Slope chart of the share of the population that is undernourished where regional shares are compared between 2014 and 2024, showing increases across all African regions and Middle Africa highest at 30% in 2024. Source: Food and Agriculture Organization (2025). License: CC BY.

Hunger levels have increased across Africa over the last decade—

In every region of Africa, hunger is more prevalent than a decade ago.

The chart shows the increase in the share of the population that is undernourished, comparing 2014 and 2024 (the most recent year available).

It’s a common misconception that life expectancy has increased only because fewer children die.

Historical mortality records show that adults today also live much longer than adults in the past.

Reproducibility and robustness of economics and political science research - Nature Robustness checks and reproduction of analyses with existing and updated data based on 110 articles in economics and political science journals with data and code-sharing requirements found high levels of robustness and reproducibility and determined that robustness was not dependent on author characteristics or data availability.

Nature research paper: Reproducibility and robustness of economics and political science research
go.nature.com/3QdKP93

Stand Up for Science appelle toutes celles et tous ceux qui défendent les sciences comme biens communs à manifester le jeudi 26 mars 2026.

A Paris, le cortège partira de Jussieu à 16h pour rejoindre le Panthéon en passant par la rue des Ecoles, le boulevard Saint Michel et la rue Soufflot.

Horizontal bar chart of the share of workers in informal employment by country (2023) where Madagascar, Angola, India, Bolivia, Peru, and Egypt have very high informal shares of about 96% to 71%, while Norway, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Poland are at the low end around 1.2% to 7.7%.

Outside rich countries, widespread informal work means unemployment rates are low—

(This Data Insight was written by @eortizospina.bsky.social.)

Last year, three-quarters of the world’s countries had unemployment rates below 10%, according to data from the International Labour Organization.

Line chart of percentage of survey respondents reporting confidence in the national government for a selection of countries from 2007 to 2024, where trust trends diverge across nations. It highlights rising confidence in countries such as Indonesia and Mexico, notable declines in Peru and the United States, and mixed or relatively stable patterns in several European countries. The data source is the OECD. The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data

📊 Data update: How much do people trust their government? How does this vary across countries, and how has it changed over time?

To help answer these questions, the OECD publishes data on trust in government across 47 countries, drawing on the Gallup World Poll.

A fascinating result on social cohesion: closing bars leads to more votes for the far right, whereas opening them has the opposite effect (in #France).
www.cepremap.fr/2026/01/quan...

Happy to see our paper "The Church as Arbiter" with @cboix.bsky.social now available online at @thejop.bsky.social. Here 👇
A Thread

#EconS1001

Extreme poverty fell sharply worldwide – even excluding China. Line chart of global extreme poverty rate, 1990 to 2025. Extreme poverty is defined as living below the international poverty line of $3 per day; data are adjusted for inflation and differences in living costs between countries. The chart shows global extreme poverty reduced from 43% to 10%, and the series excluding China reduced from 33% to 12%, with the two lines converging by around the mid-2000s and continuing to decline toward 2025. Y axis runs from 0% to 50%; x axis runs from 1990 to 2025. Data source: World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform (2025); OurWorldInData.org/poverty. License: CC BY.

Was the global decline of extreme poverty only due to China?

The share of the world population living in extreme poverty has never declined as rapidly as in the past three decades.

Congratulations to you both!

Marco Rubio just flew to Budapest to deliver a speech in which he provided a full endorsement of Viktor Orbán in the upcoming Hungarian elections.
Here is the letter he signed in 2019 warning about Hungary's "downward democratic trajectory" under Orbán
h/t Carrick Ryan

#EconS1001

On Causality A History of How Economics Learned to Think About Cause and Effect

Nice essay by Carlos Chavez on the history and development of causal inference
carloschavezp29.substack.com/p/on-causality

We rarely think of economics as scandalous, but maybe we should. Sam Bowles, in conversation with @durlauf.bsky.social & Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, argues that a core assumption in the field impedes moral reasoning about wealth redistribution. Watch "Why Economic Inequalities Endure"→ bit.ly/3Yj4F3B

📢now forthcoming in ECMA!

The Class Gap in Career Progression: Evidence from US Academia

Class is rarely a focus of research or DEI in elite US occupations.

