“I am The Count. They call me The Count because I love to count things.”
— The Count (Sesame Street)
An article in the weekend Financial Times extols the virtues of counting things as a way into doing some grounded economics. Here are some examples:
- Number of Picasso pictures reproduced in every art history book of the last 15 years: 395
- Number of pictures by Matisse, Duchamp, and Mondrian combined: 395 (roughly)
- Number of official signatures required by a farmer in the Central African Republic before he’s allowed to ship bananas to America or Europe: 38
- Number of official procedures a Lagos businessperson must go through to buy a warehouse: 21
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