What? Economics and Amusing Road Scenes?!

See all amusing road scenes.

Yes! You read right! Economics and Amusing Road Scenes!

The situation pictured below happens regularly in Maseru. The traffic lights are green to go but the taxi (mini-bus) in front does not move. Or moves at much slower-than-walking pace (which takes some effort) and blocks all cars behind. Great. But why do they do it?

Competition for passengers (who all wait at the bus stop) is fierce. If a taxi is clearly next in line, they will get all the passengers for their destination. But, of course, they want as many passengers as possible. Any taxi that is (almost) guaranteed to get their first has an interest in maximizing the amount of time they take to get there. That way they will have more passengers.

Beautiful. But with negative externalities for everyone stuck behind the taxi and also for general road safety as people (admittedly, me included) get frustrated and try to sneak around the taxi.

In the UK when the local bus transport market was liberalized, Stagecoach used to park around the corner from a bus stop and wait for a rival company. They would then get there just before and take all the passengers! (In addition, they charged less and paid drivers more, driving other companies out of business and gaining a local monopoly.)

The kind Basotho are looking out for my best interests

I was at a café-type-place eating lunch last week and was especially hungry so I ordered 2 dishes (a chicken mayo sandwich and a steak roll and chips, if you are interested). I was told no by the waitress; I cannot order 2 dishes – “it would be too much”. I insisted that I did want both plates and that I was very hungry.

She eventually relented but when the food came she had decided that it should be a chicken salad rather than a sandwich. It was very kind of her to be looking out for my best interests. Thinking about it, it is probably no different from me deciding to lend money for fertilizer but not a TV – just looking out for you! Do we all know what is best for each other better than we ourselves know?

When I mentioned my difficulties getting the food that I wanted to another ex-pat here, he told me that he once had the same problem; he tried to order two panini at the airport and was informed that he could not have two of them. One would be enough.

I am wondering whether bosses should stop paying in cash and pay salaries in a basket of goods that they clearly know to be in the best interests of their workers...

De l’éco à travers les romans (Un cours à donner?)

J’ai terminé un petit bouquin hier soir et j’ai remarqué une petite phrase (ou, au moins, une partie d’une conversation) qui m’a plu* :

- Ca vous suffisait ?

- Non, bien sûr. Enfin si, puisque je n’ai rien fait pour changer les choses. C’est ce que je me suis dit après. …

Au début le personnage indique qu’il a pas pu passer autant de temps qu’il aurait voulu avec la femme qu’il aimait (il était marié). Très bien. Mais puis il s’est rendu compte qu’il aurait pu changé ça mais il l’a pas fait. Pourquoi ?

Pour l’économiste c’est une question de préférences révélées [revealed preferences]. C’est souvent la différence entre ce qu’on dit et ce qu’on fait ; nos préférences révélées – c’est tout simplement ce qu’on fait.

C’est quelque chose qui est très visible dans nos habitudes de consommation. Si, par exemple, je dis (lors d’un sondage, aux amis, à soi-même**,…) que je suis très pour les légumes organiques, mais on en trouve pas dans mon panier et pour le même prix, j’ai acheté des légumes normales et du chocolat, on peut dire mes préférences sont plutôt pour ce que j’ai choisi. On pourrait facilement m’interroger sur la force de mes opinions pour les légumes organiques***.

Ca m’a fait à d’autres livres ou on pourrait trouver des exemples des lois économiques. Je parle pas des livres dans lesquels l’auteur a pour un de ses buts de communiquer des idées économiques (du genre George Orwell ou même Bernard Werber) mais de ceux décrivent le comportement des gens tout simplement et sans arrières pensées. Je suis certain, par exemple, qu’on en trouverait pleins dans les merveilleux commentaires de Jane Austin****.

Ca serait pas mal comme petit cours à faire à la fac (ou même au lycée) pour un prof avec un peu d’imagination qui aime la littérature.

* Le livre est « Je l’aimais » d’Anna Gavalda. Un peu inculte, je le sais, mais j’aime bien ses petits livres qui travaillent pas trop le cerveau !

** Les psychologues nous disent qu’on sait souvent pas exactement ce qu’on pense soi-même.

*** Egalement je pourrais tenir très cher mon petit morceau de chocolat.

**** Je sais pas si elle est un bon exemple puisque elle avait certainement des arrières pensées au niveau social mais ses caractères se comportent d’une façon que j’aime quand même donc je l’utilise… Si quelqu’un a des meilleures idées…

Do the police want you to obey the law?

