iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Justin Sandefur

Ryan Edwards @ryanbedwards.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Two minor updates, friends: - As of 1 January 2026, I'm an Associate Professor. - As of today, the first paper I started writing on palm oil, about a decade ago, is in print in the Journal of International Economics. Read, share, cite. Open access: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Export agriculture and rural poverty: Evidence from Indonesian palm oil

This paper measures the impacts of Indonesia’s palm oil export expansion on district poverty and household expenditure from 2002 to 2015. Identificati…

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

congrats -- that was a long journey! Happy ending

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

2. Aid for economic growth is tantalizing but much harder. The new enthusiasm for redirecting billions in aid to subsidize private enterprise is way ahead of the evidence. www.chat-gdp.org/development-...

chat-gdp.org

Washington's new model of foreign aid for economic growth

Everybody makes money, but nobody actually makes anything.

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

For folks at the AEA meetings... Come hear us debate what we do and don't know about the impact of foreign aid.

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

While it's possible both are right -- the strikes were tactically incompetent, but strategically wise -- that seems to assume this miss (if indeed it was a miss) was an aberration. And we won't just be bungling along, blowing things up in a region we don't understand. TBD.

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Two views of US strikes in Nigeria... FT reporting: They killed nobody. In the wrong state. WaPo editorial: Kudos to Trump for engaging, More, please!

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Charles Kenny @charlesjkenny.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

@justsand.bsky.social and I have updated our estimates of lives lost based on cuts to US foreign assistance spending through the end of the fiscal year. They look similar or worse than they did back in June: in the range of 500,000 to 1,000,000 people. www.cgdev.org/blog/update-...

cgdev.org

Update on Lives Lost from USAID Cuts

In this blog, we report on an update to our earlier estimates of the potential mortality impacts of the administration’s aid cuts. A similar approach to our original estimates using financial data to ...

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Reposted by Justin Sandefur

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

My least popular (and most correct) view is that cars should be automatically limited to the local speed limit. Put the pedal to the floor and you still can't go over 25mph in a residential area. (15 in Manhattan btw)

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

We end with some 'big think' speculation about deeper causes: the end of hyperglobalization, and the broader retreat from liberalism. Will leave that florid prose to the full post, link below. 5/5 www.chat-gdp.org/we-were-wro...

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

This poses a bit of a puzzle: if 70% of LMICs are catching up, why no convergence? The answer is basically about magnitudes: the growth boom in low- and esp middle-income countries has collapsed -- reflected in the end of global poverty reduction that others have documented. 4/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

One slightly more optimistic lens on this (2nd) reversal: if instead of a standard Solow-convergence metric, we look at the % of LMICs who are growing faster than the G7, that number remains high, around 70%. But it's also falling fast. 3/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

To be precise, it's not so much that we were wrong, as that facts have changed. We're not the first to notice: see links in post to Soumaya Keynes, Olaberria & Reinhardt, and Jonathan Hartley. But having hyped the rise of convergence, we felt we should reflect on its fall. 2/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New from Dev Patel, @arvind2011.bsky.social & me: "We were wrong about convergence." A few years back, we wrote a paper pointing out that Solow convergence had finally arrived. The developing world was catching up. Alas, it seems all good things come to an end. 1/

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Worst girl in Europe @hrisyana.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Great thread touching on why *ONLY* using private inv is NOT the solution. To echo once again the msg: focusing solely on private inv does not create much room for other riskier options (which in many EMDEs means investing in long term sustainable solutions for climate change, gender equality, etc)

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

TOP: Household surveys ask women age 15-49 a lot more questions. BOTTOM: So enumerators appear to drop them, non-randomly. Adjusting for this "[calls] into question whether Africa’s fertility transition is as uniquely slow as previously thought." economics.yale.edu/sites/defau...

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Striking how uniquely exposed to Trump's tariffs India is: - 33% effective tariff rate (among the highest now) - 19% of exports went to US last year (not Mexico, but high-ish)

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Reposted by Justin Sandefur

Charles Kenny @charlesjkenny.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Manufacturing for export has been the major path for rapid growth in developing countries. How is the World Bank's private sector arm the IFC doing in supporting that model? Not so good.

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Washington's new model of aid for growth has upsides if it can incubate new productive sectors. There's nothing wrong with development finance helping investors make money. But it also needs to help poor countries make stuff. /end

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

The history of successful industrial policy, e.g., in East Asia, involved leaning against market pressure to invest in finance and real estate, and instead directing scarce subsidies to sectors deemed strategic for growth. In short, export discipline. 10/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Why the turn away from industrialization? One factor seems to be that development finance institutions like the World Bank's IFC are profit driven, and investing in Togolese factories is just less profitable than investing in Turkish banks. 9/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Applying those sector characteristics to the industry composition of World Bank's private sector investments over time -- which is a bit of a leap, but is the best I can do with the data at hand -- what you see is basically a declining focus on jobs, exports, and growth. 8/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

There's a reason economists obsess over manufacturing. It's been the engine of most big economic 'miracles' in modern history: exportable, labor intensive, and fast growing. 7/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

