🆕 When ethnic diversity helps development Today on VoxDev, Miriam Artiles (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) discusses economic exchange and inter-ethnic cooperation in colonial Peru: https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/when-ethnic-diversity-helps-development

🆕 Military cooperation across borders reduced violence in the Sahel Today on VoxDev, Marion Richard (Nova SBE) & Oliver Vanden Eynde (Paris School of Economics) discuss how military cooperation can reduce jihadist violence in border regions: https://ow.ly/aLrV50YCb6P

🆕 The future runs through African cities 900 million people will be added to African cities by 2050. This unprecedented urban transition is a defining development challenge of our time. Kurtis Lockhart (Africa Urban Lab) is joining Ideas in Development for 7 episodes on cities 🧵

🆕 Why ‘billions to trillions’ has failed to attract investment in infrastructure Today on VoxDev w/ Anusha Chari (UNC), Peter Blair Henry (Hoover Institution), Yanru Lee & Pablo Picardo (Banco Central del Uruguay): https://ow.ly/1lNP50YBCRl

🆕 The future runs through African cities 900 million people will be added to African cities by 2050. This unprecedented urban transition is a defining development challenge of our time. Kurtis Lockhart (Africa Urban Lab) is joining Ideas in Development for 7 episodes on cities 🧵

Interested in understanding the economics of ongoing global conflicts, especially in developing countries? Here are 3 recent @voxdev.bsky.social articles you should check out👇

🆕 Cloudy with a chance of no clouds: Why weather forecasts are worse in low-income countries Today on VoxDev w/ Manuel Linsenmeier (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt) & Jeffrey Shrader (Columbia | SIPA): https://ow.ly/vrhb50YAviw

There is no randomising a technological revolution On my Substack, I've written about why development economics needs to step up on the big questions in AI, what that might look like & what some of the big questions actually are. Keen to hear your thoughts! olihanney.substack.com/p/there-is-n...

🆕 Modern industrial policy: The Asian miracles’ blueprint for developing economies Today on VoxDev, Reda Cherif (IMF) & Fuad Hasanov (IMF) discuss principles of industrial policy for economic development: voxdev.org/topic/macroe...

I'm worried that the conversation on AI & jobs is missing the real 'patient zero' of job loss from AI. Fiverr-style service jobs in countries like Pakistan (e.g. logo design, basis coding etc.) seem particularly & imminently at risk, as @umarsaif discussed on the podcast ⤵️

🆕 AI policy in developing countries Being a technology minister right now is hard. The information space is overwhelmed with contradicting policy recommendations, timelines are uncertain & the geopolitics are messy. This week Umar Saif joined Ideas in Development, links ⤵️

Interested in research on gender but don’t know where get started? Here are over 36 insights from @voxdev.bsky.social on the challenges faced by women across 18 developing countries in the workplace, school, household, and with fertility and norms. + research gaps! voxdev.org/topic/gender...

🆕 Can providing information reduce risky migration? Today on VoxDev, giacomo battiston (ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin), Lucia Corno (Università Cattolica) & Eliana La Ferrara (Harvard) outline an informational intervention on the risks of irregular migration in Guinea: https://ow.ly/qkJp50YuBUZ

🆕 AI & development economics: Early evidence + how to keep up I have updated my VoxDev blog collecting the best resources on AI relevant to development economics, organised by evidence on impacts and different use cases: voxdev.org/topic/ai-and...

We are live with Aniket Panjwani on using AI agents for economic research. The Zoom webinar has maxed out at 500?! So join us here: youtube.com/live/YPv9Bqw...

🆕 Why graduates struggle to find jobs in West Africa Esther Mirjam Girsberger (UTS) & Romuald Méango (Department of Economics, University of Oxford) discuss how educated workers wait for scarce jobs in labour markets characterised by severe hiring frictions: https://ow.ly/ECcK50YsK0e

In 1925, hybrid corn came online in the US. It yielded ~20% more/acre, but by 1933 it was on just 0.1% of US corn acreage. It took another drought in 1936 to move Iowa farmers, Europe didn't follow until the 50s, and global adoption is still patchy. Could AI look the same?