A apparently not in Johannesburg. A few weeks ago I was in car and my sister’s boyfriend was driving. He was keeping to the 80km/hr speed limit when a police car came up behind. Unfortunately, he was (legitimately) in the outside lane and since there was an exit, there was a solid white line in the middle of the road; he was not supposed to pull over into the inside lane.

They did not appear to be in a rush – they were just driving quickly. They beeped their horn and as they overtook, the policeman in the passenger seat made that hand gesture that indicates ‘what the hell are you doing?’.

Simply obeying the law, officer.

Friday Links

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1/ Nick Griffin, the leader of the far-right, British National Party (BNP) appeared on Newsnight last night. By all accounts he was given a rough ride and rightly so – no one gets off easy on Newsnight. There were plenty of protests and people likening it to Hitler appearing on the BBC – slightly OTT. I AGREE with my friend and fellow blogger, Pinolona, politicians should be held to account, however odious they are and there is no better platform. I like her facebook status update best as a great summary: I am “pleased to be from a country grown-up enough to allow extremist minority parties to show themselves up on the telly, pleased that people are protesting about it and generally glad about freedom of speech and open debate”.

2/ It is a National Tree Planting Day in Lesotho today. Government officials are strongly ‘encouraged’ to participate. I think that in 50 years time, it might be seen as a far-sighted policy and it might be so that Government is setting an example. Nonetheless, I am concerned with the idea that it is implicitly assumed that people with masters degrees in economics have a comparative advantage in planting trees. Is it really a good idea for civil servants to stop work and plant trees? Would it not be better if the day focused on school children? It would then be a great catalyst for all sorts of lessons (environment, geography, agriculture,…)

3/ This young economist beautifully describes how strange economics seminars can seem to the uninitiated and contrasts them to those of other disciplines. As other economists, he has “‘grown up’ thinking:

• Arguing with the presenter about his introduction is appropriate seminar decorum.
• If the presenter is not interrupted in the first five minutes with a question, no one is interested.
• You present your work at a seminar to have people tear it to shreds so you can see what level of criticism your ideas can withstand.”

4/ Chart Porn has a nice amusing cartoon about management decisions and economic upturns.

5/ Tall people do better in life. Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his great book, Blink. In fact, as far as careers go, discrimination of short people seems to at least match that of females and ethnic minorities in the US.

6/ There has been some positive results on a concoction of drugs which reduce likelihood of catching Aids.

7/ Free will only works slowly. Very interesting. But, as suggested by Blink, I think that we take a conscience decision to train our unconscious mind to act in a certain way.

8/ Some great charts on Human Transportation around the world.

Social Cash Transfers in Lesotho

Unicef, the EC and GoL are handing out cash to orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) in Lesotho. I've done a bit of WORK in this area.

It can be a good idea but I have lots of caveats:

1/ In Lesotho, it looks like cash is being given in difficult-to-reach rural areas. Let's think about this for a moment. In the area they have more money. Great. But it is essential that the market mechanism be working well. Demand should increase and prices should rise slightly. Traders should then respond by bringing more goods into the area (the extra price acts as motivation to bring goods to areas they wouldn't otherwise try to go) helping to prevent to the prices from rising too much.

But if no or very few additional goods arrive into the area then all that will happen is that the prices will rise and the people will have no extra goods to consume between them. There will just be a transfer between one poor person who lives in the area (who can no longer afford the prices) and the OVCs (who now have more cash).

Even if more goods do come into the area, if the cash transfers don't stimulate additional production (and it might not be their aim in any case) then people in another reason simply may no longer be able to access products they previously could. Hopefully, they are rich and not poor people, but there are no guarantees.

2/ Secondly, it should be verified that any cash transfers can do a significantly better job of actually assisting the beneficiaries than society. Sometimes society does a good job of insuring short term shocks and a Government/aid organisation that thinks it can do better can destroy existing social interactions.

I think in Lesotho, this is probably the case because there are a *lot* of OVCs and it may have got to the point where it is just too much for existing social mechanisms to cope with. In addition, the moral hazard risk is low. That is, it is unlikely that someone will deliberately become an OVC in order to benefit making this very different from, say, unemployment benefit.

