Visiting fellow at the Overseas Development Institute. He wrote "How Asia Works" (2013), which ascribed Asia's escape from poverty to more productive family farms, export-oriented manufacturing and state intervention in finance. Bill Gates later asked him what he thought about Africa; that conversation and a visit to east Africa inspired him to write "How Africa Works" (2026), an analysis of Africa's development prospects. In the book he argues that "chronically low population density" has been an important cause of Africa's underdevelopment, and that the continent is only now becoming sufficiently densely populated to achieve strong economic growth, potentially following in Asia's footsteps. He singles out Botswana, Rwanda, Mauritius and Ethiopia as countries that have shown impressive growth, noting the presence in each of a "developmental coalition" transcending ethnic lines. For economists such as Studwell, countries grow rich by building large, highly productive manufacturing firms that sell to the world; factories targeting Africa's small, fragmented domestic markets do not entirely fit the bill.
Most people prefer certainty to truth.