I know it's been a while since my last update. Somewhat ironically, reading and summarising Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown played a role in that. The book helped me see how my commitments had accumulated over time, so I decided to put this summary on the backburner as I focused on other priorities. While reading and learning are still “Essential” for me, publishing two summaries a month (an arbitrary, self-imposed target) is not. Anyway, as usual, the key...

I'm back! I took July and August off because of a move, but this month I managed to get out 1 book summary and 2 blog posts: Book summaries How Asia Works by Joe Studwell (30 mins) — argues that the East Asian economies of Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China became developmental success stories with a 3-part formula involving agriculture, manufacturing, and the financial system. Blog posts How Asia Works with causal diagrams (5 mins) — tries to distil Joe Studwell's theory into a diagram. How AI...

After a long hiatus, I'm back with a shiny new book summary for How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region by Joe Studwell. Though published in 2014, it holds up pretty well, with some of its insights on industrial policy and central bank independence might be more relevant than ever (though one must take care not to overgeneralise from things that worked in a particular context in the past). Anyway, as usual the key takeaways are below, and you can find the full...