3/ It should be more effective than the next best social insurance option. I have done some work that suggests that scarce resources might be better dedicated towards shocks that impact the whole community in the short term. Arguably, this might be the case here.

4/ Giving money can help a small number of people *BUT* if it does not result in increased production, then this is quite simply only a redistribution. Nothing wrong with that, but if it is only redistributing resources from one poor person to another, we should question if it is worth it.

There is an increasing number of such programmes in Africa. It is difficult to escape from the fact that you have to make some value judgements and that these transfers are related to social preferences. However, there are probably ways to design programmes to minimise some of the risks (moral hazard, blundering government destroying social safety mechanisms, using the money for unworthwhile things, etc. etc.) and there is a mounting amount of research to digest with examples in Zambia and Malawi amongst other places.

Wahenga has many more examples and a quick Google search (or even better, Google Scholar) throws up a lot of research in the area.

Do people ask for money because they have none or because you have some?

Otherwise put, do people beg due to poverty or inequality?

I realized that this can be tested in a country like Lesotho where everyone tends to get paid on the same day of the month – the 25^th here.

Over the weekend I was at a BBQ (or ‘braai’) and an ex-pat couple who have been here for several years told me that (different) people regularly come to their house and ask them for money towards the end of the month.

There must be two different types of people asking for money at the end of the month: those who ask before they have paid because they have run out of money and they need some to tide themselves over till pay day (poverty); and those who know that other people have just been paid and so take advantage and ask for money (inequality?).

With all the usual caveats (some people beg for one reason and some for another; some might do it for different reasons at different times; some might even do it for both reasons at the same time), it seems to me that it should be possible to `1/ test to see which motivation dominates in a given society at a given time; and 2/ profile the different types of people.

Supermarket shopping: pretty girl edition

Actually, this should probably be entitled ‘beautiful people edition’, but it sounds less interesting.

Surprisingly, for someone with a full time job, I rarely go to the supermarket during the weekends. Yesterday was an exception, and I am very glad I went. I noticed something rather peculiar; there were loads of very beautiful girls there. I started to look around and saw that the men were also far more good looking than usual*. Why is that?

I think it is because the people who shop during weekends do not have the same social profile on average as those who shop during the week. Those who shop at weekends are more likely to have good, well-paid jobs than those who shop during week-days, who are more likely to be unemployed or with low-paid jobs.

The next step is to say that people with better paid jobs are better looking. I think that this is very likely to be the case. They can afford to care more for their health, their beauty and to dress better. In addition, their parents are more likely to be wealthy and so have benefited from this all of their lives. Nice.

Chris Dillow noticed that public school pupils are much better looking than the average and I think this might be part of the same phenomenon.

* Yes, I admit, the beautiful girls jumped out at me first.

Friday links (just a little late)

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I’ve seen *loads* of great stuff on t’interweb this week. Here is a selection of my favourite.

1/ If hotels were aid agencies.

2/ Inefficiency through lack of spending of the $787 billion US stimulus package. In Lesotho, it has almost become a mantra to say that we do not have the capacity to spend all the funds allotted for development expenditure. Nice to know we are not so different to the US!

3/ Distant celebrity relations. Barak Obama is related to Brad Pitt and Dick Cheney; Sarah Palin is related to Tennessee Williams and Bill Gates; George W Bush is related to Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana; Hillary Clinton is related to Angelina Jolie, Celine Dion, Alanis Morissette, Madonna, and Camilla Parker Bowles. And loads more examples.

4/ Slight problems with implementing budget plans in Ghana. From my ODI colleague, Michele. Wow, we are doing a pretty good job in Lesotho!

5/ Corn thrashing in Lesotho. From my favourite US Peace Corps blogger in Lesotho, Andrew Dernovsek. He describes beautifully rural culture here, writes excellently and is always very interesting and insightful.

6/ Two great charts found by Chart Porn: Are Europeans a Bunch of Drunks? And some great charts in the NY Times suggesting economic recovery is just around the corner.

7/ Do psychological laws apply only in North America? (HT. Brit. Psychological Soc. Research Digest)

Yet another juvenile execution in Iran

Not economics and not any usual social topics. When I was younger I used to do a fair bit of anti-death penalty stuff. Don't do much and little shocks me. Still, Iran's habits still disgust me. Here is a quote about a recent execution from Hands off Cain (Nessuno Tocchi Caino):

Behnoud Shojaee was executed on October 11, at Tehran's Evin Prison. He was convicted of murdering another boy, Omid, in June 2005, when he was 17 years old. His execution had been halted five times earlier, due to international pressure and attempts by his lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei and other human rights defenders. Two times he was sent back just seconds before being hung. He was already outside in the courtyard, with the noose ready.

