Hello and welcome! You have stumbled upon the website where I, Simon, write about stuff—mostly for my own benefit. Most of what I write is going to be economics I read about. Explaining helps me understand it much better than passively reading about it. And while I am lucky to have peers with whom I can share my interests, I need a push to learn everything that falls in between the cracks. On this site, I intend to rewrite interesting stuff from the economics literature in a manner that aims to be fun to read. I do not intend to be perfectly correct; merely accurate and easy to understand. Thankfully, I won’t be getting any referee reports (phew!)

Beyond writing about papers, I also intend to start a mini-research project. I do not expect to publish, only to go through the process and have some answer to my question. I think there is value in understanding what a research project entails and I want to see if research is for me. I also hope that documenting my experience can help me grow. Completing a vague ‘project’ with no fixed goals or mapped-out plan sounds daunting. Maybe the first thing I will learn is that I need fixed goals and a mapped-out plan. I guess we’ll see!

My idea is to see if there is any connection between the lean season and conflict.¹ I was shocked to learn that farmers can spend months with no income source while they wait for their harvest. I wonder if tough times push farmers who have it particularly hard—those who are poor, have little access to credit, and are far away from urban centers—over the edge. There is some literature exploring the impact of droughts or poor harvests on conflict.² But I am interested in understanding the impacts of ’normal’ lean seasons on farmers. Year after year of hoping your stores last must take a toll on you, right? I guess we’ll see.

I hope my exercise turns research from a ‘spark’ driven process to one where I can take structured steps to arrive at our answer. These steps will not follow a straight path yet I want to do better than fumbling about in the dark. In addition to going from not a researcher to a beginner researcher, I look forward to going from not a writer to a someone with a blog. And I hope to enjoy it!

Finally, I might use this blog to put down other unrelated thoughts. I haven’t decided if I will do this and that decision will likely change even after it has been made. I might experiment and see if such writing is interesting to me. If it is, then I will decide if it fits this space or whether I will put those thoughts somewhere else. I don’t wanna say something silly and have it stuck to my name on the internet forever you know? (like anyone even cares, pfft)

So who am I? I grew up a typical computer nerd who liked video games and fantasy. Now, I am a computer nerd who is interested in economics and data (fantasy not so much). I grew up in Ethiopia, the poster child for famine, and I study Economics to understand why that is so. And in the one-in-a-million chance that I can help move the needle. If not, I am content learning enough Economics, Data and Programming to help answer meaningful questions. While I do not anticipate anyone will ever read this page or any of what I write, I hope that have fun if you do!