“Hell Hath no Fury like an Academic Scorned”: A Reply to Pugh (with Apologies to Congreve and to Women)

Abstract

In our response to Pugh's critique of our work which he rather grandiosely describes as ‘Cambridge studies’, we take major issue with his arguments on three principal fronts. First, he is very selective in his review of our publications, and in seeking to defend the position of the World Bank, UNDP, and UNCHS, he fails to acknowledge an extensive debate in which we have already engaged with senior analysts from those institutions. Moreover, his reading of what we do and do not say about World Bank leadership in the housing and land management policy fields is partial and erroneous. Second, his critique that our methodology lacks a strong theoretical and empirical grounding is at best distorted and at worst quite wrong. The methodology has been widely used and applauded, and if it has been criticized in the past it is for being too empirical and overly focused upon household interviews and surveys. He also ignores the context in which several of the methods he criticizes were published: namely in a collection of essays on Methodology for Land and Housing Market Analysis, the express purpose of which was to contrast different approaches. Third, he mistakenly assumes that because we do not cite certain authors we are ignorant of their work, and further, that our analysis fails to privilege neoclassical land economics. This latter point at least is true, but not because we are ignorant of the approach, but because the theoretical aims of our work required that we experiment with other methods.