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...?

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...