There are counter examples -- I discuss a new garment factory in Togo that the World Bank helped finance (see 1st pic). But the modal project is a loan to a bank in Mexico or Turkey, ostensibly to expand credit in the economy -- a strategy with a limited evidentiary base. 6/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Second, and I think less discussed, very little $ goes to the sectors that are traditional growth drivers like manufacturing, and in particular exports. Exporting isn't reported, but here's my attempt to scrape mentions of exports from World Bank (IFC) project disclosures. 5/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Is that so bad? God knows poor countries need investment. And there's nothing wrong with companies turning a profit. But two red flags: First, as has been widely discussed, very little of that money goes to the poorest countries. 4/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Notice the trend to private sector deals: USAID is dead. Meanwhile, the US DFC, which backs (preferably) American firms investing overseas, is growing. And down the street at the World Bank, private sector deals are on track to eclipse sovereign lending in a few years. 3/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Foreign aid is dead (not really, but it's been a rough year). In its wake, there's a healthy pivot to talking about economic growth in poor countries. But in DC, that manifests as a fixation on private finance & too little talk about the real economy. www.chat-gdp.org/development... 2/

chat-gdp.org

ChatGDP

A blog about economic growth and poverty reduction.

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Hello! I'm starting a new blog/newsletter thing. First post is about aid and growth, and what I think is missing from the renewed enthusiasm in DC to subsidize private investment in developing countries: i.e., export discipline. 1/

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

"An approximate cost-benefit calculation suggests firm owners have earned a cumulative return of 900 percent or more on the cost of this training over seven years... without the need for asset or cash transfers" openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/...

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

It feels weird to me for the World Bank to focus on psychological training to make Togolese people better entrepreneurs but... it does seem to work. New in the AER:

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

I'm constantly confused by people who see a higher poverty line as a progressive goal, as opposed to shifting focus away from the 40% of the world living on <1/10th of that amount. $100k (PPP) for a family of 4 = 99.99th percentile in India = 99th percentile in China = 93rd percentile in the world

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Ungated link: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/w5sm...

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Why aren't there more big, labor-intensive firms in poor countries? Answer here: bigger firms use more white-color workers who are in shorter supply in poorer countries.

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Reposted by Justin Sandefur

Alexander Berger @albrgr.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Some news: Open Philanthropy is now Coefficient Giving! Our mission is unchanged but the new name reflects our growing work with other donors to multiply the impact of their giving. 🧵 on our work to make philanthropy a more efficient "market" and plans going forward:

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Nancy Birdsall @nbirdsall.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Accessible to all! ...my paper in Journal of Econ Perspectives on World Bank's 1993 East Asian "Miracle" report ("Too Much A Product of Its TIme?") (www.aeaweb.org/full_issue.p...). @cgdev.org @mclem.org @arvind2011.bsky.social @justsand.bsky.social

aeaweb.org

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Reposted by Justin Sandefur

Paddy Carter @paddycarter.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

this is a whopper - 600+ pages - but the intro by Besley and Velasco is short easy reading. Is this really the mainstream consensus? A lot of big names are in here, and other big names give positive blubs. If so, it differs from the "mainstream" econ of the popular imagination.

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Book launch day -- congrats to @arvind2011.bsky.social & Devesh Kapur! The book is full of data and historical vignettes, but more importantly, really challenges a lot of received wisdom about India's development trajectory. Must read.

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Alexander Berger @albrgr.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

New @devex.com article, ft. @justsand.bsky.social, on our our $40m fund to accelerate economic growth in low- and middle-income countries, including a great explanation of hits-based vs. GiveWell-style philanthropic giving www.devex.com/news/as-aid...

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Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Every time I talk with @mclem.org about the economics of immigration, I come away a whole lot smarter. You can enjoy the same experience: He's written a fantastic primer on what the data reveals about the effect of slashing H-1B visas. It's a banger. Read it. www.piie.com/blogs/realti...

piie.com

New US curb on high-skill immigrant workers ignores evidence of its likely harms

President Donald Trump on Friday ordered an unprecedented new restriction on lawful immigration to the US by high-skill workers. Starting Sunday, new applications for H-1B visas required payment of an...

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

America's offer to Africa: Trade not aid! But also, no more trade preferences.

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Charlie Robertson @frontiercharlie.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Botswana credit rating downgraded from BBB+ to BBB, still one notch above the lowest investment grade rating of BBB-. Botswana started with a A rating in 2001 from S&P, cut to A- after the global financial crisis and to BBB+ during COVID The external shock hitting Botswana now is very specific

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Meanwhile, X is blocked but b-sky works. Make of that what you will.

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Tourists sun by the pool overlooking the high court next door, where Tanzania’s opposition leader — previously shot 16 times — is being tried for treason. A metaphor perhaps for the international community’s response to Tanzania’s democratic backsliding.

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Christina Proenza-Coles @proenzacoles.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

“For all intents and purposes, Nkrumah paralleled Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in his reach and influence. That little is known about him outside of Africa and African diasporic communities is a reflection of the continued marginalization of the continent in the Western imagination.”

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Maia @maiamindel.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Emergency 1:30 am blog post: Trump tried to fire a Federal Reserve governor. It’s really bad, not just for the United States, but for everyone else. To start Tuesday off on a positive, cheerful note! open.substack.com/pub/someunpl...

open.substack.com

Today Is Our Dependence Day

There's not going to be an independent Fed you stupid slut

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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

My experience is if you send Mauricio a half-baked idea, he might just code it up for you and send back a TeX file. Dunno if it’ll work with him as an editor, but worth trying at least…

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