More evidence wouldn’t have saved USAID. Read my latest installment, a response to Todd Moss, in the “RCTs Can’t Do Everything” (but they can do a lot) franchise of blog posts and thought pieces. deankarlan.substack.com/p/more-evide...

More evidence won’t save development, but it will help the poor

Revisiting an old conversation

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🆕 Moving billions towards evidence @deankarlan.bsky.social joined me on Ideas in Development to discuss how he and his team moved ~1.7 billion in funding at USAID, the growth of embedded labs and how they work, and the two key gaps between research and policy.

New working paper with Amol Singh Raswan and Chris Udry: "The Sisyphean Pursuit of Evidence for Poverty Traps." A central idea in development economics is that poverty can trap people. We went looking for the cleanest evidence. Here's what we found – and didn't.

➡️ Our panel now online: "The Science of Scale and Implementation: New Frontiers for Research" @oxfordcsae.bsky.social conference @deankarlan.bsky.social @gamblingondev.bsky.social @wwhglobaled.bsky.social @blavatnikschool.bsky.social @youthimpactorg.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-5H...

'The Science of Scale and Implementation: New Frontiers for Research' at the CSAE Conference 2026

YouTube video by Centre for the Study of African Economies

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Join us for our annual online conference 5/1-5/2! Learn how to apply behavioral science in your own backyard, explore ways to collaborate, and hear from @nickkristof.bsky.social, Dean Karlan, Kevin Volpp, and many more. Register today! bit.ly/4iWXKoY #behavioralscience #BehSci #BehEcon