There are important changes going on in our media environment that policy wonks need to get to grips with but also OMG "Senior officials should be trained for “get ready with me” videos" carnegieendowment.org/research/202... ht: @timhirschelburns.bsky.social

Over the last century, many democracies have started down the road to autocracy. Some managed to turn around. What did these 'U-turns' have in common? Political economist @marinanord.bsky.social & colleagues' conclusions are clear and succinct. Full research summary: www.v-dem.net/media/public...

Striking difference in trust in the World Bank & IMF between Africa & Asia (high trust) and the rest of the world (low trust) www.rockefellerfoundation.org/reports/dema...

I'm optimistic about the long-awaited launch of IFFEd. It's hard to beat the returns on investing in children, so cheaper loans for middle-income countries to spend more now is probably a good bet www.devex.com/news/moonsho...

Foreign Policy has a new issue on "The End of Development." Lots of pieces worth reading - I'll put my thoughts in this thread as I read through. (Re the title, worth noting that development has always been about more than ODA + SDGs. That broader development is far from dead)

Should undergraduate students pick their specialisation from Y1 (like the UK) or Y3 (like the US)? South Korea just moved to an earlier specialisation (like the UK), which reduced student wages because they were less able to adjust to a changing job market www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Many interventions “work” in small trials but fail at scale Also, EdTech often promises much, but delivers little In a new paper (bit.ly/3JKLgVn) @karthik-econ.bsky.social & I show how personalized adaptive learning (PAL) software can sharply improve learning outcomes at scale🧵1/16

It’s official - “Nigel Farage is right, don’t vote for him” is a demonstrably awful strategy for Labour. Boosts salience of immigration, costs votes on the left, doesn’t persuade any voters on right (why would they accept a crap knock-off when they can have the original?)

look, it might not have worked with the public, but at least it was the wrong thing to do morally

Today's cool young researcher #econtwitter #econsky is @AimableNsabima1 at IFC who works on topics related to education, nutrition, infrastructure + local labor markets

Interesting looking job taking promising in-school tablet-based adaptive learning software to Sierra Leone at Imagine Worldwide job-boards.greenhouse.io/imagineworld...

4 findings from our experimenting with policymakers paper, finally published in World Development last month (a mere 3.5 years after the CGD working paper version) ...

New evidence that foreign aid increases school enrolment in Nigeria (that is any kind of aid, not specifically aid for education projects) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... (open version docs.aiddata.org/ad4/pdfs/WPS...)

Support for aid in rich countries depends on how the economy is doing

A point I've been thinking about, raised by @leecrawfurd.bsky.social: ODA is basically procyclical. (As are capital flows, remittances etc..) When there are downturns in the North, the Global South is usually hit even harder—but external support dries up at the exact moment it's needed most

Excellent post exploring the immigrant fiscal contributions by visa category. Important to note that it is overall positive without even considering indirect positive effects on UK born as my own research shows: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Much better data viz here than for our similar analysis of school books from 3 countries! journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Exciting news from ASER/UWEZO/PAL: "The upcoming [2025] ICAN-ICAR assessment is set to be conducted in 12 countries (Senegal, Mali, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Botswana, Nicaragua, Mexico, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal" palnetwork.org/peoples-voic...

OK, it's not from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com's brilliant oeuvre but it's still absolutely fascinating! From "Bears: Will Be Boys: A data analysis of animal gender in children’s books" pudding.cool/2025/07/kids...

Good piece by David Pilling on Malawi's experiment in scaling up tablet-based tuition in primary schools on.ft.com/45ocEkl

Of every 1,000 children born in Kenya, 32 don’t make it to their first birthdays. A new stumbled onto a straightforward solution: Giving $1,000 to poor families lowered infant mortality rates by nearly half, and deaths in children under 5 by 45 percent. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/h...

The person who went and destroyed the agency himself one weekend, the richest man alive, said that he “gave zero f***s” about reports that he was causing death of some of earth’s most destitute children.

