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...?

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 In a new @iza.org paper, I argue that policy for the 21st century must discard four outdated ideas.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).

In today's JMP blog, Pallavi Prabhakar uses an RCT to look at the impact of India's aspirational district program. Learning that one’s district performs worse than its peers increased individual & collective citizen participation blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

In today's JMP blog, Shreya Tandon documents that married women often work in the same garment firm in India as their husband. 3 field experiments explore why - evidence seems to be to protect women from risk of unsuitable workplaces blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

In today's JMP blog, Fatima Aqeel uses a reform in Pakistan that lifted a cap on the share of women in medical schools to show how more women in medicine changes medical research. Result was more work on female-focused health, from both women and men blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

In today's JMP blog, @jiaweilyu.bsky.social studies impact of affirmative action for men in China's civil service. Women outperform men in the entry exam, so quotas were introduced to balance gender. Fewer women were hired, quality declined, & tax collected fell. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

In today's JMP blog, Chiman Cheung looks at how local leader incentives & public vs leader only info affect collective action against environmental threats with an experiment around information on the risks of mercury from artisanal mining of gold in Ghana blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

In today's JMP blog, @krajah123.bsky.social conducts experiments in India to show how spousal jealousy affects female labor force participation: women are more likely to take up work in women-only office & greater impacts for those with more jealous husbands blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

In today's JMP blog, @pmasae.bsky.social looks at what happens to Ugandan dairy farmers when they start getting digital receipts for milk deliveries. Receipts discipline transporters and milk quality improves, while acting as behavioral nudge for self-deliverers blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

I missed us posting a JMP blog last week by Sophie Nottmeyer which looks at how a GPS tracking app for tractors allows owners to monitor better, expanding the distance they rent at, helping farmers mechanize and increase productivity. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

To kick things off for our 2025 Job Market Paper series, Ferran Vega-Carol writes about his JMP about Solar Electrification in Rural Myanmar. Check it out: www.econthatmatters.com/2025/12/how-... #JMP #Econsky #ETRM

In today's JMP, Molly Doruska looks at how to protect firms in Dakar from flooding. Individual subsidies had negative spillovers on other firms as water diverted, but combining subsidies with community meeting reduced flood losses without negative spillovers blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

In today's JMP, @sanjanagh1.bsky.social looks at how changes in who is in power shapes regulatory discretion over pollution enforcement in the sugar industry. The same regulatory capacity leads to very different outcomes depending on who is in power. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

Air pollution from crops burning is a huge problem in India. Today's JMP blog by Piyush Gandhi shows how subsidizing & training farmers to take-up a new early maturity seed has big benefits in reducing crop burning and pollution. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

Mexico City is sinking. Today's JMP blog by Lucy Hackett looks at how the housing market is responding. Sinking lowers prices. Information frictions lead to an oversupply of houses in risky places, and prices don't predict the likelihood of future sinking. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

Should policy actors deliberately expose people to diverse viewpoints or might backlash worsen divisions? This JMP blog by Nilmini Herath provides theory on how to do social network interventions depending on how people aggregate opinions & on network structure blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

In today's JMP blog, @hardiahmed.bsky.social uses DiD to show how sharia law reform in Northern Nigeria affected child health and fertility, and how this varies with enforcement intensity. Weak enforcement of child protection laws particularly harmed non-muslims blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

🚨 New working paper! How well do people predict the results of studies? @sdellavi.bsky.social and I leverage data from the first 100 studies to have been posted on the SSPP, containing 1,482 key questions, on which over 50,000 forecasts were placed. Some surprising results below.... 🧵👇

In today's JMP blog, @adautheville.bsky.social finds that many Tanzanian microentrepreneurs are actively searching for jobs while running their businesses, which is correlated with lower profits and less investment. An information intervention has limited effect blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

In today's JMP blog, @economiyaki.bsky.social shows how even 3 hours/day of kindergarten in Indonesia is enough to increase women's employment (by 13 p.p.) & does not crowd out care offered by relatives blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

How do men's expectations about how a job will affect their wife's share of consumption affect female labor force participation? Today's JMP blog by @andreasmurra.bsky.social conducts an experiment in India to show women's work take-up depends on husbands beliefs blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

In Nigeria, 30% of workers experience delays receiving their wages. In today's JMP, Daniel Sonnenstuhl runs an RCT and find workers work harder when faced by delayed pay - but making pay reliable increases willingness to accept job offers blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

Reminder, last couple of weeks to get your papers in for a special issue of the WBER on migration and development.

