Ambitious new paper: sorting the "determinants of development" by whether they can be ranked by importance and whether they can be altered through policy intervention. Most successful development episodes adapted to local traits rather than tried to change economics.mit.edu/sites/defaul...

The return of phrenology

I am looking forward to reading this. From what I've seen so far it seems to be much more positive about agriculture across Africa than what I've read elsewhere. Does he have different data on different elements of the system, or is he reading it differently?

has anyone come across a good concise "this is what will happen when the new Fed chair cuts rate like Trump wants"? Analysis of implications for EMs would be nice.

a while back, the "Ethiopian spice girls" was picked up by the press as the exemplar of dumb things that foreign aid gets wasted on. Here is a new WB review of evidence about "edutainment" to reduce violence against women and children academic.oup.com/wbro/article...

Talking about this on LBC in 10 minutes with @mrjamesob.bsky.social (and there’s much more to come on this story in the coming days and weeks)

Despite the focus on small boats, most refugees stay in poor countries. I went to Sudan, where nearly 1/3 of the population has left their homes, to see how the UN is coping with Trump's cuts and the west's retreat. Sudan is a brutal, forgotten war. Please do read: as.ft.com/r/7db76b9a-8...

Enormous new 5.2GW solar plus 19GWh battery plant in UAE, designed to deliver 1GW round the clock is still estimated at 6x as expensive as combined cycle gas by Wood McKenzie www.pv-magazine.com/2026/01/23/u...

I don't like the personalisation aspect but like even less NGOs deciding that the whole concept of people with lots of money sending some to people with very little money, because they want to help them, is "colonial". www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

One thing I don't understand about Trump and Greenland is why he hasn't already done something like offer every Greenlander $1m cash and a green card. That'd be his style.

🆕 (Well-managed) aid reduces conflict Today on VoxDev, Jacob Moscona (MIT) presents new evidence from Africa showing that aid reduces conflict when projects are well managed, but increases violence when management and monitoring are weak: https://ow.ly/slKc50Y0x2S

I am going to try and say a few words about Jon, who was one of the most influential people in my life, and an extraordinary person (very short thread below)

Graham Greene's performance (as grandfather Arthur) is just incredible in this. I am sad to learn he has died. I also discovered the author Jim Thompson thanks to this.

everyone sucking up to Trump is letting us know they have low confidence in there being any more free and fair elections.

🚨 Last day to register! Join leading researchers at the Industrial Policy for Africa Conference 📍Nairobi | Feb 16–18, 2026 Explore how industrial policy can drive jobs, sustainability, & economic transformation across Africa. 👉 theigc.org/events/indus... #IndustrialPolicy @cepr.org

Grow Indigo, a @britishintinv.bsky.social investee, has won approval for the first regenerative agriculture carbon credit in Asia, putting more money into the hands of small farmers to reward improved soil health

The Weiss Fund has a great new initiative for development economists on the PhD job market to support those taking up research positions in LMICs, offering supplementary income + research funds. Please share!

there is also the geography aspect - not every country has enough space for solar and wind to meet total energy demand. If they can be done reasonably cheaply (which is t.b.c) SMRs presumably have more flexibility when it comes to location?

I don't like paying for add on channels on prime, but I would be in the market for something that dug out classics from the pre-streaming era.

Ethiopia’s rapid growth masks a challenge: workers have left agriculture, but manufacturing has not created enough jobs. Could tradable services + labour-intensive industry be the key to inclusive transformation?📈 theigc.org/blogs/jobles... #Ethiopia #EconomicGrowth #EconSky

a beg for help. There is a (private) database that banks use for sharing their corporate loan performance data with either other - I recall looking at its website, but now I cannot find it nor remember it's name, does this ring a bell with any of you?

We're up and running with the Too Much Finance conference! Prof Thorsten Beck is giving the first keynote taxjustice.net/events/too-m...

mood

I would like it to be possible to write media regulations that correctly identifies this as lying to the public on a very important topic and punishes papers for doing it, but I fear it's not. Too hard to define.

