· Rema Hanna and Ben Olken have edited a new Handbook of Social Protection that is open access (h/t Ugo Gentilini who wrote the second chapter on the history of cash transfers). Looks like an amazing set of chapters written by many of the key experts in the field covering targeting issues, transfer programs, graduation and public works, social insurance programs, and more…
· Johan Fourie on the Jobs problem in South Africa, how academic research is being ignored in policy discussions, but also how “Our answers are also, frankly, small. The interventions we can rigorously evaluate – reference letters, plan-making prompts, skills assessments – move employment by two percentage points. Real, yes. But not the transformative headline a conference like this wants to sell. And our hardest answers are unwelcome. The structural reforms that would make the largest difference – a working school system, greater labour market flexibility, BEE reform, minimum wage recalibration, informal sector deregulation – are politically toxic. Conference organisers want hope and solutions, not trade-offs and discomfort.”
· To understand why countries grow, look at their firms – the Economist Free Exchange argues for looking at firms as a third way between big picture looking at growth at the macro level, and micro work focused on households – and summarizes work on how management and policies matter.
· In Asterisk, Karthik Tadepalli gives the story of Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute and how it led to the chip industry “one of the most successful industrial policy programs of all time” …”As part of the agreement, ITRI sent a team of engineers to RCA’s facilities across the U.S. for a one-year training course on chip design, manufacturing processes, quality control, and other key elements. After returning to Taiwan, they set up a demonstration factory in 1977 to produce chips with RCA’s technology. Within six months, the factory was producing chips according to RCA’s specifications, with a 70% yield rate — even better than the 50% yield in RCA’s own factories in America.”…” ITRI achieved its ambitious goal of making Taiwan the world leader in semiconductors. To do so, it relied on three basic principles for effective industrial policy. First, it started small and leveled up its capabilities incrementally. Second, it focused on building human capital in private industry. Third, it aligned its incentives with private firms.”…On human capital, it is particularly interesting to me to read about both the incentives to attract overseas talent “to attract diaspora talent from the U.S., it had attractive housing, medical and health services, and educational facilities — including Taiwan’s only public bilingual secondary school” and the role of turnover “ITRI also aimed for 15% of its staff to turn over each year. This counterintuitive goal had two purposes: first, it helped Taiwan’s industrial ecosystem acquire highly-skilled workers, many of whom had been funded by ITRI to do their PhDs in the U.S. Second, it ensured that ITRI’s internal process knowledge would spread to firms. Knowledge transfer in the semiconductor industry requires the movement of people who carry hands-on expertise that cannot be fully captured in documentation. When engineers trained in ITRI’s specialized facilities moved to private companies, they carried with them not just technical know-how but also the softer problem-solving approaches and organizational practices crucial for innovation”.
· Speaking of industrial policy, the World Bank just launched a great new Policy Research Report by Ana Fernandes and Tristan Reed on Industrial Policy for Development.
· Yale’s Economic Growth Center interviews Ieda Matavelli and Girija Borker about how gender dynamics affect economic behavior – and how their upbringings in Brazil and India shaped their research. They discuss work on masculinity norms and on women’s mobility in cities, norm changes, and impacting policy.
· Thoughts from Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham on research in the time of AI – and how AI can help in doing better research, not just replace us. And in the FT (gated), Soumaya Keynes looks at how economists are already using AI – showing an uptick in papers that mention AI, that abstracts of our papers have not become easier to read, and whether AI will lead economists to slack off in reviewing work.
· Next time you want to benchmark survey response rates against U.S. data – BLS figures on response rates over time for different surveys. CPS is down from 88% in 2015 to 68% in 2025; American Time Use Survey from 47% in 2015 to 37% in 2023; Job openings and labor turnover survey down to 34% in 2024 from 67% in 2015. Lots of other survey examples given.
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