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Adrienne Lucas

@profalucas.bsky.social
7.6K followers 481 following 96 posts

Development/Education/Health Economist | Prof and Dept Chair, UDelaware | Research Associate, NBER | Faculty Affiliate, J-PAL | Non-Resident Fellow, CGD | she lerner.udel.edu/faculty-staff-direc…

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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
On the 106th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment in the US, women are *51% of the population *29% of the House *27% of the Senate *21% of Full Professors in PhD granting econ departments
Label: Figure 1: pipeline for departments with doctoral programs: percent of doctoral students and faculty who are women, 1994-2025. Line graph. X-axis: year from 1994 to 2025. Y-axis: percent from 5 to 40. 6 colored lines. The green line shows the percent of Full professors as just over 20% in 2025 up from about 8% in 1994.
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Reminder that today is PA primary Election Day. Vote.
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Almudena Sevilla @almudenasevilla.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Great research deserves great feedback. Excited to share a new AI tool delivers publication-relevant feedback with no coding, prompting, or setup required. Eligible: Econ PhD students + faculty up to 5 years post-PhD. Access here: lse.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... @profalucas.bsky.social
lse.eu.qualtrics.com
Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management
The most powerful, simple and trusted way to gather experience data. Start your journey to experience management and try a free account today.
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Friends of @udelaware.bsky.social Economics Department, today is #IHeartUDDay. Please consider donating to support our UD economics students. givingday.udel.edu/giving-day/1... Our current and future students appreciate you!
givingday.udel.edu
I Heart UD Giving Day | April 29, 2026
Blue Hens are the Heart of UD!
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Folks are writing about malaria again! Some bonus reading on previous eradication campaigns (by me): www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
aeaweb.org
Malaria Eradication and Educational Attainment: Evidence from Paraguay and Sri Lanka
(April 2010) - Mid-twentieth century malaria eradication campaigns largely eliminated malaria from Paraguay and Sri Lanka. Using these interventions as quasi-experiments, I estimate malaria's effect o...
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Thank you ‪@voxdev.bsky.social‬ for featuring our work!
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Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Person who was fired here - you should still trust BLS data. The agency is being run by the same dedicated career staff who were running it while I was awaiting confirmation from the Senate. And the staff have made it clear that they are blowing a loud whistle if there is interference.
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Thrilled that "When Information is Not Enough: Evidence from a Centralised School Choice System" with @willafriedman.bsky.social and #KehindeAjayi is in the January 2026 #EconomicJournal. It's an "Editor's Choice," FREE to download, and easy to cite. :) academic.oup.com/ej/article/1...
Screen shot that reads 
Journal Article Editor's Choice
When Information is Not Enough: Evidence from a Centralised School Choice System Free
Kehinde F Ajayi ,
Willa H Friedman ,
Adrienne M Lucas
The Economic Journal, Volume 136, Issue 673, January 2026, Pages 26–60, https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueaf046
Published:
13 June 2025
Article history

