Meet the people building IDEA! Our elected Board spans six continents... development economists giving the field its first global, open professional home. This is what a global community looks like! Join us: idea.devecon.org @ideadevecon.bsky.social
Miri Stryjan
@mstryjan.bsky.social
Development economist, Assistant prof. Aalto University, Helsinki GSE. miristryjan.com
This post includes many resources and links how USAID cuts are affecting lives across the world and may affect them going forward.
Lauren Dobson-Hughes@ldobsonhughes.bsky.social · last mo.Musk says not a single person has died due to him axing USAID. Sadly, part of my job involves tracking aid spending. So here’s a thread with just some of the people who lost their lives because of USAID cuts
The International Development Economics Association (IDEA) was launched today! Great initiative and work so far by @deanyang.bsky.social and others! Development economists everywhere are welcome to join this new community!
Dean Yang@deanyang.bsky.social · last mo.Development economics finally has a global professional home. Today we launch @ideadevecon.bsky.social ... Open to every development economist, everywhere. Join the community: idea.devecon.org Please share 🌍
🚨 Call for Papers 🚨 We'll be hosting the 24th Nordic Conference in Development Economics (NCDE) in Växjö, Sweden, on June 16-17, 2026. Keynote speakers: @hjortj.bsky.social & Rohini Somanathan 🤩 Submit your papers here (deadline February 28): axacoair.se/go?py3X14W0
Any conversation about a ceasefire proposal must start with this: Palestinians in Gaza and hostages in captivity deserve to be free and safe from bombing, starvation, and suffering immediately. Any deal that brings us closer to a cessation of this intolerable reality is welcome. (1/3)
“We call on Israel to urgently review its rules of engagement to ensure full compliance with international humanitarian law, notably the protection of civilians, including children, and to conduct a thorough and independent investigation of this incident and all allegations of violations.”
UNICEF Press Office@unicefmedia.bsky.social · last yr.“We are appalled by the reported killing of 15 Palestinians, including nine children and four women, who were waiting in line for nutritional supplies for children in Deir al Balah, the Gaza Strip, this morning." www.unicef.org/press-releas...
This new war is a gift to Netanhayu. Suddenly nobody is talking about things like the war in Gaza, hostages, war crimes, coalition collapses, democracy, peace summits, international sanctions. You think that’s an accident? Or maybe that was the whole point… open.substack.com/pub/elanaszt...
Another Forever War manufactured by Netanyahu with Israelis and Palestinians all dangled as bait
As Israel enters yet ANOTHER war, this one even more deadly and devastating than all that came before it, with even more powerful rockets destroying buildings, bodies, and lives -- Israelis and Palest...
open.substack.com
Jerusalem Day: as settlers go on their annual day of terror against Palestinians, we’re on the ground doing protective presence. (1/3)
Virtually all human rights organizations in Israel call the government to halt its attacks and open the crossings for aid. This is from 19th May. Signed by B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Gisha, Mizrahi Civic Collective, Mothers Against Violence, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Yesh Din, etc.
🚨 REPLICATION REPORT UPDATE: One year ago, a tweet by John Holbein alerted me, @ollefolke.bsky.social, and @jopieboy.bsky.social to a paper with a shocking result about Sweden’s law criminalizing the purchase of sex.🧵
61 days of total siege on 2 million people in the Gaza strip, with no food entering
Yair Wallach@yairwallach.bsky.social · last yr.Since the 2nd of March, Israel has been preventing food from entering the Gaza Strip.
Are you an urban economist located in the Nordics or working with Nordic data? You're in luck! We are organizing the Second Nordic Meeting in Urban Economics in Helsinki, Sept 8-9, 2025. You can find the call for papers here: sites.google.com/view/second-...
🚨Development Economists!🚨Do you use Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS Program) data, which had been supported by USAID? IPUMS ( @ipums.bsky.social ) and the UN Statistics Division have a survey for you. I just filled it out. You can too. #econsky
IPUMS@ipums.bsky.social · last yr.Users of the Demographic and Health Surveys, please take the United Nations Statistics Division DHS impact survey (form.jotform.com/250913880478...) regarding recent cuts. Replies inform future planning and advocacy. All responses are confidential and presented only in aggregate.
I am a professor at Columbia University. All of the student NIH training grants have been canceled and now there are reports that ALL funding will be frozen. Why are Universities not banding together and speaking out publicly and forcibly about governmental attacks on biomedical research?
