David McKenzie
@dmckenzie.bsky.social
Lead Economist at the World Bank’s Development Research Group Development Impact blogger https://sites.google.com/site/decrgdmckenzie/
In this week's links, a journal analyzes how many of its submissions and referee reports are AI produced, how the same basic study can get framed differently to appeal more broadly, what's new in econometrics that you can use, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links July 31: AI use in journal submissions and refereeing, what makes a top paper, lessons from the world, and more…
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In today's blog, I summarize a new working paper I have that looks at whether it is better to give 36K prizes or 9K prizes in a business plan competition - and how you should select the winners. 1/3 blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Creating Jobs Through a Business Plan Competition: Does it matter how entrepreneurs are selected and how much funding they are given?
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The weekly links are up a day early: a 12-step checklist for non-experimental causal inference, the challenges and lessons of innovation RCTs, a big new funding source for AI and jobs experiments, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links July 23: a causal inference checklist, lessons from innovation RCTs, long-term impacts are hard to measure, and more…
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The weekly links include African soccer & brain drain; the challenge of taking on big picture challenges after pregnancy; how the public sector affects private sector hiring, and more.... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links July 17: African soccer migrants, the public-sector’s impacts on private hiring, rural markets from space, and more…
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Today's weekly links include the overrated macro vs micro debate on approaches to poverty reduction, two x Tuvalu, financial education in schools actually has impacts 9 years later, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links July 10: micro vs macro approaches to poverty reduction, migration and development in a small country, financial education years later, and more…
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🚨🚨 NEW ECONOMICS JOURNAL 🚨🚨 We are excited to announce the launch of The Review of Economic Studies: Insights, a new open-access journal in the REStud family. Mission: publish concise, high-quality research on important questions across economics and economic policy.🧵1/13
Excellent post. The “reflective” vs “formative” distinction is one I’ve tried to make in the past but not nearly as eloquently. And the fact that Anderson’s ICW index can dampen power by upweighting noise is an important problem that should be better understood.
David McKenzie@dmckenzie.bsky.social · last mo.In today's blog, @brucewydick.bsky.social discusses what factors you should consider when aggregating variables into an index - and how to use indices to measure abstract concepts like aspirations, empowerment, and social cohesion blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
In today's blog, @brucewydick.bsky.social discusses what factors you should consider when aggregating variables into an index - and how to use indices to measure abstract concepts like aspirations, empowerment, and social cohesion blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Measuring What Matters: Some Guidelines for Index Creation - Guest Post by Bruce Wydick
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In today's blog, @mariaruthjones.bsky.social & Maria Reyes Retana Torre summarize the numbers and lessons behind reaching 500 packages in the World Bank's reproducible research repository. 1/3 blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
A Milestone for Open Science: 500 Packages in the World Bank’s Reproducible Research Repository
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In today's blog, I read through all of @johnlist.bsky.social's new mammoth textbook on experimental economics. I highlight the parts I think will be particularly useful to development economists, including great chapters on ethics, DUAs, ... 1/2 blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
I just read all 700+ pages of John List’s Experimental Economics Textbook, Should You?
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As a nice follow-up on Monday's post on development journals, today we have a guest post by @leightjessica.bsky.social on what development papers top journals publish: what share are RCTs? What topics are covered most? Which countries? Read on: blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
What does the development economics literature study the most? Guest post by Jessica Leight
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Today I have put up my 10th annual look at development journals, which works with journal editors to put together statistics on submission numbers, acceptance rates, review times, and more. This is the post that takes me the most time to do each year blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
The State of Development Journals 2026: More than 16,000 submissions, over 1,000 published papers, and more details.
blogs.worldbank.org
This week's links include another example of why S.D.s are terrible units for comparing effect sizes, a discussion on Rwanda's development story, how to aggregate noisy evidence, do you think interventions are complements? and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links June 5: aggregating noisy evidence, standard deviations are a terrible way of comparing effect sizes redux, services-led development, and more…
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What happens when we take an elegant theory model too literally, are cows really the answer to poverty, the dangers of heterogeneity w.r.t. a baseline X, and more - I discuss the new @deankarlan.bsky.social & co-authors revisiting of a seminal poverty trap paper blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
The dangers of taking theory too literally, of log(x/a+1) transforms, and place versus cows in determining poverty dynamics
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This week's links include women's labor force participation is up in Turkey, but still very limited in Pakistan; Planet Money covers Brazil's Zona Franca in Manaus; how to think about research transparency in the AI era, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links May 29: labor force participation, the Zona Franca in Manaus, research transparency in the AI era, and more…
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This week's links include several thoughts on the jobs challenge (public works? services? entrepreneurship?), whether agency interventions are that impressive for poverty, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links May 22: photographing impact, public works aren’t job creation, what is the jobs challenge, agency and poverty, and more…
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Nice blog post today by @sanukriti.bsky.social on the different types of gender norms and interventions for changing them blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?