Abstract

We implemented a large-scale randomised controlled trial encompassing 900 junior high schools in Ghana, a country with universal secondary school choice, to study whether providing students and parents with information on school characteristics and selection strategies improved outcomes in a centralised school selection mechanism. Information changed households’ preferences and the characteristics of schools to which they applied. Students gained admission to higher value-added schools, yet they were not more likely to matriculate on time or at all. Incomplete school information was not the only friction. Household shocks and inaccurate preference forecasting likely contributed to continued admission deviations.
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Congratulations to @udelaware.bsky.social Economics PhD alum #MuhammadUsmanTaj (now at #MidlandsTechnicalCollege) for winning the 2025 #AmericanEconomicAssociation Professional Development Grant for URM Faculty!
screen shot with the words "Professional Development Grant for URM Faculty, 2025 Award Winner, Muhammad Usman Taj, Midlands Technical College" and a picture of the winner wearing a window pane (white background) button down shirt.
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Caitlin Myers @caitlinmyers.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Applications are OPEN for CSWEP’s 2026 CeMENT Mentoring Workshop! 🎉 Come get feedback on your research, practical advice for navigating the tenure track, and a community that will lift you up. Details & application here 👉 www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/co... @aeacswep.bsky.social #EconSky
aeaweb.org
CeMENT: Mentoring for Junior Faculty
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Job posting: Assistant Professor in @udelaware.bsky.social College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. "a social scientist whose research addresses the policy, legal, and/or economic dimensions of contemporary ocean resource use." Apply! www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing....
aeaweb.org
American Economic Association: JOE Listings - August 1, 2025 - January 31, 2026
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
New @nber.org working paper by my @udelaware.bsky.social colleague #MariaRosalesRueda and other nifty folks.
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Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 13/11/2025
For folks (and journalists) who want to search the Oversight Committee email texts, I made a database for searching the 20k text files: splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app
splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app
Epstein Document Search
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
#IVoted If you have not voted, not too late to join the democracy/cool sticker club! Vote!
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Election Day! Vote. Vote. Vote. All elections are consequential!
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
UDelaware Economics PhD student @anxhelabeluli.com spent the summer as an intern at Amazon. lerner.udel.edu/seeing-oppor...
lerner.udel.edu
My Summer Internship: Anxhela Beluli
Anxhela Beluli, economics Ph.D. student, spent her summer as an Economist Ph.D. Intern at Amazon.
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
Happy Welcome Back Picnic @udelaware.bsky.social economics faculty, staff, PhD students, and families! Great to see everyone!
Picture of UD students, faculty, staff and families outside.
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
New @wsj.com college ranking puts University of Delaware @udelaware.bsky.social at #38! (Rumor* has it that it's due to the stellar economics department) (* I started that rumor, just now, but we are stellar)
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Paolo Falco @paolofalco.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
🚨 Hiring Tenure-Track Assistant Professors in Econ at the University of Copenhagen! 🚨 Join a great group in an exciting (and friendly) city 😀! Details will follow. Pls repost and get in touch to hear more. All fields, and I’m esp. interested in hearing from DEV candidates 😀! #EconSky
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Good morning #UMinnesota! Excited to present my paper on the long run and intergenerational effects of a Chilean CCT!
Photo of sunrise over UMN buildings.
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Tatyana Deryugina @tderyugina.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Update: we are at 379 signatures in support of Lisa Cook and Fed independence! The letter be open for signatures through Sun. (Link to sign at the top). If you are on X or listservs, please spread the word there! docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com
Open letter
Click here to add your signature. An Open Letter from Economists in Support of Governor Lisa Cook and Federal Reserve Independence To the President, Members of Congress, and the American public: We wr...
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
The @udelaware.bsky.social College of Earth Ocean and Environment is hiring a Department Chair of Geography. Possibility to be joint appointment with Public Policy (with me) & be part of an institution with a super nifty economics department (chaired by me). careers.udel.edu/cw/en-us/job...
careers.udel.edu
University of Delaware - Details - Chair, Department of Geography & Spatial Sciences, College of Earth, Ocean and Environment University of Delaware
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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 28/08/2025
I am proud to join multiple Nobel laureates and hundreds of colleagues in signing this letter to protest the US Administration's illegal seizure of control at our central bank.
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
On the (almost) 105th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment in the US, women are * 51% of population * 29% of House of Representatives * 26% of Senate * 18% of full professors at PhD granting economics departments
Line chart titled "Figure 1. Pipeline for Departments with Doctoral Programs: Percent of Doctoral Students and Faculty Who are Women, 1994-2024" The "Full Professors (T)", green line, was about 7% in 1994 and 18% in 2024.
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Caitlin Myers @caitlinmyers.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Any economists out there who might be interested in writing about choosing a childfree life? I'm editing an upcoming CSWEP newsletter on fertility choices and hoping to include this perspective. Shoot me a message if you might be my person!
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Anne Fitzpatrick @annefitz13.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
If you’re at #aaea today, come see our track session at 10am in Plaza Court 2 I’m presenting work joint with @profalucas.bsky.social and Sabrin Beg on the impacts of an intervention designed to reach out of school girls in Pakistan
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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Female PhD students (in economics) benefit tremendously from having female faculty around. When female professors go on leave, it decreases third-year female PhD students’ likelihood of publishing & securing academic positions. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
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David Evans @daveevansphd.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
Impressive, long-term impacts of targeted cash transfers for indigenous children in Chile
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
Great team representing Economics at this morning’s @udelaware.bsky.social Lerner College convocation! #JorgeSoares #ValMichelman #LizBayley @bartonwillage.com #HansHolter #NishaChikhale #ErinYetter #KatyBender Congratulations to all the Econ undergraduates!!
8 members of the UD economics faculty sit in their academic robes in front of graduating seniors in blue caps and gowns.
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Congratulations Dr. #JasonChristie! @udelaware.bsky.social latest economics PhD graduate.
Picture of Adrienne Lucas, Jason Christie, Dean Oliver Yao at UD convocation ceremony. They are all wearing academic robes—Brown, UD, and Maryland.
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Local primary day in PA--be sure to vote! Or tell someone who lives in PA to vote!
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
New @nber.org working paper "Targeted Education Transfers Reduced Long-Run and Intergenerational Ethnic Inequality in Chile" with #PatrickMcEwan & #DavidTorresIrribarra. Title summarizes it. More details: www.nber.org/papers/w33798
screen shot from NBER website that contains paper title, authors, and abstract:  Targeted Education Transfers Reduced Long-Run and Intergenerational Ethnic Inequality in Chile
Adrienne M. Lucas, Patrick J. McEwan & David Torres Irribarra