“…Americans are witnessing deletion weaponized on a large scale as a political tool. These deletions undermine basic good government — and the historical record. Elon Musk: “If you don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it is easy for the weed to grow back.” www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/o...
Opinion | The Trump Administration’s Data Purges Weaken America
The Trump administration has started purging the government’s digital memory. Democracies die without proper archiving and public records.
nytimes.com
So many more books are being digitally burned by Musk and Trump than the Nazis could have ever dreamed of. The Republicans’ war on civilisation continues. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Mississippi orders deletion of race and gender databases in state libraries
Library commission says state ‘in dire shape’ and has ‘had a reconsideration of everything with regard to’ Doge
theguardian.com
Exactly why the Israeli government has best-friended antisemitic far-right politicians across Europe: they give Israel cover, all the way, and in return get image rehabilitation along the lines of: 'We can't be antisemitic! Look, we love Israel!' www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...
Hungary to pull out of ICC as Netanyahu visits Budapest
Israeli PM meets Viktor Orbán despite international arrest warrant over allegations of war crimes in Gaza
theguardian.com
Largest protest against Hamas erupted in northern Gaza since the war started, and after the death toll surpassed 50,000, with no end in sight. www.cnn.com/2025/03/25/m...
Palestinians take part in largest anti-Hamas protests in Gaza since start of war | CNN
Palestinians demonstrated against Hamas in northern Gaza on Tuesday, in what appeared to be the largest protest against the militant group since its attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
cnn.com
When will political and other leaders in Europe understand that when they are ”supporting Israel” they are not supporting the people?
Yair Wallach@yairwallach.bsky.social · last yr.Itamar Ben Gvir: "Annihilate, smash, eradicate, erase, crush, shatter, burn, be cruel, punish, ruin, crush. Annihilate!" This is the genocidal voice of the Israeli government.
It's going to be high stakes drama in Israel for the next two weeks. Either the government is able to consolidate power - and transform Israel's constitution - or it is forced into retreat and early elections. There are compromise middle paths but they seem less likely. 1/
”Man får inte missförstå oss och tro att vi är ett slags mellangrupp som inte väljer sida, vi är väldigt ideologiska och vi väljer sida. Den sida vi väljer är frihet för palestinier och judiska israeler, fred för båda folken. Samtidigt måste vi erkänna den ojämlika maktbalansen.”
Somar Al Naher@somar.bsky.social · last yr.Standing together borde vara ledstjärna för alla progressiva som vill förändra i Israel-Palestina
🧵6/6 Arab-Jewish partnership movement Standing Together said: "Halting the entry of food and medicine does not hurt Hamas, but rather the civilian populations, and as we heard from the hostages that came back alive – it hurts them too"
Israel halts Gaza aid after Hamas rejects Witkoff's cease-fire proposal, Netanyahu says
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haaretz.com
”I recognized that we were likely witnessing a blueprint for how to dismantle an agency — and USAID was the first to go. Why USAID? One argument is that the advantages of USAID aren't seen by most of America.”
Tatyana Deryugina@tderyugina.bsky.social · last yr.Dean Karlan's job at USAID was LITERALLY to improve the efficiency of its programs. DOGE is clearly not actually after cutting fraud and waste. And its actions will clearly make the US weaker while also making the world a worse place. www.npr.org/sections/goa...
"Water is essential for human life, yet for over a year the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the bare minimum they need to survive" A new report from HRW www.hrw.org/news/2024/12...
Israel’s Crime of Extermination, Acts of Genocide in Gaza
Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinian civilians in Gaza of adequate access to water since October 2023, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths and thus committing the crime...
hrw.org
We have put together some of our favourite sources of research, newsletters, articles, blogs, podcasts & videos on development economics, including economists who have written for VoxDev, in this starter pack. VoxDev has had ~2000 authors so let us know if we missed you! go.bsky.app/4rsxm7G
1939 Hitler-Stalin pact 'gave' Finland to Stalin; USSR invaded FI to claim its prize; Winter War = devastasting; FI then made the mistake of joining Hitler's invasion of USSR; in 1944, FI forced to pay reparations to USSR But this irony gave us an exogenous shock for an industrial policy paper ;-)
The Quarterly Journal of Economics@qjeharvard.bsky.social · 2y agoRecently accepted by #QJE, “War Reparations, Structural Change, and Intergenerational Mobility,” by Matti Mitrunen: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...