What's up with gender norms?
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What happened when we had almost 30,000 high school students watch both STEM & entrepreneur role models? Our new paper in @nathumbehav.nature.com finds rather than increasing enrollment in both fields, STEM majors fall as girls increase business, boys other majors blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
What happened when we showed almost 30,000 youth more than one type of role model?
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This week's links include a (partial) argument for being an entrepreneur rather than working in aid, how might AI affect countries in which knowledge workers are scarce, using Bayesian stats for policy decisions, and more.... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links May 1: AI impacts when knowledge workers are scarce, using Bayesian stats for policy, should you be an entrepreneur instead of an aid worker, and more?
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Proud to announce the participation of @dmckenzie.bsky.social #WorldBank in the #NOVAFRICA2026 Conference Policy Roundtable on "Job Creation in Africa" @novafrica.bsky.social Conference #NovaSBE 📅 June 18–19 - Lisbon, Portugal More info about the conference here: tinyurl.com/uzc7dyc8
Friday travel for me means early links: why big firms matter, what we'd like to know on the poor & AI, new work in trade, should SME finance use partial or full risk guarantees, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links April 23: The social value of big firms, how do the poor use AI, new trade research, and more…
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We gave SMEs in Colombia group consulting & now follow-up on impacts 8-10 years later. Impacts are large & persistent: a $10K intervention increased long-term profits $382K. I discuss broader lessons around the feasibility & incentives for long-term follow-ups blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
The large and sustained impacts of Group Consulting on firm performance and jobs
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This week's links include what development economics has been working on lately and what it understudies, Paul Niehaus on Give Directly's history and on learning about what matters from recipient choices, unlocking migration's potential through policy lending +... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links April 17: the missing development economics, unlocking migration’s potentials and getting refugees into jobs faster, writing well in the age of AI, and more…
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We've launched In Development! It is aiming to be the New Yorker for global development. We want to promote discourse on development without dogma - stories doing deep-dives into pressing development issues, backed up by evidence, argument, and experience. Subscribe here: indevelopmentmag.com
In Development
evidence and argument for a developing world
indevelopmentmag.com
📢 The LISER Policy Lab team is pleased to share a 🆕 Policy Brief by @dmckenzie.bsky.social "Enhancing the benefits of international #migration through development financing: What is being done and where are the missed opportunities?" 🔗 Read more: www.liser.lu/news/Policy-... #DevelopmentFinancing
Unlocking migration’s potential through better development financing
Despite solid evidence, development financing largely overlooks economic migration, missing major opportunities for growth, skills, and shared benefits.
liser.lu
In today's blog, how should you do coding tests for RA in a world where AI can code pretty well? Our DIME Analytics team share their experience and thoughts blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Rethinking coding assessment in an AI-assisted world
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In today's blog, I discuss recent research done by accounting professors in developing countries and how it can be useful for economics and policy -development accounting, but not the macro kind - and also laugh at how they face similar seminar questions to us blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Development Accounting, but the kind done by Accountants not Macroeconomists
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This week's links include interesting reflections by Rebecca Thornton on research ethics, Lant on poverty lines, the high share of formal workers that are in the public sector, can Claude replace a @daveevansphd.bsky.social conference round-up & more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links April 3: research ethics, replication, public sector workers, graduation programs as Tang, and more…
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In today's blog, @sanukriti.bsky.social provides a great explanation for why the child penalty is low in many developing countries yet gender inequality high in wages - because the action happens earlier at marriage blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...?
From marriage penalties to child penalties: how development reshapes women’s work
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This week's links include new guidance on industrial policy and a great Taiwan example, the South African jobs problem, how economists should and are using AI, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...
Weekly links March 20: social protection, small answers to jobs, chips and human capital, industrial policy, and more…
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