David McKenzie

Enforcement Matters: How Nigeria’s Sharia Reform Created Winners and Losers: Guest Post by Hardi Ahmed

In today's JMP blog, @hardiahmed.bsky.social uses DiD to show how sharia law reform in Northern Nigeria affected child health and fertility, and how this varies with enforcement intensity. Weak enforcement of child protection laws particularly harmed non-muslims blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

🚨 New working paper!

How well do people predict the results of studies?

@sdellavi.bsky.social and I leverage data from the first 100 studies to have been posted on the SSPP, containing 1,482 key questions, on which over 50,000 forecasts were placed. Some surprising results below.... 🧵👇

Planning for Which Future? Searching for Jobs While Running a Business: Guest post by Adrien Dautheville

In today's JMP blog, @adautheville.bsky.social finds that many Tanzanian microentrepreneurs are actively searching for jobs while running their businesses, which is correlated with lower profits and less investment. An information intervention has limited effect
blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

Scaling short days: Even limited childcare can transform family labor. Guest post by Dyah Pritadrajati

In today's JMP blog, @economiyaki.bsky.social shows how even 3 hours/day of kindergarten in Indonesia is enough to increase women's employment (by 13 p.p.) & does not crowd out care offered by relatives blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

Expecting the worst: Household bargaining and the suppression of women’s work in India. Guest blog by Andrea Smurra

How do men's expectations about how a job will affect their wife's share of consumption affect female labor force participation? Today's JMP blog by @andreasmurra.bsky.social conducts an experiment in India to show women's work take-up depends on husbands beliefs blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

Why would employees work harder when firms don’t pay their wages? Guest blog by Daniel Sonnenstuhl

In Nigeria, 30% of workers experience delays receiving their wages. In today's JMP, Daniel Sonnenstuhl runs an RCT and find workers work harder when faced by delayed pay - but making pay reliable increases willingness to accept job offers blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

Reminder, last couple of weeks to get your papers in for a special issue of the WBER on migration and development.

Should firms subsidize worker-owned capital? Experimental evidence from India's platform Economy. Guest post by Shreya Sarkar

In today's JMP, @shreyasarkar.bsky.social asks whether it is worthwhile for firms to subsidize worker-owned capital. An experiment subsidizing down payments on scooters to allow mobile salon gig workers to travel faster/further says yes: gains for worker & firm blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

What if the train brought the job to you? How public transit moves opportunity closer—and changes who gets hired: Guest post by Akhila Kovvuri

Today's JMP features @akhila-kovvuri.bsky.social's work which shows how the extension of the metro system in Delhi generated new jobs around transit stations. Using staggered DiD, she shows consumer-focused firms move in, with new jobs. Large gain for women. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?

Fostering Trust to Save Lives: Evidence from Organ Donation in Tunisia: Guest post by Christina Sarah Hauser

In today's JMP, @christinasarah.bsky.social tests an information intervention to boost organ donation in Tunisia. The work shows the role of building trust in medical institutions, and the importance of considering family and peer dynamics in this decision. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Thanks to the World Bank Development Impact Blog for featuring my JMP. Check out the details below: blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Lower Prices, Lower Chances? How Misbeliefs Keep Freelancers Out of Online Jobs: Guest Post by Ruoxuan (Rebecca) Wu

In today's JMP, @rebeccawurx.bsky.social shows how misbeliefs about whether offering a low wage is a signal of low quality leads new freelancers to not try to enter with low wage offers - as well as how misbeliefs about own performance affect this choice blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Escaping the Poverty Trap: Why Some Households Stay Poor — and Others Don’t: Guest post by Ed Jee

In today's job market post, Ed Jee reanalyzes microdata from 27 asset & cash transfer RCTs to examine whether asset dynamics suggest poverty traps. He finds fixed costs around owning large animals suggest traps for some people, but that many hhs can still escape blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