Three of Iran’s most prominent movie directors and actors opened a joint account to help raise money for his “diyeh” (blood money) and they raised 100 million toman (70,000 euro), convincing Omid’s family to grant the pardon. But in an unprecedented step, the Iranian judiciary froze the bank account, summoned the artists and threatened that “they shall be investigated” under special laws passed in 1997 against corruption, embezzlement, and misappropriation. Omid’s parents backed out and they were allowed to hang Behnoud with their own hands.

Here is the link to the story which is also on Iranian.com (where the photo of the evil murder came from).

Here in Lesotho the death penalty still exists. At the moment there are a few appeals going through to commute the death sentences of several people of the murder of a textile factory manager. It is not possible however, because the files/dockets have been lost. What a wonderfully professional way to deal with people's lives.

Follow-Up: The Natural Resource Curse

This is a follow up to a comment left on my facebook wall on a blog on Mining in South Africa.

The comment

I think your getting hung up over the use of the term capitalism here.
The fact is that whoever manages the resources can manage them well/bady, ethically/unethically.
Big business very often takes all of the money from the resources of a country. The people living in the country feel no benefits and see little to nothing of the profit.. A multi national company is not necessarily interested in the economy of the poor company it is exploiting the resources of. Especially if this means that they will have to pay their workers more money. it is in their interests to keep that economy weak so that they can keep staff costs low and maximise profit. They also often have no concerns about long term and will just exploit as much as they can while they can. An elected government should (in theory) have a more vested interest in a long term strategy and in using the money generated from the resources to benefit the population (that includes investing the money in businesses that could further benefit the country's economy).
If you compare Norway to South Africa for example- the general population of Norway has benefited from their oil and the clever management of their oil.
The government has a significant stake within the oil industry and the population has benefited. (Of course many other factors apply here and I'm making generalizations)
In principle I think that the general population should be entitled to benefit from the natural resources of their country. Capitalism does not guarantee this on it's own. There needs to be some ethical management to ensure that the profits are not just making a few people rich or leaving the country entirely.

My reply:

Wow! A nice little analysis! And (almost) an invitation to go deeper into the economics of the natural resource curse J

In all cases where there are significant natural resources in a country the Government is deeply involved – this includes South Africa already, and indeed, the mining companies are already complaining that there is too much Government involvement making them uncompetitive and making it difficult for them to compete internationally.

Unfortunately, until very recently, of all these Government interventions, this has worked out very badly for the population in all but 2 places. One, you correctly cited as Norway. The other is Botswana. Interestingly, both do very well on the World Bank Governance Index, which includes corruption. It suggests, as you rightly say, that resources can be managed well or badly. Unfortunately, it seems that Governments in general manage them badly, and those that do well are the exception and not the rule.

There are several reasons why natural resources might be a curse:

1/ Political – a/ it leads to corruption which has (for various reasons) a negative impact b/ Governments concentrate on the areas which raises most tax revenue for them and ignore the rest of the economy (let’s call this ‘benign neglect’ although depending upon motivation it might be more ‘malign’).

2/ Price increases – the natural resource company, far from paying low wages and low prices for inputs actually pay *higher* prices. Nice, you might this – perhaps they are not so bad after all. Unfortunately, this pushes up prices in the economy overall and makes it very hard for firms in other sectors to survive and overall, production actually slows down in other areas. It will also tend to employ the better people in the economy taking them away from other sectors and Government – a problem in Zambia now, for example (In economics, we would call this a ‘Balassa-Samuelson effect’.)

3/ Exchange rates – almost all natural resources tend exported. People in other countries have to buy your currency to pay you. This makes your currency cost more (as demand has increased for it). Unfortunately, this makes goods from all other industries appear more expensive abroad and makes it more difficult to export. As with 2, other production ceases and overall the economy becomes less productive. (In economics, this is called ‘Dutch Disease’ – yes, it even happened following the discovery of natural gas in the Netherlands.)

