EA - Exploring big ideas in development economics: an interview with Ranil Dissanayake by Probably Good

The Nonlinear Library

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Exploring big ideas in development economics: an interview with Ranil Dissanayake, published by Probably Good on September 11, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
This
interview is a cross-post from Probably Good's new
Career Journeys series.
"No one will ever complain that you write too well… I look back at stuff I wrote 20 years ago and cringe now. But if I didn't write it, I would still be bad. You're not learning unless you're doing it."
How does someone break into the field of development economics? And what does working in the field actually look like?
Ranil Dissanayake is a senior fellow at the
Center for Global Development. His career journey spans several countries and unique experiences - including over 15 years working in international development policy-making. Along the way, he's realized the importance of writing often, sharing ideas often, and talking with people of all sorts of backgrounds. We recently chatted about his path to his current role, day-to-day work, and advice for people starting out - edited below for clarity and brevity.
What did you want to do when you were younger? And how did your ambitions change over time?
I went to university pretty young, at 17. As a teenager, I wanted to be a filmmaker. I was mad about movies and watched them all day. I didn't want to pursue film straight out of school, though, because I didn't think I had anything interesting to say yet. My vague medium-term plan was to get a degree then try to go to film school in New York.
I decided to study history and economics because I had this amazing teacher for these subjects. They weren't my best, but they were definitely my favorite. I applied and got into my top choice, Oxford, which had a joint honors program in both economics and history. Throughout my first couple of years there, I really enjoyed the academic side of things, but filmmaking was still my side gig. I was entering screenplay competitions and making short films.
In my third and final year, I did a course in development economics. I'd always been interested in the subject - in part because I'm from Sri Lanka and was born in Hong Kong in 1981. If you were born in Hong Kong in 1981, you know something about development. There was a period of incredibly rapid change and increases in wealth. One side of my family was middle-class professionals, but my other side came from a tiny village without electricity and running water.
I'd go to see my family in Sri Lanka every year and the dissonance between life there and my life in Hong Kong (with its high rise buildings and new shopping malls) was striking.
When I did this one course in development economics, I realized, 'Wow, there's a whole discipline for thinking about this stuff.' At the time, it was still seen as a niche subject. This was before randomized control trials and before the field had its revolution. It wasn't the sort of thing mainstream economists did, but I just found it all so engaging.
After I finished my degree, I still felt too young to do anything interesting in filmmaking. I decided to do a master's in development economics at SOAS in London, which had a totally different style of economics than Oxford. (I think it's a good idea for people to do their degrees at different places). Again, I just loved the course and everything I was learning. I lived somewhat of an unusual life for a 20 year old.
I would go to my lectures, then get drinks with my classmates from around the world and we'd talk about what it was like where we were from. It was such an interesting experience.
What happened after the master's degree?
At that point, I decided development economics could be a good alternative career for me. I cared about it innately. It resonated with my personal background. But it was (and still is) hard to break into the field. I sort of luc...