Evidence suggests it should be: we find a large class gap in at least one occupation - tenure-track academia...🧵

A line chart showing public social spending as share of GDP for a selection of OECD countries from 2000 to 2024. Social spending includes, among others, the following areas: health, old age, incapacity-related benefits, family, active labor market, programmes, unemployment, and housing. The data source is the OECD (2025), OECD (1985), and Lindert (2004). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

📊 Data update: Explore updated data on social spending by governments—

How much are different countries spending on social programs like housing, unemployment, benefits for the sick and elderly, and more?

One-Minute Earthquake, Years of Patience: Evidence from Mexico on the Effect of Earthquake Exposure on Time Preference Using a survey of nearly 20,000 Mexican residents matched with various earthquakes, we observe evidence that people affected by an earthquake report a lower discount rate, implying a greater level ...

Our paper with Robin Rampaer and David Raymaekers, on how earthquakes and time preference, is out in the Journal of Development Studies.
It illustrates the externalities of research & teaching, as it began with Robin's Ma dissertation at @ulbruxelles.bsky.social.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Deadline for SIOE submission in one day! January 15. Come to Fontainebleau to hear about Inst and Orgs in one of the foremost historical (Fontainebleau castle) and sports (world-class bouldering) sites in Europe! www.sioe.org/conference/2...

@PhoebeIshak deserves a shoutout.
Working with her is stimulating, productive, and fun.

Everything you need to know about a PhD in economics A set of answers to many of the most common questions about economics PhDs, including: What is an economics PhD? Should I do an economics PhD? And how should I prepare and apply to a PhD programme?

What is an economics PhD? Should I do an economics PhD? And how should I prepare and apply to a PhD programme?

Assistant Professor of Economics Abdoulaye Ndiaye outlines everything you need to know about a PhD in economics. voxdev.org/topic/everything-you-nee...

The Elgar Encyclopedia of Public Choice is now out.
I'm honoured to have been invited to contribute three entries on:
- elections and social norms, with @mgiani.bsky.social;
- the grease the wheels hypothesis of corruption;
- democracy and institutional quality.

📢 Postdoc opportunity at @uni-goettingen.de's Ibero! Seeking an economist to research development, trade, Latin America etc. 3-year position starting between April and October 2026. Apply by Jan 17: obp.uni-goettingen.de/en-us/OBF/In... #AcademicJobs #EconTwitter #LatinAmerica Details👇

An image with 6 charts showing the world as 100 people over the last two centuries. The charts cover poverty, basic education, literacy, democracy, vaccination, and child mortality. As one example, 79 out of 100 people globally were living in extreme poverty in 1820. By 2018, that had decreased to 9 people. Data sources: Poverty: Michailis Moatsos (2021). - Education: Wittgenstein Center (2023), World Bank (2023), van Zanden, J. et al. (2014). - Literacy: van Zanden, J. et al. (2014) and UNESCO. - Democracy: regime classification by Skaaning et al. - Vaccination: WHO - Child mortality: up to 1960 own calculations based on Gapminder; UN-IGME thereafter. - Credit: OurWorldInData.org, licensed under CC-BY-SA, author Max Roser.

The world as 100 people over the last two centuries

There is still time to take our survey! And THANK YOU to everyone who did so already!

Very cool online tool that let's you see how your life might have turned out if you had been born in a different place on the planet.

The biggest lottery in life is the "lottery of birthplace":

True and Non-trivial Ideas from Economics There is a well-known anecdote suggesting that, aside from comparative advantage in trade, virtually all ideas in the social sciences are either false or trivial.

The anecdote about "true and non-trivial" ideas from social sciences leaves the impression that ideas other than comparative advantage are either trivial or untrue. Behold more basic ideas (from economics) that are true and non-trivial. #EconSky

mytwocentsandcounting.substack.com/p/true-and-n...

👍I'll save those arguments for next time someone suggests that economics is trivial.
Shouldn't we also add the Keynesian fiscal multiplier to the list?
For a long time, the idea that trying to restore a balanced budget during a recession could be counterproductive and harmful was counterintuitive.

It has become received wisdom in Brussels and Washington that there is a new “euro-sclerosis”: that the EU economy is lagging the US

This view is wrong

A little primer on the measurement of productivity – and why reports of the economic death of Europe are greatly exaggerated🧵

Spending Limits, Public Funding, and Election Outcomes Abstract. This paper investigates the effects of campaign finance rules on electoral outcomes. In French local elections, candidates competing in districts

Forthcoming article "Spending Limits, Public Funding, and Election Outcomes" by Nikolaj Broberg @vinpons.bsky.social and Clemence Tricaud
@eeanews.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1093/jeea...