Now that our job market series has concluded, here are some of the things I’ve found interesting in the last month, to give you something to read over the holidays. Development Impact will be back in January.
· John Cochrane (aka the grumpy economist) on whether causal estimates are picking up much of what explains outcomes: ““Do changes in x cause changes in y?” does not answer the question “what are the most important causes of variation in y?” Many identified causal effects explain very little variation, and we know there are many other sources of variation…. An extra year of college, or growing up in a better neighborhood might raise wages. But only a tiny fraction of why one person’s wage differs from another results from extra years of college or which neighborhood a person grew up in…. causality is great, but it isn’t everything. We often do want to know, “what are the major causes of growth vs stagnation, wealth vs. poverty, recession vs. boom, and why do stock prices wander around so much?” Causal identification can chip away at this question, but obviously there is a long way to go. And it’s not the obvious we will ever get there, since so much movement in the causes is and will always be endogenous.”
· Interview with Nina Buchmann on how she finds research topics, her work on paternalistic discrimination, and why gender research needs to do more on men. ETRM interview with Jing Cai on how she collaborates with Chinese companies and local governments, and advice for grad students on building skills for working with organizations. Datacamp interview with Bilal Zia on creating and managing a data team at duolingo, where and how they are using AI, and what makes for a good hire of a data scientist at a smaller company versus large tech firm.
· The latest CSWEP newsletter has different women reflecting on their choices around career and family. “Their experiences range from raising a large family, to adopting, to pursuing infertility treatment, to choosing a life a without children.”
· NEUDC was last month. Almedina Music and Dave Evans have a round-up of all the papers related to human development (plus a few more).
· Cyrus Samii on why it is useful to report the treated group mean with DiD rather than the control group mean. Cyrus also discusses whether survey experiments are overused in political science and whether they should be considered part of the credibility revolution.
· Noam Angrist answers a policy colleague’s question “What is it with researchers and their passion for papers? It’s just a piece of paper!” – highlighting academic vs policy incentives, and how the two can meet.
· A new VoxDevLit on education technology is out, edited by Abhijeet Singh. “When technology supplements class time and provides tailored instruction, effects can be large and consistent across studies, especially for low-achieving students.”
· The Export Boom Atlas documents and maps 82 export booms since 1995 that have reshaped economies around the world. For example, “Cambodia's garment sector, including knitwear exports such as sweaters and sweatshirts, has grown to $12 billion annually, representing 45% of total exports and nearly a third of Cambodia's GDP. It has also created jobs for over 900,000 workers, primarily in manufacturing, with women representing 80% of the workforce.” Poland’s poultry industry taking off after EU accession, Indian pharmaceuticals, Moroccan automobiles, and more..– the Atlas tries to summarize the public sector, private sector, and external sector features that spurred these booms.
· Oliver Hanney at VoxDev does a wrap-up of 10 insights from development economics in 2025.
· NPR’s Goats and Soda looks at a graduation program for refugees in Uganda and talks with Dean Karlan. They discuss the mystery of why people are not borrowing more from a block grant to fund business growth – and how lack of market demand and risk aversion are issues here.
· The Structural Transformation of Agriculture and Rural Spaces (STARS) Fellowship Program pairs early-career researchers with faculty mentors to advance rigorous, policy-oriented research on the causal determinants of productivity and income growth, asset accumulation, rural employment and risk management in agriculture and rural spaces. The STARS program at Cornell, in collaboration with the Center for Global Development (CGD), is accepting applications now through January 16 for the 2026 Fellowship cohort.
· Call for papers: The Mend the Gap in Economic opportunities in Europe and Central Asia conference will be held May 14-15 in Rome, with submissions of extended abstracts on work related to strategies to promote women’s economic empowerment, labor market participation, and entrepreneurship due Jan 16.
Thanks to all our readers again this year, and happy holidays,
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