· At Brookings, Ugo Gentilini asks are cash transfers good for jobs? He offers five ways they can be: (i) funding job search costs; (ii) funding human capital investments that increase job prospects in the future; (iii) helping people cope with adversity and shocks so they are ready to work again afterwards; (iv) through multiplier effects that increase overall demand; and (v) because of evidence from low-income countries that there does not seem to be a large disincentive effect on labor supply. See also this paper Berk, Sarah Baird and I wrote on different channels through which cash transfers affect adult labor supply.
· The New York Times on the end of the bull market for economists – including the challenges faced by graduates this year on the market, the rise of the “your best chance of getting a job is if you already have one” model of academia (“finalists for an assistant economics professor position in the university’s public policy school were already assistant professors or postdoctoral fellows at other schools.”), and advice for PhD students to consider a broader range of employers and to consider internships.
· David Evans at the CGD summarizes his five human capital takeaways from the recent ABCDE conference. He also notes that the full agenda, and recordings and some slides are available here. If you go to around 4hours 25 into the day 3 Youtube video you get a panel discussion on “How can Development Economics Meet the Moment? Practice, Research, and Teaching in a Time of Unilateralism and Polycrisis” with Markus Goldstein, Oriana Bandiera, Jishnu Das and Leonard Wantchekon discussing the representation and relevance of research for development. Here are Markus’ slides which have some data such as that 62 out of the 4772 papers published in top 5 journals in the last 10 years were on SSA and the lack of overlap between top priorities of policymakers and what many of these papers cover. Although Oriana argues that the job of researchers is not to necessarily answer the questions of policymakers today- but to ask questions that may help guide the future – but the panel notes how a lack of representation and engagement with people from the countries being studied can lead to wrong questions being asked. Leonard also makes a pitch for researchers to engage in entrepreneurship.
· Noah Smith discusses the debate and evidence about the role of garment manufacturing in explaining poverty alleviation in Bangladesh – including arguing with Derek Guy (aka the menswear expert on twitter) about the implications of Chris Blattman and Stefan Dercon’s work on industrial jobs in Ethiopia.
· ETRM interview with Emma Riley about her work on digital financial services, how to learn about doing field experiments and where they can go wrong, and more…
· BREAD-IGC Virtual PhD course on social protection will run Sept 16-Dec 2 with lectures on topics like cash transfers, graduation programs, identifying beneficiaries, public works, public health insurance, and more, taught by an all-star group of top researchers.
· Finally, since we emphasize the importance of better measurement, it also matters a lot at the macro level: Nigeria rebased its GDP to now include digital services, pension funds, and the informal labor market, resulting in 2024 GDP being 30% higher than previous estimates.
Development Impact will be on break for August and back after Labor Day.
Join the Conversation