What is the micro-oriented approach?
The idea that poor people benefit more when you generate opportunities that are small in scale and low-tech. Obvious as a prescription — heretical in development.
Writing
Foundational essays on the micro-oriented approach, the cases that illustrate it, and shorter pieces for general audiences.
Foundational essays — how the idea developed, what it claims, where it leads.
The idea that poor people benefit more when you generate opportunities that are small in scale and low-tech. Obvious as a prescription — heretical in development.
If we brought the micro-oriented approach to its logical conclusion, what would society look like? On scale, Kuhn, and the call for an epistemic community.
My 'discovery' of a fifty-year-old idea. How a puzzle about two neighboring Chinese provinces led, eventually, to the micro-oriented approach.
Examples of the micro-oriented approach in practice — drawn from agriculture, industry, and beyond.
KFC, Nescafé, vegetables, cut flowers — all sourced from small Chinese farmers. How land rights kept agribusiness small-scale, for a while.
Lessons from Isan, the rice basket of Thailand, on what it takes to shift small-scale farmers into certified organic production.
Most poor people in poor countries farm. When subsistence becomes unviable, mainstream economists prescribe scaling up. But there are other ways.
Selected pieces with full text or audio/video on this site.
Op-ed for Channel News Asia on the centrality of poverty in Chinese politics, a century after the founding of the Communist Party.
A brief interview on BBC Radio's News Day discussing the announcement that China had eradicated absolute rural poverty.
A short video on the persistence of poverty in China — a reminder that the 'end of absolute poverty' is not the end of poverty.
Observations on how scholarship is measured, marketed, and at times mismeasured.
On the seductions and distortions of citation databases — from someone who has spent a lot of time reading them.
Commentary published with external outlets — Channel News Asia, Wall Street Journal, Straits Times, Brink Asia, Karyawan, and others.
Wall Street Journal Webinar · with Jason Douglas
Karyawan (AMP Singapore) 16(3): 9–12
Channel News Asia (Commentary)
Karyawan (AMP Singapore) 14(1): 13–16 · with Pearlyn Neo
Karyawan (AMP Singapore) 13(1): 9–11
Karyawan (AMP Singapore) 12(1): 17–20 · with Abdul Shariff Aboo Kassim
Brink Asia
IPP Review · with Joel Moore
IPP Review · with Zhanping Hu and Q. Forrest Zhang
Lianhe Zaobao (in Chinese) · with Curtis Chin
Wall Street Journal Asia · with Curtis Chin
Straits Times · with Forrest Q. Zhang
Straits Times · with Forrest Q. Zhang
Lianhe Zaobao (in Chinese) · with Forrest Q. Zhang
Asian Post
Reviews of recent scholarship on China, rural development, and the politics of poverty.
China Journal
China Journal 87(1): 130–2
The Developing Economies 59(3): 327–30
Journal of Chinese Political Science 24(3): 551–53
China Quarterly 233: 250–52
China Journal 79: 154–6
China Journal 78: 133–5
China Review 1(2): 203–5
China Quarterly 223: 140–2
Pacific Affairs 86(1): 140–2
Journal of Asian Studies 71(2): 539–41