Alex Tabarrok has a pair of neat posts on India and China.

The first points to a vast expansion of private schooling in India, and makes the plausible argument that growth is causing education rather than the other way around.

The second, which scoffs at fears that growth in China will exacerbate world hunger, is too elegant not to quote:

It’s no contest. A broken watch is correct twice a day.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of abject poverty in the last several decades but trust Lester Brown to see the downside (Brown, of course, is sadly joined by Paul Krugman and neo-cons itching for another cold-war). In his latest book, Brown argues that the Chinese will soon be eating little children. Well, not exactly, but he does think that Chinese eating will cause little children to die.

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Isn’t it amazing how rising affluence leads directly to mass starvation? Some people just can’t be happy.

And to think that more than once I’ve told Alex to stop worrying so much!