New post: A Post Neoliberal Consensus mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2026/01/a-po... Dani Rodrik, Tim Besley and others argue that there is a now a post neoliberal consenus on economic policy.

a nice piece of evidence (from Sweden) that monetary tightening (higher interest rates) can cause inflation (not overall, merely that there is one mechanism in that direction, among others) at firms reliant on working capital www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

what is stopping vets from leaving, setting up their own practices, and undercutting the corporate owned ones? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I thought it was really refreshing to see a show where the hero is frequently visibly scared and also a bit of an idiot www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

a simple point but useful to see evidence of it: you'll miss productivity spillovers from FDI if you look at revenue productivity when increased competition is causing price cuts. Evidence from Indian manufacturing using quantities data: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This article only gets to the point 3/4 way through, but strong evidence of a chemical (called MPTP) cause of Parkinsons. Hope it's banned in UK (it was in US, Trump rescinded). Article notes how few chemicals are properly investigated.

This omits the most important information which is the starting salaries of lecturers at different universities (with some helpful comparisons to wages in the private sector).

Anyone one looking for well written escapism, also of some historical interest, I have loved Larry McMurty's Lonesome Dove trilogy. I'd not normally think of reading a Western.

so far I've tried to get by without learning a damn thing about crypto and blockchain but this (2hr) "recent developments in the economics of ... " lecture might we where I start www.aeaweb.org/webcasts/202...

The @cepr.org Structural Change and Economic Growth programme is funding some of the most interesting research in development economics - with a more macro emphasis - it's annual conference is happening today and tomorrow and you can dial in to the plenaries: steg.cepr.org/events/steg-...

We have been working on a new @voxdev.bsky.social podcast - Ideas in Development. In the 1st episode, I have explained the thinking behind this. While there are far too many podcasts in the world, there are not enough out there on the economics relevant to most of the world’s population 🧵

It's a big country and people need to eat but www.ft.com/content/27a6...

I am disappointed not to read about plans to develop quagga eating robots, or genetically engineered quagga eating crabs www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I do not know much about farming, but if I understand this correctly farmers have been ploughing land since forever and it now turns out not ploughing is better? www.economics.utoronto.ca/diegor/resea... (please educate me here, I am interested!)

NEW: Humanitarian officials staged a last-minute plea to Trump officials at their fancy hotel to re-start food aid $ for a huge refugee camp in Kenya. The Trumpers blew it off and babies starved. @annamaria.bsky.social & Brett Murphy www.propublica.org/article/keny...

I had missed this - this year's World Development Report is about standards and how we benefit when things work smoothly in different countries and trade is easier. Something for us Brits to ponder there. www.worldbank.org/en/publicati...

This from John MacIntyre on the track record of the WB and IMF in Senegal, and Mackey Sal's administration, is blistering. open.substack.com/pub/johnmcin...

how cheap is power from grid scale batteries? Not as cheap as this - at the @britishintinv.bsky.social green tech conference on Friday, the CEO of Energrid said 6.5 rupee kwh (0.07 USD) is a more like a realistic minimum viable price. But that's still cheap! www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Today I’m back in the FT with an op-ed on how we can learn from the last few weeks of post-Budget discussion about our finances. We are unusual as a country in our fixation on a single point headroom figure, which is not helpful for long-term fiscal policy www.ft.com/content/3727...

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) can accelerate development in the countries hosting them, both directly with their presence, and indirectly through linkages to local economic actors. Read our VoxDevLit on FDI to learn more: https://voxdev.org/voxdevlit/foreign-direct-investment

New MCC scorecards exclude 2/3s of poorest eligible countries, compared to <40% of the richest ones. The MCC board just scrapped a whole load of existing compacts in poorer countries. These are the very countries MCC was originally designed to help. www.cgdev.org/blog/millenn...

How did we end up with a queue that is so much larger than needed? Still, at least it means the connection problem is less of a problem

The WSJ reports on the historic news yesterday that Eavor has begun operations of the first commercial-scale multilateral closed loop geotherm power project in the world! It's not every day that a new power tech has its "world's first" moment. Don't miss this www.wsj.com/articles/a-g... 🔌💡

this looks interesting, if I understand correctly it's about winners compensating loser after a reform that creates a potential Pareto improvement, but doing so through the income tax system not some imaginary lump sum www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

"'Low estimate is 60,000 people have been killed there in the last three weeks.’” As many as 150,000 residents of El Fasher remain unaccounted for Why, might be appropriate for our leaders, intellectuals, and activists who profess to care about our shared humanity to actually do or say something

An extremely annoying thing. Received (important) reports from NHS and education system, with text in boxes it doesn't fit in so only half can be read, and told nothing can be done. Is this widespread? How long's it being going on? Why isn't it fixed?