📢 Our new VoxDevLit on the Political Economy of Public Service Delivery is out now! In this VoxDevLit, Senior Editor Claudio Ferraz (@ubcvse.bsky.social) reviews the evidence on the political economy of delivering public services. Read & download here: voxdev.org/voxdevlit/po...

Princeton's Research Program in Development Economics (RPDE) is hiring 2 Postdoctoral Research Associates. 12-month appointment, summer 2027 start - no teaching responsibilities! Apply now: www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing.... Questions? → write to rpde@princeton.edu

For development econ job market candidates: We are hiring for 2 postdocs at Princeton starting in summer 2027. Come join us!

Princeton Research Program in Development Economics@princetondevo.bsky.social · last mo.

Princeton's Research Program in Development Economics (RPDE) is hiring 2 Postdoctoral Research Associates. 12-month appointment, summer 2027 start - no teaching responsibilities! Apply now: www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing.... Questions? → write to rpde@princeton.edu

Brazil's 1988 constitution enabled the creation of over 1,300 new municipalities as districts petitioned to separate from the towns that governed them. These splits produced lasting gains in local economic activity, say researchers at LSE and Monash. #econsky www.aeaweb.org/research/cha...

Devolving power to local governments

Greater political autonomy yielded lasting economic gains in Brazilian communities.

aeaweb.org

Forthcoming in AER: Insights: "Conditioning Out the Poor? Consumption Inequality and the Design of Cash Transfer Programs" by Santosh Anagol, Thomas Fujiwara, and Martin Navarrete.

Conditioning Out the Poor? Consumption Inequality and the Design of Cash Transfer Programs

(Forthcoming Article) - Conditionality can exclude poor households from receiving transfers. Reanalyzing five randomized evaluations of conditional cash transfers (CCTs), we find that 9–37 percent of eligible recipients fail to meet conditions, and they typically have lower baseline consumption. We assess the welfare implications of budget-neutral shifts from CCTs to unconditional cash transfers. Conditionality exacerbating inequality among eligible recipients can be quantitatively important for welfare impacts. We quantify how large conditionality-induced human capital gains must be for the welfare benefits of CCTs to outweigh the inequality costs generated by conditionality.

aeaweb.org

📣 Call for Papers — BREAD / @ITAM_mx / @AgendaCAF Conference on Development Economics 🇲🇽 ITAM, Mexico City 📅 Oct 23–24, 2026 🗓️ Submission deadline: June 19, 2026 Submit: bread-mexico-2026.github.io#submit 🧵👇

BREAD Mexico 2026 — Conference on Development Economics

ITAM, Mexico City · October 23–24, 2026. Submission deadline: June 19, 2026.

bread-mexico-2026.github.io

A week ago, I gave the “Recent Developments in the Political Economy of Elections and Democracy” lecture at the 2026 AEA @assameeting.bsky.social ! Video: www.aeaweb.org/webcasts/202... Slides: www.vincentpons.org/recent-devel... Thread with the TL;DR of my talk below.

📢 RPDE at Princeton is hiring two Postdoctoral Research Associates for 2026–27. Details below: 👉 One-year term, no teaching load, active research + seminar community. 👉 PhD completion: Sept 2024–Aug 2026. 🔗 Apply via AEA JOE: www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing.... #Postdoc #EconJobMarket #DevEcon

For econ JM candidates: @princetondevo.bsky.social is hiring for a 1-year postdoc with a start date in summer 2026. The only responsibility is to be an active participant in our Princeton development econ seminars and to continue pursuing your great independent research. Apply by Nov 24.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/o...

Opinion | Brazil Just Succeeded Where America Failed

nytimes.com

Just published in @jpube.bsky.social: "The undoing of economic sanctions: Evidence from the Russia–Ukraine conflict" By @rfisman.bsky.social, Giovanna Marcolongo, & Meng Wu www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #econsky #publiceconomics

#econra #econsky

Seema Jayachandran@seema.bsky.social · last yr.

We (development econ faculty at Princeton) are hiring predocs, to start in summer 2026. Please share the application with folks who might be interested: rpde.princeton.edu/rpde-%E2%80%93-predoctoral-fellows-research-specialists-start-summer-2026 We'll review apps starting on 9/15. Thanks!

🚨🚨 Pre-doc Hiring! 🚨🚨 We are hiring pre-docs to start in Princeton in Summer 2026, supporting Pascaline Dupas, @thomasfujiwara.bsky.social @seema.bsky.social and Mica Sviatschi. This is a great opportunity to gain experience in development economics research before applying to PhD programs. Link 👇

What’s hot in public econ? Here are some of the most popular @jpube.bsky.social papers from the past 90 days. Free to read: www.sciencedirect.com/journal/jour...

Today in “doing an age-cohort-year decomposition looks simple but actually can be quite confusing.”

Peter Wagenius@peterwagenius.bsky.social · 2y ago

Good News! @nytimes says we are making progress on housing supply! (Just don’t account for… the passage of time.)

Just published in @jpube.bsky.social: "The environmental costs of political interference: Evidence from power plants in the Amazon" By @franciscocosta.bsky.social, Dimitri Szerman, & Juliano Assunção www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #econsky

Just published in @jpube.bsky.social: "How in-person conversations shape political polarization: Quasi-experimental evidence from a nationwide initiative" By @ximengfang.bsky.social, Sven Heuser, & Lasse Stoetzer www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #econsky

My contribution to this exciting initiative was an "almost entirely successful" robustness replication of López-Moctezuma, Wantchekon, Rubenson, @thomasfujiwara.bsky.social, and Pe Lero (AJPS 2022). Thanks to @i4replication.bsky.social for their incredible efforts!

Institute for Replication@i4replication.bsky.social · 3y ago

Our first meta paper is out!! This paper combines our first 110 completed reproductions/replications. This is joint work with 350+ amazing coauthors. We summarize our findings below: econpapers.repec.org/paper/zbwi4r...