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Blog Post
February 10, 2021
Twelve months ago, the world was watching as schools closed across China and millions of students began learning online from their homes. Most of us didn’t think for a moment that just a few weeks later, almost every country in the world would close their schools and the education of more than a bil...
Blog Post
February 03, 2021
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in development have never failed to inspire discussion, on whether they offer methodological advantages, whether they answer (or distract from answering) big questions in development, or whether they are ethical. Several recent RCTs have ignited heated debates abo...
Blog Post
January 27, 2021
Last year, I claimed that you win or lose readers with the introduction of your economics paper. That might have been generous. A lot of people will read no further than the abstract of your paper to decide whether it’s worth reading, sharing, or citing. (Some people may read no further than the tit...
Blog Post
December 17, 2020
With increased focus on the shortfall inlearning outcomes around the world (the “learning crisis”!), one might assume that just about every child is in school, or at least that every young child is in primary school. But sadly, that’s not the case: in low-income countries, just two-thirds of childre...
Blog Post
November 09, 2020
Last weekend was the North East Universities Development Consortium annual conference. Researchers presented about 225 papers on a wide range of development topics, from agriculture and credit to tax and transport. We’ve prepared a brief takeaway from each paper that we could find online.
Blog Post
October 29, 2020
There are many studies that show how one intervention reduces dropouts (better access to school) or another intervention increases learning (better quality of schooling). But policymakers and others care about a combination of access and learning! So how do you choose between one intervention that s...
Blog Post
October 16, 2020
This week the IMF released new global economic growth projections in the face of COVID-19, updating their earlier projections from June and from April before that. In recent weeks, the World Bank has also released new projections for various regions. Here are six takeaways that we gleaned from revie...