What factors are shaping current and future paths of industrialisation? Do these paths differ from the historical experiences of advanced economies? We are live! youtube.com/live/rX2dcat...

🆕 AI, India & the future of service-led growth This week on Ideas in Development, @deenamousa.com and I were joined by Raghuram Rajan to discuss India's growth prospects in the age of AI. Listen to Ideas in Development wherever you get your podcasts, links below ⤵️

Eradicating malaria could deliver much larger economic gains in sub-Saharan Africa than previously believed. The new generation of malaria vaccines provides a highly cost-effective way to realise these benefits. Read today's article to learn more:

🆕 Malaria is not just a health crisis, it is an economic crisis Today on VoxDev, Minki Kim (Economics department, University of Mannheim.) discusses how eradicating malaria could deliver much larger economic gains in sub-Saharan Africa than previously believed: https://ow.ly/JWuR50YrINw

🆕 AI, India & the future of service-led growth This week on Ideas in Development, @deenamousa.com and I were joined by Raghuram Rajan to discuss India's growth prospects in the age of AI. Listen to Ideas in Development wherever you get your podcasts, links below ⤵️

How can you study an economy when official statistics don't exist, or can't be trusted? Really enjoyed today's article which outlines six 'forensic' methods available to economists, and applies them to North Korea ⤵️

🆕 Ray of hope? The rise of solar energy in China Today on VoxDev, Ignacio Banares-Sanchez, Robin Burgess, Dávid László, Pol Simpson, John Van Reenen & Yifan Wang outline their research on China's green industrial policy: voxdev.org/topic/energy...

🆕 How does technology diffuse? This week on Ideas in Development, Josh Lerner joined @deenamousa.com & I to discuss why is there a gap between innovation & impact, + the role of venture capital, universities & China in diffusion: voxdev.org/topic/techno...

🆕 How does technology diffuse? This week on Ideas in Development, Josh Lerner joined @deenamousa.com & I to discuss why is there a gap between innovation & impact, + the role of venture capital, universities & China in diffusion: voxdev.org/topic/techno...

🆕 Could rural-urban climate migration help formalise the economy? Today on VoxDev, Clément Imbert (Sciences Po) & Gabriel Ulyssea (UCL) discuss how drought-driven migration reduced urban informality in Brazil: https://ow.ly/MHCf50YnTLl

🆕 How new export opportunities created good jobs in Vietnam Today on VoxDev, Brian McCaig (Wilfrid Laurier University), Nina Pavcnik (Dartmouth Economics) & Woan Foong Wong (University of Oregon) discuss the far-reaching effects of the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement: https://ow.ly/YRZJ50Ymjw2

How did South Korea go from exporting wigs made from human hair & processed human urine (yes you read that right) to colour TVs? Really enjoyed today's presentation by @jaedochoi.bsky.social & Michael Sposi on export-led growth. Slides & recording available here: voxdev.org/voxdevlit/in...

🆕 Is quality upgrading in agriculture a path to poverty reduction? Rocco Macchiavello (LSE), Josepa Miquel-Florensa (Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)), Nicolás de Roux (Uniandes), Eric Verhoogen (Columbia), Mario Bernasconi (University of Basel) & Patrick Farrell: https://ow.ly/Moeh50YlMhQ

🆕 Reducing air pollution: Can markets succeed where regulation fails? 📢 Today on VoxDevTalks, Michael Greenstone (@harrispolicy.bsky.social) discusses the potential of emissions trading systems in developing countries, highlighting evidence from Gujrat, India. Link below ⤵️

One lesson that stood out across this work in India's courtrooms, classrooms & agriculture, is that the AI model itself is not necessarily the hard part. For interventions to scale, the organisational plumbing around the model is crucial ⤵️

🆕 Three ways India is using AI for development This week on Ideas in Development, I spoke with Utkarsh Saxena (Adalat AI), Claire Cullen (Youth Impact) and Niriksha Shetty (Precision Development (PxD)) about how their organisations are deploying AI in India, and what they’ve learned.

