Susannah Hares

Weekly links May 9: learning long-term, the continued rise of co-authoring, distorted development economics, and more…

This week's links include Lant Pritchett on how the (low) poverty line distorts development economics, the decline in sole authorship at top journals, long-run impacts of test score gains, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

I wrote a piece for @voxdev.bsky.social on the economic and social impact of US tariffs on Bangladesh.

It’s bleak

US tariffs on Bangladesh threaten decades of economic and social progress The US has imposed a 37% tariff on Bangladeshi garment exports, a sector that employs more than 4 million people. Rigorous evidence shows that export-led manufacturing in Bangladesh has boosted female...

🆕 US tariffs on Bangladesh threaten decades of economic and social progress 🇧🇩

Today on VoxDev, @susannahhares.bsky.social outlines how export-led manufacturing boosted women's economic empowerment in Bangladesh & explores the threats posed by US tariffs: voxdev.org/topic/trade/...

Each dot represents 10 people whose lives depend on US foreign aid, just for HIV prevention & treatment.

Without it, 1.6m people could die *per year*.

Hard agree.

Renaissance Philanthropy is hiring a fellow to work on "next-generation lead detection technology". I'm so excited about this role - even in wealthy countries like the US, many children do not get needed blood lead level testing because of the expense and inconvenience.

A thread on USAID, and why it’s a long way from over…

The wanton disruption of US assistance has been murderous. By now, kids will have died from malnutrition or one of the afflictions of camp life –perhaps dehydrating diarrhea.

Curious how many mothers and children worldwide will die from slashing USAID programs?

We'll never know, because we're gonna stop counting.

Preventing Deaths During the 90-Day Assistance Freeze US assistance has been at the forefront of the global fight against famine and pestilence worldwide. Any delay or disruption of that support will have an immense cost.

Preventing Unintended Mortality from the 90-Day Assistance Freeze

Blog and thread. US assistance has been at the forefront of global victories against famine and pestilence worldwide. The 90-day assistance freeze (still) threatens that.

www.cgdev.org/blog/prevent...

Looking forward to this conversation today! Please do join us if you can.

HPV vaccine stops 90% of cervical cancer cases England began vaccinating teenage girls in 2008 and results show it is paying off.

Vaccines are amazing.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

"When the Data You Have Aren’t the Data You Need: School-Related Violence Data Availability in Low- and Middle-Income Countries" (with @susannahhares.bsky.social, @gsmarrelli.bsky.social, and Wu) is now forthcoming at World Development!

Read the working paper here www.cgdev.org/publication/...

Chart showing declining cancer death rates in children under 5 years old

Apropos of nothing, childhood cancer mortality has been driven down substantially thanks to cancer research and better cancer therapies.

Very important paper:

2 billion dollars could save approx 500,000 children from dying from malaria.

That's a very high ROI, easy to scale, and an issue we shouldn't drag our feet on.

It took years of funding struggles to develop malaria vaccines in the first place. We can't let that happen again.

Reducing Indoor Particulate Air Pollution Improves Student Test Scores: A Randomized Double-Blind Crossover Study Short-term exposure to air pollution is associated with a decline in cognitive function. Standardized test scores have been employed to evaluate the effects of air pollution exposure on cognitive perf...

Cool RCT on air purifiers -> test scores in China. Air purifiers on day of test improved scores by 0.1sd! Reduction in indoor PM2.5 from purifiers was ~20ug in their setting. So, effect would prob be smaller at avg US PM levels, but maybe larger on wildfire smoke day. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

I agree with @atheendar.bsky.social here.

Health/edu/ welfare etc have big, complex challenges. The share of nudge-y compliance treatments seems sub-optimally high (compared to
system level efforts that are potentially complex but could bring much bigger gains).

Thanks for making me feel young, Seema!

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) against women is a major public health and inequality concern. It's not clear what causes it or how to reduce it. Gaby Deschamps' JMP considers that IPV is positively correlated with motherhood, and asks if we can understand why. www.gabrieladeschamps.com/research

High five to whichever @economist.com staffer titled this chart.

Amazing. Congrats buddy!

I am absolutely floored that my book "Raised to Obey" shifted a Nobel Laureate's perspective 😲🤗😃

Thank you, James Robinson, for engaging with my work!

Launching NOV 19 with @princetonupress.bsky.social

The NHS was so severely decimated by the Tories that when it works fast, I alway think the worst.

So when I got a phone call today, just six days after a major operation, my heart hit the floor. But it was good news. Pathology results confirm: no cancer detected

#thankyouNHS #fuckcancer

⭐️New CGD paper by @justsand.bsky.social et al⭐️

“Phonics and Foreign Aid"

They estimate the impact of USAID's global portfolio of early-grade reading programs, drawing on 12 RCTs + 15 diff-in-diffs + another 16 projects with before/after learning data

www.cgdev.org/publication/...

Growing Problems: How Farmers Learn About and Adapt to Climate Change: Guest Post by Dev Patel Climate change Water salinity Adaptation Bangladesh

Today's job market post by Dev Patel looks at how farmers in Bangaldesh form and update beliefs about soil salinity with a changing climate blogs.worldbank.org/impactevalua...

“Lead poisoning constitutes a global health crisis that has been 'extraordinarily neglected' by donors and political leaders”

Great piece in the Guardian on the CGD Lead Working Group final statement

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Are you a time optimist? Why some people are perennially late – and how to be more punctual While timekeepers naturally arrive early, time optimists set off with the assumption the lights will be green and the roads will be empty, getting ever more anxious as the minutes tick away. The good ...

There’s always a lot written about people who are perennially late. But what about people like me. I get stressed unless I’m on track to be at least 20 mins early.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

I made it 13/56 women, of which two are staff rather than non resident. And worse on race.

Not saying CGD is perfect, but that this is the senior staff of a major think tank concerned about human welfare is beyond belief

www.piie.com/experts/seni...

Latin #EconKsy: I'm on the ballot for the executive committee of LACEA (lacea.org/portal/index...). I feel humbled to be in such great company. All are top-notch scholars and more importantly amazing people. So there is no way you can go wrong with your vote, but pls vote!

“Mummy where has your hair all gone?”

Last year I had to struggle through surgery and chemotherapy, while trying to keep life “normal” for my three year old son.

Early detection & treatment saves lives. Know the signs.

#BreastCancerAwarenessMonth