In today's JMP, @shreyasarkar.bsky.social asks whether it is worthwhile for firms to subsidize worker-owned capital. An experiment subsidizing down payments on scooters to allow mobile salon gig workers to travel faster/further says yes: gains for worker & firm blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

Today's JMP features @akhila-kovvuri.bsky.social's work which shows how the extension of the metro system in Delhi generated new jobs around transit stations. Using staggered DiD, she shows consumer-focused firms move in, with new jobs. Large gain for women. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

In today's JMP, @christinasarah.bsky.social tests an information intervention to boost organ donation in Tunisia. The work shows the role of building trust in medical institutions, and the importance of considering family and peer dynamics in this decision. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Thanks to the World Bank Development Impact Blog for featuring my JMP. Check out the details below: blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

In today's JMP, @rebeccawurx.bsky.social shows how misbeliefs about whether offering a low wage is a signal of low quality leads new freelancers to not try to enter with low wage offers - as well as how misbeliefs about own performance affect this choice blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

In today's job market post, Ed Jee reanalyzes microdata from 27 asset & cash transfer RCTs to examine whether asset dynamics suggest poverty traps. He finds fixed costs around owning large animals suggest traps for some people, but that many hhs can still escape blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

In today's job market post, @matteo-ruzzante.bsky.social uses DiD to show how price controls on GM cotton in India spurred adoption by farmers, but reduced subsequent location-specific seed development. Despite innovation reduction, farmers were still better off. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

In today's job market post, Sneha Nimmagadda shows in India that mothers misperceive how stunted their kids are, because so many other kids around are also stunted. Correcting this perception changes beliefs and feeding practices, increasing weight for age blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Our job market series continued on Friday: amenjalal.bsky.social shows revealing pay in online job applications reduces gender sorting in Pakistan. Large firms pay more, but are less likely to reveal salaries and offer less job flexibility. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Today we start our job market paper blog series, with Grady Killeen providing an experiment in Kenya that shows how risk aversion keeps firms from introducing new products - a temporary returns policy got them to learn and adopt a new profitable product blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

A special Wednesday links is now up, since it is the deadline for our blog your job market paper series today. I cover the new update of our VoxDevLit on business training, work on exporting, political polarization, and return migration, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

What have we learned about training entrepreneurs? Issue 4 of our VoxDevLit on Training Entrepreneurs by @dmckenzie.bsky.social, Christopher Woodruff & Co-Editors is out now!➡️ voxdev.org/voxdevlit/tr... Today's podcast covers the update➡️ voxdev.org/topic/firms/...

Issue 4 (4!) of our VoxDevLit on Training Entrepreneurs is out now. This update includes interesting new evidence on longer-term impacts and the use of generative AI in training. Everything you need to know on this topic will always be at this link and up to date ⤵️

In today's blog, I discuss how much I'm updating my priors on the effectiveness of wage subsidies in developing countries based on several new studies: quite a bit on shaping who is hired, much less on whether they create new jobs, a bit on coping with shocks blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Sad to hear about the death of Betty Sadoulet. In addition to the research and mentoring mentioned in this remembrance, she also co-authored a fantastic development econ text I use in class. It's so good I read the chapters I don't teach just for fun! www.routledge.com/Development-...

This week's links include the African PhD pipeline, creative destruction and entry reform in China, our blog your job market paper series is taking submissions, remembering Betty Sadoulet, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

this has a good overview of the recent Fiscal Studies symposium to which @papiteide.bsky.social and I contributed. Our paper here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/..., more on the symposium here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14755890...

This week's links include a mini-symposium on power calculations, what makes for good descriptive work, publishing tips for econometrics, making nice dot charts, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...