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dangay.bsky.social
Political economist who advises on and writes about economics and sustainable development, international trade & the least developed countries. Former UN and OECD. Scot. Likes running, cycling & the outdoors. www.emergenteconomics.com | dangay.substack.com
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Posts 26 Comments 24

This is a point I hadn't thought of before, though it's obvious once you see it. The economics of LLMs are fundamentally different from conventional software, because they are costly not just to develop, but also to run. www.wheresyoured.at/wheres-the-m...

submitted 3 days ago • 6 comments

Ffs 🤦‍♂️ 1. This is a virtually non existent increase in defence spending. A pathetic response in context. 2. But for the aid budget this is a painful, significant cut, coming on top of the closure of USAID, that that will cause real damage and make the U.K. less safe. Bad politics, bad policy 👎

submitted 3 days ago • 11 comments

Another huge country signals it might shift toward China. The US: absent. www.bbc.com/news/article...

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Not a great fan of John Simpson but this seems about right. Trump handed over both his main negotiating cards before talks even started. www.bbc.com/news/article...

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Periodic reminder that Adam Smith only mentions the invisible hand once in the Wealth of Nations and it's not what the book's really about. www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

substack.com/@dangay/note...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Refugees in the US *give money* to US taxpayers. From 2005–2019, refugees paid $123.8 billion more in taxes than they received in expenditures: aspe.hhs.gov/reports/fisc... That's federal, state, and local combined. Everything. Now we have obliterated that low-cost, high-return investment—>

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

The immediate consequence of Trump's isolationism is the projection of Chinese power. on.ft.com/4b5HDmw

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Globalisation rules! (Despite US unilateralism) open.substack.com/pub/dangay/p...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Why's the coffee chain advising on international relations, I thought at first. Either a measure of my ignorance or the EU Council President's anonymity.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

The Economist sums things up nicely in this week's cartoon.

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Unusually I mostly agree with Janan Ganesh. Tariffs just amount to counterproductive flailing amidst the ongoing rebalance of world power. National borders are more and more irrelevant, though. www.ft.com/content/14ee...

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Larry Summers, then World Bank chief economist: “the logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable . . . I’ve always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted.” Waste Wars: on.ft.com/4jVcXYZ

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Platform dominance: the world does its online shopping on a handful of Chinese and US platforms. The value of sales across the world’s top 35 e-commerce platforms rose to more than $4 trillion in 2021, led by Alibaba, Amazon, JD.com and Pinduoduo, according to UNCTAD. That's 15% of all transactions.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

🧵1. Ending the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act fits with the notion that US international relations have turned an abrupt corner toward a more brutal and short-termist self interest. It's self-defeating: dangay.substack.com/p/the-musk-s... on.ft.com/3WYdTSz

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

Tariff man is weaker than he thinks open.substack.com/pub/dangay/p...

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Although this clearly has nothing directly to do with the USAID cuts, these sort of moves need to be seen in the same overall context of a global competition for influence. www.ft.com/content/c74f...

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

“What Trump is doing is basically providing China a perfect opportunity to rethink, to renew soft power projects, and get back on track to transglobal leadership.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

The way things are going in the US, the rest of the world have to become imaginative about the scenarios that would best safeguard their interests. Today I ask if the world could decouple from US trade. For most countries, the answer is yes, at a significant but bearable cost. on.ft.com/41eWTKF

submitted 22 days ago • 19 comments

Latest Substack post: The Musk slips dangay.substack.com/p/the-musk-slips

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

The Musk slips open.substack.com/pub/dangay/p...

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

This sort of thing makes me wonder if the techno-dorks got into bed with Trump too quickly. If his trade war escalates to services it could fragment their global empire. www.ft.com/content/7303...

submitted 23 days ago • 1 comment

Official development assistance to least developed countries was already stagnating. The USAID cuts will have a devastating impact given that it's by far the biggest donor, supplying more than a fifth of total ODA to LDCs.

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

El-Erian has things back-to-front here and he's out of date. If the concept of 'Global South' lacked definition, recent weeks have forced it to be sharpened. With tariffs and aid cuts, Trump is forcing many countries to choose which side they're on. www.ft.com/content/098c...

submitted 24 days ago • 2 comments

@garyseconomics.bsky.social is dead right that inequality is killing economies and democracies. We're screwed unless we reverse the wealth-grab of the super rich. Gary's one of the few people who can talk about economics to a wide audience in normal language. Listen to him.

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment

Wouldn't it be interesting if Trump finally sent Chinese manufacturers into Africa en masse?

submitted 27 days ago • 0 comments