Economics explains everything, again: this time, global corruption and poverty, in a highly readable book by two "development economists". Businesses with political ties to the Suharto regime in Indonesia lost stock value after worrying news about Suharto's health, while others didn't; smuggling between China and Hong Kong can be inferred by public trade statistics; UN ambassadors from countries with higher corruption tend to commit more parking offences in New York; civil wars in countries such as Somalia or Chad are much more likely when the rains fail; and witch-killings soar in times of famine. There are occasional casual sops to the idea that "cultural beliefs do matter" as well, which I guess will be news to no one but other economists. The argument is not entirely joined up: at one point the authors say conflict called "ethnic" usually has economic motives at its base; but they later refer offhandedly to "ethnic" or "religious" violence in Kenya and Iraq. Most interesting is their persuasive call for a new approach to international aid-spending based rigorously, as far as possible, on controlled randomised trials. They make an analogy with medicine, so why not call it "evidence-based aid"?