Avocado toast gets an unfair rap…it’s the hotel laundering of underwear that is why millennials can’t afford to buy property.

Yes but at $5 a pair, I save it for my gilded underwear (and socks). The rest, I typically hand wash in the sink or bath.

As the Integrity crew splashed down TO THE MINUTE of their estimated arrival and hit the BULLSEYE, this is a reminder that Katherine Johnson was an absolute genius. My God. #NASA #ArtemisII

This week in development economics at VoxDev: 10/04/2026 This week we featured research on teachers, fiscal tightening, shadow banks and more!

This week we featured research on teachers, fiscal tightening, shadow banks and more!

Read a summary of this work here: voxdev.org/topic/week-development-e...

Why Health Taxes Alone Won't Fix Malnutrition in Poor Countries Health taxes on sugar seem to have captured the zeitgeist: Mexico's soda tax, the UK's sugar levy, South Africa's Health Promotion Levy, a sugar tax in the Philippines, and so on. The evidence on thes...

Health taxes on sugar and ultra-processed foods are gaining traction worldwide.

But in many low-income settings, diets are shaped less by price than by what’s available.

@eeshani.bsky.social argues without access to nutritious food, taxes alone won’t fix malnutrition.

https://go.cgdev.org/4tlZLQP

The World Bank’s Self-Inflicted Crisis The World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings arrive at a moment of increasing global disorder. Both the Bank and the IMF have an important role in helping client countries deal with the associated crises. B...

At a moment of rising global crises, the #WorldBank should be operating at full strength.

@charlesjkenny.bsky.social and @eeshani.bsky.social argue an opaque reorganization is sidelining expertise and weakening its ability to respond.

https://go.cgdev.org/4c08se1

The World Bank’s Self-Inflicted Crisis The World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings arrive at a moment of increasing global disorder. Both the Bank and the IMF have an important role in helping client countries deal with the associated crises. B...

Blog: The World Bank’s Self-Inflicted Crisis

www.cgdev.org/blog/world-b...

New blog with Eeshani Kandpal: The World Bank’s Self-Inflicted Crisis.

The World Bank is undertaking some extremely odd internal reforms:
▪️ A centralization of expertise that appears to replicate Jim Kim’s “One World Bank Group” model that was widely considered a failure ...

The Iran War Oil Shock Will Hit the Hungry Hardest—Cash Should Be Part of the Response The US–Israel war on Iran has already led to a spike in oil prices. While wealthier countries focus on fuel prices, for those in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), this could mean something far...

Making a good case for "humanitarian" targeted cash transfers given the war's effects on food prices: www.cgdev.org/blog/when-oi... @eeshani.bsky.social @leecrawfurd.bsky.social

The Iran War Oil Shock Will Hit the Hungry Hardest—Cash Should Be Part of the Response The US–Israel war on Iran has already led to a spike in oil prices. While wealthier countries focus on fuel prices, for those in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), this could mean something far...

The Iran war oil shock will hit the hungry hardest.

The same food price increase can mean 3× larger income losses for the poorest households.

@leecrawfurd.bsky.social and @eeshani.bsky.social on why cash should be part of the response.

https://go.cgdev.org/47KhM36

The Iran War Oil Shock Will Hit the Hungry Hardest—Cash Should Be Part of the Response (new @cgdev.org blog with @eeshani.bsky.social)

www.cgdev.org/blog/when-oi...

The tarp-back is quite the touch.

I….

The richness of urban health realities lost in measurement monocultures The question seems simple enough: how can a rapidly growing African city improve the health and care of its pregnant women and their babies? But ask this question while navigating the humid, traffic-c...

In this short essay in BMJ Global Health, we draw attention to how standardised “global”measurement approaches obscure diversity, marginalise locally relevant insights needed for effective interventions, and create fragile measurement monocultures.

gh.bmj.com/content/11/3...

They Didn’t Want to Have C-Sections. A Judge Would Decide How They Gave Birth. Two Florida women had to attend virtual court hearings while in labor to argue for their right to choose their own medical care. As their state pushes to expand some types of medical freedom, it has a...

NEW: They Didn’t Want to Have C-Sections. A Judge Would Decide How They Gave Birth.

