This week we featured research on tariffs, cash, impact, nulls, refugees and more...
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Another busy week at VoxDev - feels like we could say that every week at the moment! On Tuesday, over 300 people joined us live for our webinar on tracking impact in development. You can find a recording of this discussion with Paddy Carter, Aparna Krishnan and Arianna Legovini, plus a summary of the key insights here - tracking impact in development.
I (Oliver) wrote a couple of blogs over the past week, highlighting research featured on VoxDev. In the first, I outline what we are learning about people's misperceptions of the world, and how fixing them can improve society. And today, I have written about important null results in development economics - they are often ignored by journals, but they are still policy relevant, and play an important role in killing bad ideas.
As the global refugee crisis escalates, there is a growing need for evidence on refugee housing policy. Abdulrazzak Tamim, Emma Smith, I. Bailey Palmer, Edward Miguel, Samuel Leone, Sandra V. Rozo, and Sarah Stillman find that housing subsidies for Syrian refugees in Jordan had limited benefits for well-being while worsening social cohesion.
Long-term research on the One Laptop per Child programme reveals that providing laptops to students did not have a positive impact on educational outcomes. In today’s article, Santiago Cueto, Diether W. Beuermann, Julian Cristia, Ofer Malamud, and Francisco Pardo explain how effects were likely driven by lack of effects on cognitive skills and limited classroom adoption.
Benchmarking multi-dimensional in-kind programmes against cost-equivalent unconditional cash transfers reveals that cash can be more effective in improving consumption and asset accumulation. Craig McIntosh and Andrew Zeitlin outline evidence from Rwanda.
Since the 1990s, BRAC's targeting the ultra-poor approach has helped millions improve their standard of living. In this week’s episode of VoxDevTalks, Shameran Abed reflects on the effectiveness, evolution, and scalability of the Graduation approach.
Can taking textbooks home improve student learning when resources are highly constrained? Jean-Benoît Falisse, Marieke Huysentruyt, and Anders Olofsgård provide evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
How can we estimate state presence in areas where direct measurements are lacking? Gustav Agneman, Christoffer Cappelen, Kasper Brandt, and David Sjoberg offer a solution to measuring state presence using machine learning techniques.
On Wednesday, Jorge Luis García demonstrated how a government employment-guarantee programme unintentionally reduced female labour force participation in India.
Last Friday, before the reciprocal tariffs were cancelled (they are still at 10% though which is a big deal), Susannah Hares wrote about the threat they posed to economic and social progress in Bangladesh. There has been a tonne of informative writing on this topic, here's what I've been reading, hoping that it isn't relevant in 90 days time:
- US trade wars with China – and how they play out in Africa: Lauren Johnston
- Trump Reciprocal Tariffs: Penalizing Vulnerable Economies: Jodie Keane, Bernardo Arce & Prachi Agarwal
- US implements sweeping reciprocal tariffs, igniting global economic challenges: Maximiliano Mendez-Parra & Prachi Agarwal
- Trump's April 2 tariff spree could cripple developing economies: Cullen S. Hendrix
- The Age of Miraculous Growth Is Over. Trump’s Tariffs Were Just the Last Straw. Dani Rodrik
- Why America is acting this way on trade: A globotics shock, a failed social policy, and middle-class fury Richard Baldwin
- US misuse of tariff reciprocity and what the world should do about it: Richard Baldwin & Giorgio Barba Navaretti
- From partner to rival: The sectoral evolution of China’s trade Francois de Soyres, Ece Fisgin, Alexandre Gaillard Ana Santacreu & Henry Young
Whilst economists sprung into action to discuss the impacts of these tariffs, there was lots of interesting work you might have missed in the frenzy:
- Framing the problem of best buys in politics: the political economy of education research - Stefan Dercon
- Rich Countries Are Exporting Thousands of Tons of Toxic Paint Pigment to Poor Countries - Rory Todd, Lee Crawfurd and Rachel Bonnifield
- Policy Experimentation in China - an amazing video by the amazing econimate
- The Life’s Work of Banerjee, Duflo, and Kremer - Nicholas Decker
- Unconventional wisdom: Three lessons from a pioneer of revenue-based finance in Africa
- Special Application Window for USAID Research - for all those with research impacted by USAID cuts, check out this call by The Weiss Fund.