🆕 What education and minimum wages can – and can’t – do about wage inequality Today on VoxDev, Daniel Haanwinckel (UCLA) discusses how education and minimum wages influenced inequality in Brazil: https://ow.ly/HF5C50Yk6fN

🆕 How China became the world’s factory: Trade, industrial policy, and growth Today on VoxDev, Francesco Amodio (McGill University), Hanwei Huang (CityUHK), Yu-Hsiang Lei (HKUST) & Markus Poschke discuss China's export-led growth model: https://ow.ly/BcNX50YhvTJ

📢 Our new VoxDevLit on Industrial Development is out now! Senior Editors Francesco Amodio & Markus Poschke summarise everything you need to know about industrialisation. Read & download here: voxdev.org/voxdevlit/in...

🆕 Thinking like an economist about AI, labour markets & AGI This week on Ideas in Development, @akorinek.bsky.social joined @deenamousa.com & I to discuss how economists think about the economic impacts of AI today & whether AGI requires a new economic paradigm.

🆕 Mismeasuring learning: Beware of psychometric test scores Today on VoxDev, Prof. James Heckman (Harris School of Public Policy) & Jin Zhou (CityUHK) challenge the practice of treating test scores as measures of the same underlying ability across levels: https://ow.ly/C5LN50YgXml

🆕 Qualitative interviews at scale: A new method with an application to aspirations Today on VoxDev w/ Julian Ashwin (Maastricht University), Vijayendra Rao (World Bank), Monica Biradavolu (QualAnalytics), Aditya Chhabra, Arshia Haque (Yale), Afsana Khan & Nandini Krishnan: https://ow.ly/cBhT50YgWmy

🆕 Thinking like an economist about AI, labour markets & AGI This week on Ideas in Development, @akorinek.bsky.social joined @deenamousa.com & I to discuss how economists think about the economic impacts of AI today & whether AGI requires a new economic paradigm.

🆕 Special Economic Zones: Why they succeed in some countries – and fail in others In this episode of Economics Unpacked, Tevin Tafese (@giga-hamburg.de) and Alex Rothenberg (@maxwellsu.bsky.social) discuss the economy-wide impacts of Special Economic Zones in Vietnam and Indonesia. Link below ⤵️

Important findings from today's article 1. The scope of global humanitarian need is larger than current estimates suggest. 2. The challenges of measuring food insecurity contribute to the systematic underestimation of food insecurity.

Three keys to unlock AI in Africa: Power, connectivity & data In this week's episode of Ideas in Development, Rose Mutiso joined @deenamousa.com & @olihanney.bsky.social to spell out the fundamentals that need to be in place for AI to take off in #Africa: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5td...

AI is often framed as Africa’s next leapfrog. In Ep2 of our @voxdev.bsky.social series, Rose Mutiso argues this is the wrong frame: AI isn’t end-user tech like mobile phones, but an upstream, infrastructure-heavy system that concentrates value where power, compute, and data already exist.

🆕 Excited to announce our free online lecture series on Industrial Development To mark the release of our new VoxDevLit next week, with Senior Editors Francesco Amodio & Markus Poschke, we have organised a series of lectures on the key topics related to industrialisation. Link to register below ⤵️

🆕 Can AI take off in Africa? Today on Ideas in Development, Rose Mutiso (African Tech Futures Lab) joins @deenamousa.com & I to discuss the need for an energy and digital infrastructure revolution on the continent + how to make it happen. Listen now @voxdev.bsky.social: voxdev.org/topic/techno...

Crazy stat I thought. In 1992 in Brazil, one in every 20 men who were formally employed by a private sector firm were employed as security guards.

🆕 Can AI take off in Africa? Today on Ideas in Development, Rose Mutiso (African Tech Futures Lab) joins @deenamousa.com & I to discuss the need for an energy and digital infrastructure revolution on the continent + how to make it happen. Listen now @voxdev.bsky.social: voxdev.org/topic/techno...

🆕 Free school meals: The world’s biggest social programme In this episode of Economics Unpacked, Biniam Bedasso (@cgdev.org) and Fabio Sánchez (Universidad de los Andes) discuss the long-term impacts of school feeding programmes. 🔗 Link below ⤵️