David McKenzie

I started a starter pack for World Bank researchers. Let me know if I am missing you go.bsky.app/BWMsQG6

This week's links include how international migration dramatically reduced extreme poverty in Nepal, what should be the counterfactual to urban slums, advice on going beyond an identification strategy when reading a paper, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

This week's links are now up a day early: unpacking the secret sauce of coaching, a searchable index of all job market blogs, beyond the services vs manufacturing debate,... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Our blog your job market paper series is turning sweet 16. Submissions now open for PhD students in development economics to share their interesting work with the world. Deadline November 4. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

This week's links include searchable data on where PhD economists go to work, a round-up of new research on trade, firms, and development, the costs to women in India of anticipating sexual harassment, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

This week's links include how having a spouse with government job security spurred starting a business in China, how bureaucrats in Pakistan take bribes and use them to fund underfunded public services, Ancova beats DiD again, labor slack in health provision... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Recently out in World Development, my paper on where & how the World Bank spends and lends money on international migration (www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...). Today's blog summarizes some takeaways, & asks also where you can spend your charity dollars (blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...)

Weekly links include providing education at scale in emergency settings, the rise of services, how the quest for a son affects girls in India, why is structural transformation out of agriculture so slow, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Some great links this week: the most interesting one to me is work on "innovation bursts" in French firms, which shows how rapid firm growth and innovation are very sporadic - which aligns with work on "high-growth" firms in developing countries blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

In today's blog, @jacobuscilliers.bsky.social has a guest post on how to properly test for attrition in RCTs, and issues to consider when you have strata, clustered trials, and potentially many baseline variables to test balance over blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Weekly links are back with calls for many conferences, @bijurao.bsky.social on why economists need to listen to those they study more, of course more discussion on AI's effects as well as on how to design better RCTs with AI, am I replaceable?, and more... blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

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...

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...

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...

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...

🚨🚨 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.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...?

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

📢 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

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...

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...

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...

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...?

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...

📆 17 March @ 16:00 CET/11:00 EDT The Spring 2026 VDEV/CEPR/BREAD seminars continue with @dmckenzie.bsky.social (World Bank) presenting "Who, and How Much? Experiments in Selection and Grant Size in a Kenyan Business Plan Competition" Moderator: Suanna Oh @pse.bsky.social ow.ly/X9nu50YnYqZ #EconSky