· Marc Bellemare on whether there is anything that makes development economics its own field anymore, or whether it is just X in a developing country – “sometime around the mid-2000s, something happened that somehow turned development from a field of economics studying how multiple market failures lead to persistent poverty into an area of research (i) using empirical methods aimed at causal inference with (ii) data from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). For a time, development economics seemingly became almost exclusively about impact evaluation.” He contrasts his view of what was development research with papers such as one that looks at the impacts of chess training on academic and non-academic outcomes in a developing country. He continues in a second post that discusses agricultural economics and whether ag econ departments should be hiring or training people for development – arguing that except for a handful of well-resourced top departments, the answer is likely no “But if “development economics” is decreasingly useful as a concept (and faculty positions are increasingly difficult to get for job-market candidates because the field is extremely crowded), then it stands to reason that people should probably pick an x that they like, invest in becoming the best x economist they can be, and apply their skills to low- and middle-income country (LMIC) contexts if and when the research question at hand demands it” and that for students coming out of other ag econ programs, they will be much more competitive on the job market if they are working on a core agricultural economics question than something like development and labor.
· In Asterisk magazine, Clara Collier describes the history and lessons of an early community development program in India, and what went wrong in trying to scale a successful pilot.
· A J-PAL policy insight reviews twenty-nine randomized and quasi-experimental evaluations of strategies that aim to boost rural market access for small-scale farmers. “The Policy Insight finds that when small-scale farmers have better access to markets where they buy inputs for their own farming and markets where they sell their goods, farmers invest more in their farm, have higher yields, and trade more easily. This leads to the production of higher-value crops, boosted incomes, and, in some cases, more stable food prices for consumers.” On the same topic, 3ie has a systematic review of 289 impact evaluations, summarized in a blog post – which as well as highlighting what we know, notes important gaps in regional coverage (nothing from MENA), a lack of cost data from many studies, and a lack of long-term effects.
· On Data Colada, Uri Simonsohn on issues with multiple outcomes and being precise on the definition of when they will be measured – looking at a pre-analysis plan versus the published paper on a policing experiment. “When a pre-registration includes 43 outcome variables, and the paper prominently discusses one that is not in that set, it does not seem outlandish to worry about p-hacking.”
· An oldie that I stumbled across again in answering someone’s email – Uri Simonsohn on why that Alwyn Young QJE paper on the need for randomization inference is because Stata’s default robust command uses HC1 instead of HC3 standard errors.
· John List’s AEA slides on publishing in the JPE and tips for publishing.
· From Lauren Gilbert, a compilation of the economics job market papers this year on international migration. Although this seems to be a list of papers on immigration, ignoring work on migration and development
· The Women’s Economic Empowerment and Digital Connectivity (WEE-Connect) Initiative at BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) is excited to announce its second Request for Proposals (RFP). WEE-Connect supports rigorous research that addresses barriers to women’s digital connectivity in the Global South. This second RFP invites studies that align with the barriers to connectivity outlined in WEE-Connect’s white paper, with an emphasis on health use cases. The application deadline is March 11, 2025. For more details on funding categories, submission guidelines, and eligibility, visit the WEE-Connect website.
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