causal

Malawi overstates food production to keep aid

Governments have incentives to overstate food shortfalls to qualify for aid and to overstate food production to show aid is working; Malawi has for years seriously overstated maize production to justify continued funding for fertilizer and maize subsidies, yet Malawians are neither gaining weight rapidly nor exporting large amounts of maize, so the statistics must be wrong.

causalpending

Speaker

Morten Jerven

Evidence Quote

To the extent that Malawi should at this moment--either the Malawians should be gaining weight quite rapidly or they should be exporting a lot of maize. But neither is happening. So the statistics must be wrong.

Source

Morten Jerven on Measuring African Poverty and ProgressEconTalk
Created: 6/13/2026, 12:25:58 AM

My Notes

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