Working Paper 33798
DOI 10.3386/w33798
Issue Date May 2025

Since 1991, Chile has provided large, renewable cash grants to indigenous children in lower-income households, conditional on school enrollment. We estimate intent-to-treat effects of grant exposure on indigenous adults and their children, leveraging variation in expected grant exposure across birth cohorts and never-treated adults, and using fixed effects to absorb unobserved variables shared by adults born in the same year and community. Cohorts with the greatest exposure had 0.6 more years of schooling, 10% more hours worked, and 22% higher labor earnings, reducing pre-treatment ethnic differences. Mothers’ exposure increased their children’s early-grade test scores and reduced second-generation grant receipt.
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NBER @nber.org · 20/05/2025
Educational conditional cash transfers to indigenous students increased education, adult earnings, and human capital of the subsequent generation, from Adrienne M. Lucas, Patrick J. McEwan, and David Torres Irribarra www.nber.org/papers/w33798
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
On reading day, graduate students present their research, and we honor outstanding faculty by putting their faces on cake— @bartonwillage.com #ThomasBridges #OlgaGorbachev. Best day of the academic year!
White sheet cake with pictures of Barton, Thomas, and Olga.
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Honored to be part of the Advisory Board Meeting of the Tanzania Institute of Education EdLab in February. Thank you @wwhglobaled.bsky.social for featuring the meeting in today's email blast!
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Good morning DC! Great day yesterday presenting at the World Bank (thank you for the invitation #LelysDinarteDiaz !) Today, Georgetown to collaborate with @jacobuscilliers.bsky.social & #JamesHabyarimana
Washington monument around sunrise with grass in foreground and clouds above.
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
Hello friends of @udelaware.bsky.social Economics Department: today is I heart UD giving day. Please consider a donation to your favorite economics department (us, of course) givingday.udel.edu/amb/economics
givingday.udel.edu
I Heart UD Giving Day - May 14
I Heart UD Giving Day - May 14
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
My dog has some thoughts.
Brown and white dog on green grass, looking to the side.
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David Evans @daveevansphd.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
A remedial education program in India worked well when teachers were given strict implementation guidelines. It worked just as well when teachers had discretion to adapt. www.nber.org/papers/w33242 by Beg, @annefitz13.bsky.social, @jkerwin.bsky.social, @profalucas.bsky.social, & @kwrahman.com
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
Welcome to #EconSky Alumudena Sevilla @almudenasevilla.bsky.social!! Give her a follow for labor, gender, and general economist awesomeness!
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
.@udelaware.bsky.social #LernerCollege is hiring an Assistant Dean, Student Services, Global Programs & Partnerships. careers.udel.edu/cw/en-us/job... Located in Newark, DE, convenient to I-95, Amtrak, & SEPTA. Bonus: be in the same college as a really nifty economics department, chaired by me!
careers.udel.edu
University of Delaware - Details - Assistant Dean, Student Services
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VoxDev @voxdev.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Been a while since we shared this! Here is a selection of our favourite sources of research, newsletters, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos related to development economics, including researchers who have written for VoxDev. go.bsky.app/4rsxm7G
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
$500 million worth of food intended for relief efforts is at risk of spoiling, given Trump’s freeze on shipping food assistance “They get the one starving kid in Sudan that isn’t going to have a USAID bottle, and they make everything DOGE has done about the starving kid in Sudan,” WH official said.
washingtonpost.com
As federal workers and aid recipients reel, Trump’s team is unmoved
