Afternoon roundup

This afternoon's worthies:

• Vic Uni's James Kierstead and Michael Johnston in defence of free speech. 

  Liberalism and democracy, as Karl Popper recognised, rest on substantive values, values that have to be defended if liberal democracy is to survive and flourish. And it’s up to all of us to do the work of defending these values. If we say nothing while governments, corporations and ideologues threaten and quash the free expression of ideas, we are, at least tacitly, voting democracy out of existence.

• What a beautiful validity check. Do better teachers really make students taller?


• Business regulations and poverty

  Using panel data for 189 economies from 2005 to 2013, this paper shows that business-friendly regulations are correlated with the poverty headcount at the country level. This association is significant using the World Bank's Doing Business indicators on getting credit and contract enforcement. The findings suggest that the conduit for poverty reduction is business creation, as a source of new jobs and a manifestation of thriving entrepreneurship.

• Mark Zuckerberg, Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen talk progress.