Nils Junge

Nils Junge is an independent consultant working in the field of international development, where he evaluates and advises on investment projects in low-income countries. He writes about what he does on his blog at evaluatethis.org. Before embarking on his current career, Nils worked variously as a carpenter in France, a farmworker in Israel, an orphanage assistant in Russia, and as a back-office drone on Wall Street, when not pursuing an unsuccessful acting career that never made it to Broadway. In his free time, he plays piano and studies foreign languages.

Not all Norwegians are blond, or “why we’re so diverse, but you’re all alike”

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Out-group homogeneity effect There is a concept that social psychologists refer to as out-group homogeneity effect. We perceive members of our own group to be relatively heterogeneous, i.e. we see variation. Everyone else, so-called “out-group members”, however, seem relatively homogeneous In other words, we tend to think of our group as a mosaic and people from other groups as monotone. People really do see more variation in Continue Reading...

4 migration factors will keep Inclusion on the Agenda for most of this Century

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Today dark clouds hang over Afghanistan as the Taliban takes over the country. The situation may soon deteriorate into a humanitarian crisis, leading to a mass exodus of refugees to neighboring countries and beyond. However the story in Afghanistan unfolds, at least four critical global developments will keep migration at the top of many country’s policy agendas for decades to come. More people crossing borders, whether as refugees or Continue Reading...

COVID Vaccinations are yet another Tribal Marker

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CNN has reported that some people in Missouri are getting vaccinated in secret to avoid backlash from loved ones. And thus, Covid has offered up yet another way to demonstrate tribal loyalty. First it was face masks; now it’s vaccinations. Vaccine hesitancy has a range of underlying causes, from fears about side effects, to distrust in government, to skepticism over the risks.  I have relatives who believe Covid-19 is a Continue Reading...

Life Interrupted, Coronavirus Edition

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The COVID-19 pandemic is teaching us many hard lessons. One is that flow – not just of money but of all sorts of things – is fundamental to a functioning society. On both the material and non-material level, life is enabled by circulation, by constant movement. One could even say that relentless movement is one of modernity’s main characteristics. Charlie Chaplin, frantically trying to keep up with his tasks on the factory assembly line in Modern Continue Reading...

Coronavirus Exposes the Value of Human Capital

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COVID-19’s multi-pronged attack Not only is the coronavirus assaulting our bodies, killing thousands, which is bad enough. It is also attacking our social and economic structures. Scientists have found that once it enters the body, COVID-19 is capable of attacking almost any organ, with devastating consequences.  It is doing something very similar to our economic systems. Your money or your life During the spring and summer of 2020, Continue Reading...