“They get the one starving kid in Sudan that isn’t going to have a USAID bottle and they make everything DOGE has done about the starving kid in Sudan,” a White House official said.
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Jennifer Smith Richards @jsmithrichards.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
DOGE came for the research and statistics arm of the U.S. Department of Education today, declared "fraud" and "waste" and abruptly terminated about $900M in contracts. A lot of what we know about America's schools comes from the data this agency collects. New reporting with @jodiscohen.bsky.social
propublica.org
Elon Musk’s Team Decimates Education Department Arm That Tracks National School Performance
The Trump administration canceled $900 million in contracts overseen by the Institute of Education Sciences, which partners with scientists and education companies to compile and make public data abou...
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Justin Sandefur @justsand.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Elon says 90% of US aid never reaches communities. He confuses USAID's 90% reliance on intermediaries -- US companies delivering HIV drugs, WFP delivering food aid -- with waste. Comical if not so dangerous. @rachelbonnifield.bsky.social & I break down where aid goes: www.cgdev.org/blog/no-90-p...
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David Evans @daveevansphd.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
BIG long-term impacts of education grants targeted to indigenous students in Chile. drive.google.com/file/d/1huHk... Evidence from @profalucas.bsky.social, McEwan, and Torres Irribarra
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Oyebola Okunogbe @oyebolaoo.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
GAIN is an amazing resource for African students interested in graduate school (masters and phd): information, advice, mentoring, funding for test and applications fees etc. Please share this opportunity with your network.
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Sandy Black @econsandy.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
I was incredibly honored to be awarded the CSWEP Carolyn Shaw Bell Award. When I accepted the award, I talked about the importance of mentoring. The lessons I pass on are kind of obvious. But they are important, so I am going to share them yet again. (A🧵)
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Delaware increases its minimum wage to $15/hour Jan 1, 2025, up from $9.25 in 2021. Ready, set, natural experiment!
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Adrienne Lucas @profalucas.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
New @nberpubs.bsky.social working paper: "When Given Discretion Teachers Did Not Shirk: Evidence from Remedial Education in Secondary Schools" with #SabrinBeg @annefitz13.bsky.social @jkerwin.bsky.social @kwrahman.com Title summarizes it. We elaborate in the paper: www.nber.org/papers/w33242
Screen shot of title page from NBER website.  
When Given Discretion Teachers Did Not Shirk: Evidence from Remedial Education in Secondary Schools

Sabrin A. Beg, Anne E. Fitzpatrick, Jason T. Kerwin, Adrienne Lucas & Khandker Wahedur Rahman

Working Paper 33242
DOI 10.3386/w33242
Issue Date December 2024

Public-sector organizations face a tradeoff: allowing workers discretion at the point of service to adapt to local needs, versus rigid harmonization to ensure uniform service delivery. We examine this tradeoff in the context of secondary schools in Odisha, India, where the centrally set curriculum is nearly 4 grades above the learning levels of the mean student. We conduct a randomized intervention that assigned schools to either a rigid or a flexible version of a remedial learning intervention that displaced the curriculum. We compare learning outcomes and teaching quality to the status quo. Both interventions increased learning by 0.11SD, about 60 percent of a year of learning, with gains throughout the learning distribution. We find no crowd-out of grade-level mastery, and no change in the likelihood of earning passing Board Marks one year later. Discretion did not lower the quality of implementation or induce shirking. Allowing teachers flexibility to adjust classroom content to student needs was beneficial and had limited downsides.
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