Two Florida women had to attend virtual court hearings while in labor to argue for their right to choose their own medical care.

By @amyyurkanin.bsky.social

This beautiful picture by @eeshani.bsky.social, which she shared on LinkedIn, is proof that the Edgeworth Box was heaven-sent.

www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Roscoe, all 67 lbs of him, would also like to do the same.

The World Bank Doesn’t Need to Generate More Knowledge. It Needs to Want It. At least since former World Bank President Jim Wolfensohn coined the phrase “knowledge bank,” there have been periodic efforts to strengthen evidence-based policymaking at the World Bank. They have fo...

If the World Bank is serious about being a “knowledge bank,” Shanta Devarajan and @eeshani.bsky.social argue, it must cultivate not just the ability to produce evidence but a hunger for using it:
https://go.cgdev.org/4u8auzD

Great news for the profession to have an amazing addition to the rank of full professor! So well deserved!

"From Childhood Abduction to Adulthood: Enduring Consequences for Women in Uganda" www.cgdev.org/publication/...

From Childhood Abduction to Adulthood: What 20 Years Reveal About Women in Northern Uganda Two decades after the LRA left northern Uganda, its legacy of abduction lives on in the daily emotional experiences of the girls–now women– that they abducted. Addressing that legacy requires policy c...

LINK HERE: www.cgdev.org/blog/childho...

Thanks for the heads up!

Now forthcoming in the Journal of Development Economics!

With @alessandracassar.bsky.social, (the newly-minted Dr.) @mirandainez.bsky.social, Christine Mbabaze Mpyangu, and @danilaserra-eco.bsky.social

When a Doctor Falls from the Sky: The Impact of Easing Doctor Supply Constraints on Mortality (March 2023) - This paper describes the results of a policy experiment conducted in coordination with the Nigerian government. In this experiment, some communities were randomly selected to receive a ...

One of my favorite recent papers also investigates this relationship (using a policy experiment). By Edward Okeke. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Home - JHU School of Government and Policy Johns Hopkins School of Government and Policy advances governance with research, data-driven analysis, and innovative solutions to today’s challenges.

Deep breath.

I'm honored and excited to join the faculty of America's oldest research university, Johns Hopkins.

I'll start this summer as a full professor, one of the founding faculty at the brand-new School of Government and Policy.

We're building something unique & important, even historic.

Alabama has the worst maternal mortality in the United States at 60 deaths per 100K live births. For reference, California has 18 deaths per 100K live births.

But Dr. Oz thinks it’s “cool” that American citizens do not have access to good reproductive healthcare in the wealthiest nation in history.

In this, @mrao.bsky.social and I look at the gender of senior economic leadership across Latin America and the Caribbean from 1960-2020:

- an overwhelmingly male club (no women until ‘89, very few even since)
- the women who break through are more likely to have a PhD than men

Read 👇 for more.

Is Lead Poisoning a Missing Link in the Fight Against Malnutrition? Lead exposure is increasingly recognized as a major global health problem, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Much of the research and policy attention to date has focused on it...

We know lead poisoning impacts children's cognition, schooling, and more. But what about other core development priorities?

@leecrawfurd.bsky.social and @eeshani.bsky.social take a look at the underobserved interaction between lead and child nutrition:
https://go.cgdev.org/45DyaRV

Where Are the Women? Gender and Technocracy among Economic Advisers in Latin America and the Caribbean We analyze data on senior economic advisers in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) from 1961 to 2020 and find a striking and persistent gender gap at the very top of economic decision-making across ...

Economic policy is framed as technocratic—but leaders are appointed through political processes.

Analyzing data from 1961–2020, @mrao.bsky.social & @eeshani.bsky.social find a persistent gender gap among economic decision-makers in Latin America & the Caribbean:
https://go.cgdev.org/4qbFQSL

A Window Into the Wage Gap: What’s Behind It and How to Close It - National Women's Law Center Women in the United States who work full time, year-round are typically paid only 83 cents for every dollar paid to men.

The gender wage gap has widened for two consecutive years, the first time that's happened since data collection started in 1960 nwlc.org/resource/wag...