine or physical sciences, hence the 5-yr IF is supposed to better capture that.

So, they are averages of sorts, but of very narrow and specific date ranges.

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jun 27

No, the standard JIF is literally: all cites in 2024 (only from other WoS listed journals) of articles published in 2022-23 / # of those articles.

The 5-yr IF is cites in 2024 of articles from 2019-23 / # of those articles.

So both are citations in only one year, but of different date ranges.

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jun 26

Although your explanatory note at the bottom isn’t very precise & gives the impression it is all citations, rather than just citations in one year.

2-year JIF is specifically citations in 2024 to articles published in 2022 & 2023. 5-yr to articles published from 2019-23.

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jun 26

Useful list!

Note that Development and Change @devandchg.bluesky.social, which also publishes a lot of heterodox economics articles, had a JIF of 3.2 this year.

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jun 15

Exactly. Massive outmigration is an expression of how bad the employment situation is, altho it’s also a response to pop pressure at household level, as more children survive to adulthood over several generations. Nepal pop will still grow for a generation, even with fertility below 2.

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jun 11

I think Eric doesn’t realise that populations will continue growing for most of our lifetime even after fertility falls below replacement.

And as long as there is massive room for increasing productive and decently paid employment in the Global South, fertility concerns are not relevant.

Eric Levitz @ericlevitz.bsky.social · Apr 13

This just isn't true. Far-right demographic panic definitely drives some natalist advocacy. But global fertility is on the cusp of falling below replacement.

Absent major gains in automation, this is going to be a major source of economic strain during our lifetimes.

Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jun 11

Not only that, poor countries have massive underemployment problems, so there is massive room for productive employment gain before any concerns of falling fertility would even become relevant. The strain is political and economic, not demographic.

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Andrew Fischer @andrewmfischer.bsky.social · Jun 10

Wonderful to have my research featured in the lead editorial of @theguardian.com, but only because the information is so important to share, about massive transfers of wealth out of Zambia.

They did an amazing job packaging it into 560 words in a way I could never.
@stillwatersrandeep.bsky.social

The Guardian view on Zambia’s Trumpian predicament: US aid cuts are dwarfed by a far bigger heist | Editorial

Editorial: As the US decries corruption, a paper suggests the real scandal is multinationals legally extracting billions from Africa’s resource-rich nation

www.theguardian.com

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