A new Choices article on "Is Climate Change a Driver of Food Price Inflation?" is available now. choicesmagazine.org/choices-magazi…

Child diet diversity and irrigation expansion in the global south nature.com/articles/s4189…

1/ Week 27: This week two related theory papers in focus: simultaneous & seminal in helping us elegantly formalize herd behavior / information cascades & triggering a fascinating literature across subfields in economics. Banerjee 1992 and Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer & Welch 1992.

🤍🕊️ You’ll Never Walk Alone, Diogo 🕊️🤍

Interesting paper on why people follow rules: Intrinsic respect for rules and social expectations are the most important motives for rule-following ("55–70% of participants conform to an arbitrary costly rule"). Extrinsic incentives and social preferences play only a minor role.

What’s your favorite opening line from a book? ✍️

Yes. Writing is not a second thing that happens after thinking. The act of writing is an act of thinking. Writing *is* thinking. Students, academics, and anyone else who outsources their writing to LLMs will find their screens full of words and their minds emptied of thought.

Welcome to day 3 of the Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics!

Leonard Wantchekon Jishnu says most common question he gets at conferences from students is not "how can I work on questions that are relevant and important to LMICs" but "will this question get me a paper in QJE or other top journal"

🚨 Applications now open for the AERC– World Bank Visiting Scholars Programme! 🌍📚 Are you an AERC researcher working on Africa’s development? Apply for a 4–6 month research fellowship at the World Bank. Deadline: Sept 1, 2025 Apply now: bit.ly/3H88Nyy #WeAreAERC

Universities are training economists who can build models but don't understand the economy. Read my new Global Currents piece on the recent wave of criticism against mainstream economics (link in replies).

Universities are training economists who can build models... ONLY for mechanical, toaster-like problems Like "Does giving 🐔increase income?" Press a button (intervention) ➡️ linear outcome In fact, economists have FAILED to build models for complex, non-linear realities

WFP Malawi: El Niño drought reduced maize output 44%, leaving 5.7 million people acutely food insecure. IMF:

This is a brilliant chart of China's tech-industrial ecosystems, by Kyle Chan. Most of us economists don't understand that clusters of technological capabilities cut across our categories of 'sectors' and 'industries'. This chart gets that across in a fantastic way.

Our latest open access review paper on farmer preferences and trade-offs for adoption of sustainable crop production.

🚨 Have you registered yet? The Open-Earth-Monitor Global Workshop 2025 is coming to Perugia, Italy – September 17–19 – and seats are filling up fast! For three days, we’ll bring together researchers, policy-makers, innovators, and students to explore how open data and

Call for Papers – ACAE 2026 📅 22–25 Sept 2026 | 📍 Nairobi, Kenya Theme: Smart Agriculture: Innovation, Digital Transformation & Trade for a Climate-Challenged Africa 📝 Submit research papers, policy briefs & case studies. Details: lnkd.in/eWZKMmne #ACAE2026

Do we fully understand the impacts of emergency aid? New evidence from the 1984 Ethiopian famine suggests that emergency aid mitigates the impacts of large-scale disasters even decades later. Read this week's article to learn more: voxdev.org/topic/health/l…

Finally out, released today!!!🔥🔥 Ready 4 talks. ⁦Wits Politics⁩ ⁦Wits Centre for Journalism⁩ ⁦⁦CAS Edinburgh⁩ ⁩ University of Malawi (UNIMA)⁩ ⁦AfricanStudiesCentre⁩ ⁦⁦KAS Media Africa⁩ ⁦BBC News Africa⁩ ⁦African Studies Association⁩ ⁩ ⁦AfricanStudiesUK⁩ taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.…