Norway and Botswana seem to have avoided these curses for 2 reasons each. Both are comparatively uncorrupt places. Norway avoided 2 by investing revenue abroad using a sovereign wealth fund – that way, the money flowed in, and then out again, having only a small effect on their exchange rate and minimizing the impact on other industries. Botswana’s main other industry is tourism. But not backbackers, who are sensitive to the high prices which are a result of their diamond exports, but rather to rich tourists who are happy to pay US$10,000 to shoot a lion. These tourists are less sensitive to high prices.

In some sense, both countries have achieved good performance for their people more by luck than judgement, but in both cases, good governance prevails suggesting this is a necessary prerequisite. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is …

Other countries (notably in the Middle East) are now mimicking Norway’s sovereign wealth fund route and achieving some success.

Here is a short summary of a paper I wrote (with Richard Record) on the impact of natural resources on firms in other industries.

In reply to the fact that multilaterals may not care about the economy in general – well, yes. True. But I will invoke Adam Smith’s invisible hand; quite simply, a firm doesn’t have to care about the economy or country as a whole for sometimes, it to act in a way that is, in fact, more beneficial to a country than Government behavior might. Even if it is driven by that most base of motives: profit.

Since you invoke low wages as an example, I assume that the point is that they should pay higher wages. In fact, natural resource firms actually do tend to pay higher wages than are paid in other sectors. It is a pity that actually this can have a bad impact on the economy overall (see ‘2’ above), so I would hate to see good intentions actually making this worse.

“Capitalism doesn't know spirits but we know spirits”…

… according to Julius Malema, president of the ANC Youth League, in a recent article. I don’t know how “we” are, but I am hoping he did not mean politicians.

In any case, I have a different take: Malema cares more about his principles than about people.

The article talks about two things. Firstly, Malema says that all mines in South Africa should be nationalised because the Freedom Charter says that mineral resources should be the property of the people. This is a wonderful principle, but if we care about people, we should look at what produces the greatest welfare (happiness). It is far from obvious that ownership by ‘the people’* will result in more happiness than private ownership – even if we are only interested in the welfare of ‘the people’ and not those evil capitalists.

Maybe the evil capitalists will actually be able to invest better, more and organize production in a more efficient way than ‘the people’. Increased productivity will result in better wages for the people.

Secondly, the article talks about how digging has begun in areas where graves are situated. This has been an issue recently in Lesotho, and this is the inspiration for Malema’s comments on spirits.

This could be interpreted as big company versus the rights of the little people to hold certain areas sacred – and this would be an issue all over the world. But those rights are not all that matters – lots of other things contribute to happiness too. For example, employment and the income that results from it; or the provision of publicly-funded good like education, both of which are likely to increase if a mine opens which then employs people and pays taxes.

Economics shows us a way of increasing happiness even if graves are moved – by paying compensation. Wouldn’t it be cold-hearted not to consider that? Surely only someone who cares less about people than their own principles would not consider a way to increase the amount of happiness in the world.

* I will totally ignore the fact here that nationalisation is rarely, in fact, ownership by ‘the people’, but more, control by a political elite, who are often corrupt. This might seem better than control by an evil capitalist elite, but at least the capitalist has an interest in producing things than can be consumed by people and therefore in increasing the size of the pie. The politician tends to have an interest only in grabbing as much of the current pie as possible and not in increasing production leaving less (health, education, roads, food, corrugated iron roofs, transport, fun nights out, sport,…) for everyone to consume.

Hat Tip: Matt Morley (who doesn’t necessarily agree with this perspective)

Was I wrong to give money for fertiliser but refuse money for a TV?

The guy who comes and works in my garden once a week asked me for several weeks' pay in advance about 2 months ago. He wanted to buy a TV for his daughter. It made me feel uncomfortable and I said no.

A couple of weeks later he asked me for several weeks' pay to buy fertiliser and to assist his neighbours buy fertiliser in bulk in order to get a reduction. I was only too pleased to help and gave it to him straight away.

Why did I refuse one and accept the other? Who on earth am I to decide what he should and should not spend money on? Surely he knows what is best for him better than I do, so presumably I have reduced his utility (happiness) by saying no to his first choice but yes to his second.

Either I have been taken over by paternalism and feel I know what is better for people than they do (rather heroic of me) or else I am being nice to other people for me and not for them (otherwise put, I am being selfish).

