We gave SMEs in Colombia group consulting & now follow-up on impacts 8-10 years later. Impacts are large & persistent: a $10K intervention increased long-term profits $382K. I discuss broader lessons around the feasibility & incentives for long-term follow-ups blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
This week's links include what development economics has been working on lately and what it understudies, Paul Niehaus on Give Directly's history and on learning about what matters from recipient choices, unlocking migration's potential through policy lending +... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
We've launched In Development! It is aiming to be the New Yorker for global development.
We want to promote discourse on development without dogma - stories doing deep-dives into pressing development issues, backed up by evidence, argument, and experience.
Subscribe here: indevelopmentmag.com
📢 The LISER Policy Lab team is pleased to share a 🆕 Policy Brief by @dmckenzie.bsky.social "Enhancing the benefits of international #migration through development financing: What is being done and where are the missed opportunities?"
🔗 Read more: www.liser.lu/news/Policy-...
#DevelopmentFinancing
In today's blog, how should you do coding tests for RA in a world where AI can code pretty well? Our DIME Analytics team share their experience and thoughts blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
In today's blog, I discuss recent research done by accounting professors in developing countries and how it can be useful for economics and policy -development accounting, but not the macro kind - and also laugh at how they face similar seminar questions to us blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
This week's links include interesting reflections by Rebecca Thornton on research ethics, Lant on poverty lines, the high share of formal workers that are in the public sector, can Claude replace a @daveevansphd.bsky.social conference round-up & more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
In today's blog, @sanukriti.bsky.social provides a great explanation for why the child penalty is low in many developing countries yet gender inequality high in wages - because the action happens earlier at marriage blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?
This week's links include new guidance on industrial policy and a great Taiwan example, the South African jobs problem, how economists should and are using AI, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
📆 17 March @ 16:00 CET/11:00 EDT
The Spring 2026 VDEV/CEPR/BREAD seminars continue with @dmckenzie.bsky.social (World Bank) presenting "Who, and How Much? Experiments in Selection and Grant Size in a Kenyan Business Plan Competition"
Moderator: Suanna Oh @pse.bsky.social
ow.ly/X9nu50YnYqZ
#EconSky
Big news from Georgetown Economics! 🎉
@dmckenzie.bsky.social has accepted the offer to join us as the new Edmond D. Villani Chair Professor of Economics!
Dr. McKenzie comes to Georgetown from the World Bank, where he served as Lead Economist.
We can't wait to welcome him to the Hilltop!
In today's blog, 6 questions with Monica Lambon-Quayefio: her pathway from growing up in rural northern Ghana to becoming a development economist, how she formed networks as an African academic, how she goes about teaching development in Ghana, & her research blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
This week's links include solar subsidies paying off, how digitalization is not simplifying regulations but making more silos in Indonesia, how NZ got Milton Friedman to visit, more reasons to be skeptical of mark-up research, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
This week's links include how to improve TVET by linking to migration opportunities, does government efforts to increase lending to small firms work, what does remote work look like now, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
In this week's links, the rise of services and industrial development, should funders have local author mandates, do those mover designs/event studies make sense, how to build a nation, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
📢 2026 @novafrica.bsky.social #NovaSBE PhD Summer School
"Practical issues in designing and analyzing field experiments"
Taught by #DavidMcKenzie (WorldBank)
📅 June 22–24
👉 Apply by March 31
Learn more: url-shortener.me/B4DA
#NOVAFRICA2026 Conference:
tinyurl.com/uzc7dyc8
This week's links include giving cash fast after disasters, whether the science (and econ?) undergrad research experience needs to change, people answer differently on their phones, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
In today's blog, I discuss how countries can use sector-targeted skills development for industrial policy. This involves training workers in specific areas desired by industries you are targeting to develop. I give examples, caveats, lessons & note research gaps blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
This week's links include the beliefs and lack of experimentation that hold back women being promoted in Bangladeshi factories, falling fertility and its implications, 8-9 years after electricity came, not much changed, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
This week's links include growth lessons from Vietnam, Peru and Costa Rica; finding a meaningful research topic; reconciling micro & macro evidence on AI and productivity, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
A return to the niche blog topics of yore: today in "lee bounds part 2", I discuss how to deal with binary outcomes and ties in multi-valued outcomes, as well as doing Lee bounds with multiple treatments.
blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
This week's links include the increasing importance of communicating research as grants move from the federal govt to other funders, Indian firms vs Chinese competition, do an RCT in Barbados, do TA well, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
This week's links include the growth of sports betting in Africa, how small firms deal with volatility, the macro/micro convergence of credibility, a @voxdev.bsky.social lit on migration, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Check out our new VoxDevLit on International Migration! Thanks to co-editors @catiabatista.bsky.social, @econgaurav.bsky.social, @dmckenzie.bsky.social, @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social, & Caroline Theoharides!
We look to working together on this "living literature review" in the years to come...
The last in our JMP blog series has Guilio Schinaia with a 2-stage clustered RCT to see how market advisory information affects decisions of cashew farmers in Guinea-Bissau. Information increases farmer revenue, as they make more transactions & get better prices
blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?
1. Less skilled labor is abundant. 2. Skilled emigration is a brain drain. 3. Development substitutes for migration. 4. Migration substitutes for failing development, but doesn't cause development.
The International Monetary Fund asked me to review the literature on migration economics to draw lessons for low-income countries.
In a new @iza.org paper, I argue that policy for the 21st century must discard four outdated ideas.
www.iza.org/publications...
🧵 thread—>
In our penultimate JMP blog, @ridwanhossain.bsky.social looks at how pecuniary & non-pecuniary rewards affect exam performance. All rewards boosted scores, with $ biggest. Results suggest low-stakes tests underestimate true learning. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?
In today's JMP blog, how does social media affect political conflict? Alexander Fertig uses an event study in Myanmar to show when internet freedoms were eroded, the relationship between access & political protest disappeared. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?
One last (sobering) update on the #EconJobMarket before the winter holidays; data as of 2025-12-14.
In terms of # of job listings on Job Openings for Economists (JOE), this is the worst job mkt in recent yrs for PhD Economists. # jobs down 20% from last yr, even 18.9% lower than during COVID (2020).