🚨 COOL JOB!!! 🚨 In Rwanda, @poverty-action.bsky.social and gui2de are hiring a Scale-Up Advisor to work within the MINEDUC to scale up a revised teacher performance pay contract ("imihigo"). We're looking for an excellent manager to help lead this initiative to take evidence into policy at scale.

Research from @leecrawfurd.bsky.social finds that ten year olds who score well in reading and maths go on to earn roughly 11% more as adults.💡 Explore the economic returns to foundational learning in his analysis of data from Indonesia ⬇️ bit.ly/4lZgpCm

Good new paper by @leecrawfurd.bsky.social. Investing in basic education delivers. www.cgdev.org/blog/childre...

School feeding program in Rwanda yields 11x return on investment academic.oup.com/jae/article-...

Just an amazingly small amount of money is spent on education in Africa abrock.substack.com/p/re-educati...

Five charts explain Trump’s cuts to foreign aid archive.ph/N2rrS

Good news alert In 2024, renewables supplied more than half of the UK's electricity for the first time over a year, reaching a record share of 50.4% Renewables and nuclear combined hit a new high of 64.7% assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6889ec...

As we all work very hard on our development economics papers this summer, I want to make sure everyone knows about "How to Write the Introduction of Your Development Economics" - title is self explanatory www.cgdev.org/blog/how-wri...

Replace the triple lock with a link to the housebuilding rate

Children Who Can Read and Count at Age Ten Earn More Later in Life: New Evidence from Indonesia 📖 💲 😀 buff.ly/ZPYZ0CQ "one standard deviation difference in foundational skills is associated with an 11 percent increase in adult earnings." @leecrawfurd.bsky.social @cgdev.org

"Education can account for about 45% of global economic growth and 60% of pretax income growth among the world’s poorest 20% from 1980 to 2019." academic.oup.com/qje/advance-...

Poor access to finance and schooling inputs leads private schools to shut down. Access to these inputs reduces costly closures, while generating viable returns for investors, from Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das, Asim Ijaz Khwaja, and Selcuk Ozyurt https://www.nber.org/papers/w34042

Strict immigration policy hurts natives too, especially small business owners www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

The latest research from @leecrawfurd.bsky.social finds that ten year olds who score well in reading and maths go on to earn roughly 11% more as adults.💡 Explore the economic returns to foundational learning in his analysis of data from Indonesia ⬇️ bit.ly/4lZgpCm

On pro-natalism: "Until we have the resources to properly feed and educate all our children, we should not worry that we are having too few." crookedtimber.org/2025/07/22/t...

"The great religious divergence" drive.google.com/file/d/13Vwz...

Government scale-up of TaRL seems to be working in Madagascar www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Most Brits don't think international development spending should aim to support international development bfpg.co.uk/2025/07/2025...

In the Guardian actual print edition today!

📚📊 NEW @cgdev.org RESEARCH: Children who master basic reading and math in primary school earn significantly more as adults. Evidence that foundational literacy and numeracy skills have real economic returns throughout life.

Good advice from @ianmitchell1.bsky.social & Sam Hughes on @cgdev.org on how the UK should focus aid in a period of cuts. Australia's government isn't cutting aid, but it hasn't offset past cuts either. It ought to consider this advice too: www.cgdev.org/blog/how-uk-...

On @cgdev.org interesting on what the WHO should prioritise as its budget falls rapidly: www.cgdev.org/publication/...

"Protect children, not just animals, from lead exposure" www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Where is lead poisoning coming from, and how can we track it better? Insights from 24 presentations at CGD's First Annual Research Conference on Global Lead Exposure, summarized by @leecrawfurd.bsky.social & Caroline Mallory: www.cgdev.org/blog/what-we...

Latest AI use case: "is there anything actionable for me in the 32 page school weekly newsletter given my children are in Year 2 and Year 4"

As a Londoner at the time I found it inspirational and the perfect response

Promises to cut immigration reduce support for social democratic parties in Europe

Re-upping my advice about how to write a good title and abstract for an academic paper, appropriately called: "How to Write a Title and Abstract" Feel free to share this thread, which will focus on titles. #EconSky #AcademicSky