We don't know why Malawi is poor — and what that means for AI-and-growth forecasts

You discuss institutions, but I don't think you discuss the right kind of institutions. If I am comparing Malawi to some of the other nearby landlocked African countries you mention, the first thing that jumps out to me is their dramatically worse economic freedom. Malawi has one of the worst scores in the entire world, ranked 147/165, a level more typical of central or saharan african countries.

https://www.efotw.org/?geozone=world&page=map&year=2023&countries=MWI,ZMB,RWA,BWA,LSO#country-info

(You didn't mention Eswatini or Burundi, but they also score very badly - unfortunately the map tool above will only let me display 5 countries so I focused on those named in the text plus Zambia as it is neighbouring).

This doesn't resolve the infinite-regress style question of what causes some countries to have more capitalist institutions than others, but when it comes to which institutions to investigate, I think it is their economic institutions we should focus on.

The article is good, but the title's claim is too strong.

Merely knowing that Malawi is a landlocked sub-Saharran African country has huge explanatory power. The question of 'We don't know why Malawi is poorer than Rwanda' seems like a better question (which the article explores).

The pushback against AI led productivity growth also seems comparatively weak. AI is not referenced until the last paragraph, and I don't think you really engage with what AI makes possible.

This is just annoying because the article is really good, but now I want to argue about the title XD

I think you make a good point well (although I think the answer to why Malawi is poor is "all of the above and more", and the question "why is Rwanda growing fast" is a more interesting one^[1])

When it comes to the inability of A[G]I to magically transform Malawi's economy I actually think it's even broader than just specific things like the existing political settlement restricting exports: AI telling people how to increase crop yields simply isn't going to make maize smallholding anything other than a poverty living. Demand for maize is finite so making it marginally more efficiently even if one assumes every Malawian smallholder perfectly optimizes their production using the latest frontier yield optimization models (which one definitely shouldn't assume) makes little difference. AI isn't going to make the world any more likely to manufacture in a poorly educated, poorly connected backwater; if anything the opposite. Malawians aren't exactly inundated with funds to buy compute time to start exciting new international businesses either.

1. ^{^}

   Bangladesh and Vietnam I don't see as really comparable. They have some classic historic problems but they have factors pulling them into a global economy Malawi doesn't and couldn't have. 

The full post ended up being much better than the stub above :) <https://newsletter.deenamousa.com/p/we-dont-know-why-malawi-is-poor/comment/257812223>

I think Malawi's colonial legacy holds a lot of answers to this question: https://www.lawsociety.ie/gazette/in-depth/effects-of-colonialism-on-malawi

I think the bigger impact of AI than agricultural productivity is increased demand for manual labor as knowledge work is automated, so low income countries should get ready to export a lot.

Nice piece, thanks for sharing it on here!