I would think it would be hard unless they are monopoly buyers - otherwise they invest in seed technologies that farmers than may end up selling mostly to other buyers. But not a context I know. Industry associations/cooperatives could perhaps overcome some of the coordination/spillover issues

Priced for Development? How Price Controls Spread Technology but Stall Innovation: Guest post by Matteo Ruzzante

In today's job market post, @matteo-ruzzante.bsky.social uses DiD to show how price controls on GM cotton in India spurred adoption by farmers, but reduced subsequent location-specific seed development. Despite innovation reduction, farmers were still better off. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

When every child is stunted, no child Is? How local norms distort perceptions of growth: Guest post by Sneha Nimmagadda

In today's job market post, Sneha Nimmagadda shows in India that mothers misperceive how stunted their kids are, because so many other kids around are also stunted. Correcting this perception changes beliefs and feeding practices, increasing weight for age blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Our job market series continued on Friday: amenjalal.bsky.social shows revealing pay in online job applications reduces gender sorting in Pakistan. Large firms pay more, but are less likely to reveal salaries and offer less job flexibility. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

When Risk Aversion Keeps Firms Small: Evidence from Kenyan Retailers: Guest post by Grady Killeen

Updated link: blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Yes, it is unclear why a risk-neutral large manufacturer does not offer this, but perhaps the transactions costs are too high with lots of tiny vendors

When Risk Aversion Keeps Firms Small: Evidence from Kenyan Retailers: Guest post by Grady Killeen

Today we start our job market paper blog series, with Grady Killeen providing an experiment in Kenya that shows how risk aversion keeps firms from introducing new products - a temporary returns policy got them to learn and adopt a new profitable product blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

A special Wednesday links is now up, since it is the deadline for our blog your job market paper series today. I cover the new update of our VoxDevLit on business training, work on exporting, political polarization, and return migration, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

What have we learned about training entrepreneurs?

Issue 4 of our VoxDevLit on Training Entrepreneurs by @dmckenzie.bsky.social, Christopher Woodruff & Co-Editors is out now!➡️ voxdev.org/voxdevlit/tr...

Today's podcast covers the update➡️ voxdev.org/topic/firms/...

Issue 4 (4!) of our VoxDevLit on Training Entrepreneurs is out now.

This update includes interesting new evidence on longer-term impacts and the use of generative AI in training.

Everything you need to know on this topic will always be at this link and up to date ⤵️

Updating my priors on the effectiveness of wage subsidies in developing countries

In today's blog, I discuss how much I'm updating my priors on the effectiveness of wage subsidies in developing countries based on several new studies: quite a bit on shaping who is hired, much less on whether they create new jobs, a bit on coping with shocks blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Sad to hear about the death of Betty Sadoulet. In addition to the research and mentoring mentioned in this remembrance, she also co-authored a fantastic development econ text I use in class. It's so good I read the chapters I don't teach just for fun! www.routledge.com/Development-...

Weekly links October 24: the pipeline of African PhDs, creative destruction x2, Brazilian innovation, and more…

This week's links include the African PhD pipeline, creative destruction and entry reform in China, our blog your job market paper series is taking submissions, remembering Betty Sadoulet, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

this has a good overview of the recent Fiscal Studies symposium to which @papiteide.bsky.social and I contributed. Our paper here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/..., more on the symposium here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14755890...

Weekly links October 17: statistical power, good descriptives, nice graphs, publishing metrics, and more…

This week's links include a mini-symposium on power calculations, what makes for good descriptive work, publishing tips for econometrics, making nice dot charts, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Blog your job market paper 2025: submissions now open

One of my favorite traditions is now underway: for the 15th straight year, the Development Impact blog launches a call for PhD students in development economics to blog their job market paper - submissions due 8pm EST on Wednesday November 5: blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Pollution, missing heat, and cyclones: what aerosols are doing to climate risk

I learnt something new from Patrick Behrer's blog today: there seems to be evidence that aerosol pollution, while bad for air quality, health & productivity, has a localized effect on reducing heat - and so as pollution falls, more heat and cyclones may occur blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?