Economic theory would suggest that this can be tested. If someone else is gave money to buy fertiliser, I would reduce the amount I advanced if my giving is selfless. If it is selfish, I would keep giving the same amount - after all, what does matter how much you give a good cause? - I don't really care about the cause per se anyway.

I want to plant some veggies in my own garden. Donations of seed or fertiliser gratefully accepted. Or perhaps you'd prefer to give me the equivalent amount in cash so I can buy a fancy BBQ I've been hankering after instead.

Friday links

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1/ The IMF has just had a large meeting in Istanbul. Here is an excellent round-up of links. There is a timely paper (and here comment in the Guardian) that suggests that the IMF’s policies actually exacerbate the financial crises by enforcing pro-cyclical policies on Governments (tying loans to cuts in expenditure during a economic downturns, for example). Kind of like your bank, in order to get a loan, you first have to prove you don’t need it.

I have some sympathy for this viewpoint but it is then incumbent on countries to save during the good times (as Lesotho has, for example). I disagree with the author that the IMF should not take on a new role as lender of last resort, providing it does not enforce pro-cyclical policies. It can be more efficient for the world to have one large lender of last resort than lots of central banks (although they should obviously cover smaller shocks).

2/ Do we need a 37 cent coin? It would be a lot more efficient if we could all do the maths!

3/ A man who has slept with over 1,300 prostitutes (and is obviously not an economist).

4/ A neuro-linguistic approach to performativity in economics (an academic paper).

5/ Free markets in milk – Weapon of mass lactation. I agree with econgirl – let the free markets work!

6/ Chart porn is my new favourite blog! Charts with an economic or social interest. Two interesting recent posts are Atheism on the rise and Your brain on God.

More Nudging: Road Casualties

There is a well-travelled road (for me at least) between Bicester and Buckingham in England. At a certain point on the road there is a sign that says: “XX casualties on the A4211 to Milton Keynes in the last 3 years”. The XX is regularly updated. At a roundabout near the Bletchley Ikea (on the same road) there is also a sign saying how many people died on the roundabout over the last 3 years.

In South Africa, accident blackspots are clearly labelled:

I prefer the more specific labels in the UK giving the actual number of deaths on a road – it somehow makes the risks more real – but both are examples of nudging that Richard Thaler could be proud of.

Nudging for One: Dipping headlamps

Richard Thaler talks about policies which can ‘nudge’ people into ‘good’ behaviour. I don’t see why individuals can’t find ways to encourage others to behave well too.

Whilst driving around South Africa I noticed that some people dim their full beams at night and others don’t. How could I nudge people into good behaviour? The answer seems to be to make sure that the other driver sees me dimming my own lights.

On a long drive home last night, whenever I waited to dim at a point when they were sure to see me, 100% of drivers also dimmed their lights. When I did it before, however (e.g. coming around a corner or over a hill), a lot of other drivers either left their lights on full beam or flashed me to remind me to dim my own lights, even though they were already dimmed.

There is obviously often some doubt as to what the other person has done and a sense of fair play says that you will not dim your lights unless the other driver does too – it seems that there are two Nash Equilibriums possible.

I think that there is something additional happening too. By dimming your headlights first, you are setting a sort of ‘social norm’ in the situation. Deviating from a social norm costs most people psychologically, either because they feel bad about behaving in a way contrary to the norm established by society or because they are ‘punished’ (in some sense) if they do (no one likes their neighbours to ‘tut tut’ them).

If this is (partly) true, then it suggests that people can be nudged into other ‘good’ behaviour – for example, recycling – if it can be made to seem like a social norm. Note, it only needs that people believe it to be a social norm for it to actually become one (self-realising expectations).

If you show your neighbour you are recycling or giving to charity or voting, you might nudge others into doing the same.

Herd behaviour. When I was 16, I worked in a shop where I had to ask customers if they wanted to buy stamps. I noticed that if one person said yes, many others in the line also would. Similarly, if one looked at me with disdain (‘of course I don’t want any bloody stamps – I would have asked if I did’) so would other people in the queue.

I sometimes try to put that into practice in South Africa*. When I see tourists mulling over whether or not to make a purchase of some tourist tat (or something nice), I like to encourage them by buying something small. Sometimes, just hanging around a stall seems to attract people (it’s the ‘would you go into an empty restaurant?’ thing).

* I say South Africa, not Lesotho because I see so few tourists in Lesotho.