Andy de Barros

In Pakistan, providing a technological tool to teachers but framing its use as optional delivered bigger impacts than either an analog tool or a mandatory tool. tahir-andrabi.sites.pomona.edu/wp-content/u...

Exciting news. We are hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Public Policy. Focus areas: environmental policy, international development, or poverty.
Link:
unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/307...

Submission Deadline: November 3, 2025.
Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.

Early Childhood Education is central to India’s NEP and global edu goals. Our(@petterberg.bsky.social @singhabhi.bsky.social) new paper at EJ (@resmedia.bsky.social ky.social, bit.ly/4gOtoVV), shows private ECE outperform public options, explaining 60% of the SES gap. In primary, NO private premium.

Where to find development economics resources: Newsletters, articles, podcasts & videos Where can you find articles, podcasts, and videos about research and topics in development economics? This blog is your one-stop shop for accessible resources related to development economics.

🆕 Where to find development economics resources

I've updated my list of all the various sources of newsletters, articles, podcasts & videos relevant to development economics that I've come across in my three years at @voxdev.bsky.social: voxdev.org/topic/where-...

Weekly links September 19: positive developments, negotiating a job, counting people, SEZ problems, and more…

This week's links include some positive developments in development, how to negotiate your econ job, why an SEZ was not very successful, econ meets other disciplines, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

www.cgdev.org/event/call-p...

A new GLO Discussion Paper shows that online tutoring during wartime improves student learning outcomes, reduced stress, and is highly cost-effective. It is possible to develop human capital amid conflict. #GLabor

www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10...

New by Ila Fazzio, Rukmini Banerji, @alexeble.bsky.social, and others, edited by Nishith Prakash:

Support To Rural India’s Public Education System (STRIPES2) and impact on numeracy and literacy scores: A cluster randomized trial in rural villages of Madhya Pradesh, India

doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Many interventions “work” in small trials but fail at scale

Also, EdTech often promises much, but delivers little

In a new paper (bit.ly/3JKLgVn)
@karthik-econ.bsky.social
& I show how personalized adaptive learning (PAL) software can sharply improve learning outcomes at scale🧵1/16

4 findings from our experimenting with policymakers paper, finally published in World Development last month (a mere 3.5 years after the CGD working paper version) ...

Conference Announcement: 16th International Workshop on Applied Economics of Education (IWAEE - www.iwaee.org) will be held on the 15th and 16th of June, 2026.

More information, including call for papers, to follow

Sign the Petition Adopt Registered Reports at Psychological Methods

as editor, I'm actually signing the petition myself :)

==
Adopt Registered Reports at Psychological Methods - Sign the Petition! chng.it/wszLWM4KPX
==

e.g., look forward to exploring options for preregistration for the journal

@apajournals.bsky.social
@akmontoya.bsky.social

What great news that @iza.org is moving to @liser.lu!

The world's top network of labor economists emerged from tumult with a new and wonderful home.

A visionary choice by both institutions, with large ripple effects for economists worldwide. Thank you @iza.org and @liser.lu

How to get honest answers to sensitive survey questions? Our WP introduces the ballot-bag, a new method that is both precise and unbiased, improving on existing approaches such as list experiments. Joint work with Bruno Crépon and Ahmed Elsayed. #econsky www.iza.org/publications...

Thanks for the great response so far!

The @aefpweb.bsky.social EdDev group still has an open presentation slot for Sept. 12, 11am eastern! Contact me if you're interested. #edusky #econsky

Much better data viz here than for our similar analysis of school books from 3 countries! journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

The challenges of improving parenting practices at scale Home visitation and group meeting parenting programmes have improved child development in low- and middle-income countries, but are too expensive to be delivered at large scale. Evidence from India sh...

🆕 The challenges of improving parenting practices at scale

Today on VoxDev, Irma Arteaga (University of Missouri), Andreas de Barros (UC Irvine) & Alejandro J. Ganimian (NYU) present evidence from an automated phone call programme in India: voxdev.org/topic/educat...

I love that so much attention is going to making sure children master literacy & numeracy in the early grades! But we can't forget the kids who need later remediation.

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1...

This study substantively boosts literacy & numeracy among secondary school students.

Society of Labor Economists (SoLE) Annual Conference will be May 1-2, 2026 in Denver, Colorado. Submission portal is now open! Deadline for submissions is October 31--don't forget to submit! It will be a great conference! (organized by me and @jrothst.bsky.social)

mailchi.mp/sole-jole/so...

Exciting NBER study (and NYT coverage) finding that $1,000 unconditional cash transfers in Kenya reduced under-5 deaths by 45%.

GiveWell already took this evidence into account in their positive update on GiveDirectly last fall (doesn't make a huge quantitative difference).

Oxford University
CSAE Conference 2026: Economic Development in Africa

Deadline: September 14

Call for papers:
www.csae.ox.ac.uk/sitefiles/cs...

Ah, now I understand why:

jhr.uwpress.org/content/earl...

Previous title: "Food for thought". Who made the authors change the title?

School Feeding and Cognitive Performance in Rwanda Abstract. Using unique administrative data on test scores from a high stake national exam for primary school students in Rwanda, we evaluate the impact of

School feeding program in Rwanda yields 11x return on investment academic.oup.com/jae/article-...

TIL "Originally considered by Allied scientists in World War II, [multi-armed bandits] proved so intractable that (...) the problem was proposed to be dropped over Germany so that German scientists could also waste their time on it."

doi.org/10.1111/j.25...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-a...

Hey #econSky I've written a short blog post on some hidden advantages I see in Pre-Analysis Plans for team work, whether you do experimental research or not.

Check it out here: adegendre.github.io/posts/2025-0...

Call for Papers: Special Issue on the Science of Scaling We are excited to announce a special issue dedicated to the “Science of Scaling†in the Journal of Political Economy: Microeconomics. This special issue aims to advance rigorous, interdisciplinary

Our special issue seeks to foster novel theoretical and empirical papers that treat scaling as an object of study in its own right—exploring its methodological foundations, economic incentives, institutional challenges, and pathways to impact. Please spread the word! ideas.repec.org/p/feb/artefa...

The World Bank – KDI School
6th Development Impact Conference

Deadline: August 29

www.worldbank.org/en/events/20...

Apart but Connected: Online Tutoring, Cognitive Outcomes, and Soft Skills (Forthcoming Article) - We study the Tutoring Online Program (TOP), where tutoring is entirely online and tutors are volunteer university students, matched with underprivileged middle school students....

Forthcoming in the AER: "Apart but Connected: Online Tutoring, Cognitive Outcomes, and Soft Skills" by Michela Carlana and Eliana la Ferrara. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Helping parents with low literacy levels to understand how they can support their children's learning increased learning and reduced dropout.

drive.google.com/file/d/1aRqI...

Mahounan Yedomiffi (sites.google.com/view/mahouna...) with evidence from Benin