If you're like me + hopelessly behind on learning about AI. . .here's a quick summary 🧵on the new paper by Chang et al. @Econ_4_Everyone summarizing 12 best practices for leveraging generative AI in experimental research: some ideas to get started!
nber.org/papers/w33025 @Econ_4_Everyone Best practice 1 (still my favorite!): use generative AI to generate draft PAPs using research questions, surveys, and other experimental materials as input

Since we're all talking about cash. . .and I hinted at it with our findings on the null effects on LFP yesterday. . .time for mega-🧵 about new meta-analysis summarizing livelihoods effects of cash and cash plus in LMICs joint w/ @khirvonen + Sarim Zafar
hdl.handle.net/10568/148881
@KHirvonen The new trial is amazing! But development economists have been working on questions around the effectiveness of cash for a LONG, long time. Our analysis jumps in a crowded meta-analytic literature as well. More in the paper, but in brief. . .

Closing this week with some advice that I hope would be useful + I wish I had received earlier in my career: how to ensure that your paper is included in a meta-analysis (or systematic review, more broadly - but particularly a meta-analysis) Context: everyone tells us that lit reviews are most useful for policymakers!


If your paper generates valuable evidence - you want it to be in those reviews. Hence my suggestions.slowboring.com/p/the-economic…
ft.com/content/0f4586…

It's been a phenomenal year for cool young researcher! Excited to share the work of *40* great development economists based all around the world, here's a recap 🧵. . .follow them, read + cite their papers, look out for them! Plus, call for nominations (self-promotion welcome) - I need cool young researchers for 2024, so announce yourselves, your colleagues + or your favorite fellow economists. Here's the 2023 group

It's been a long while since I did a real lit review 🧵 but here's one! Lots of new recent experimental evidence on interventions targeting women's LFP in South Asia. . .if you've missed some of those papers, here's a thread for you. A helpful review around social norms as a barrier to women's employment (not limited to S Asia) from Jayachandran is here

In terms of experimental evidence. . .link.springer.com/article/10.105…

It's almost jm season! It's 10 years post-jm for me, so here are the 10 tips that would have helped me the most. 1) Apply widely; even if you're targeting an academic (non-academic) job, apply to some of the other type More information + exposure never hurts. (I didn't do this! And I regretted it.)

There have been a number of new contributions around ethics questions in RCTs or field research more broadly lately so doing a mini- 🧵on ethics papers that are useful for all of us to review #EconTwitter @DaveEvansPhD has a brand-new paper in Journal of Development Effectiveness about ethics in RCTs, w/useful points for reflection in different stages (planning / conducting / publishing)
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Interesting new articles in the JHR today! In Spain, intro of a universal child benefit led to a (small) ⬆️ in births, while its cancellation led to a (small) ⬇️; authors can identify separately effects on conceptions + abortions @LibertadGonLu
jhr.uwpress.org/content/58/3/7… In Brazil, onset of hurricane Catarina in 2004 associated w/adverse effects on fetal / infant outcomes (incl fetal deaths) only for children of mothers age 15-24, w/maternal stress a plausible channel @VHOliveiraS @ClimentQD
jhr.uwpress.org/content/58/3/8…

Today's cool young researcher #EconTwitter is @JulieSantamaria at the IADB who works on migration, health, + gender
juliethsantamaria.com One paper joint w/@lucia_hanmer Rubiano + Arango shows that gender inequalities among a Syrian refugee population amplifies poverty, w/female-headed households particularly vulnerable
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

1/ As promised. . .post-reflections on editing

https://twitter.com/leightjessica/status/1617910850135756800

here are 10 exciting articles from each journal #EconTwitter. Today REHO (note not articles I personally was the managing editor for); CER tomorrow 2/ link.springer.com/article/10.100…
Dave + Yang: Evidence that working in a more intensive occupation during pregnancy ⬆️ probability of adverse birth outcome

Recently passed a year of editing (well, slightly more at REHO) so wanted to share some #EconTwitter thoughts on what I've learned (take them with a grain of salt, as there are many more experienced editors out there!) For authors: generally, cover letters can be extremely brief unless you are bringing something very specific to my attention. If the cover letter repeats what's in the intro, not necessary (I will look at the intro!)

This week's cool young researcher is Fatima Aqeel at Colgate University who works on questions related to gender, intimate partner violence + women's employment #EconTwitter
sites.google.com/view/fatima-aq… One paper currently R&R at WBER analyzes a reform in Pakistan in which admissions' criteria at medical schools were equalized for men + women, leading to an ⬆️ in labor force participation by women medical graduates + graduates overall

As I wrapped up another slew of referee reports this week (no worries, I actually love refereeing + learn a lot from it!) I thought it might be fun to do a little 🧵on my most common comments as a referee (and now, as an editor) - mainly for empirical papers 1: I'm on page 5 of the intro; what is this paper about? Take pity on us, your referees are people too. You should specifically explain what THIS paper is about + is doing by page two, at latest.

1/ Enjoyed seminar by @Susan_Athey at Georgetown yesterday presenting paper about the effects of contraceptive counseling + discounts in Cameroon, + an overview of process of running an adaptive RCT.
Short #EconTwitter 🧵 about the latter, for interested applied researchers 2/ (Not touching on the paper + findings itself - fascinating, but already very well-covered in the blogs by @BerkOzler12)
blogs.worldbank.org/impactevaluati…
blogs.worldbank.org/impactevaluati…

1/ Was excited to see #EconTwitter interest in evidence on how policymakers use evidence

https://twitter.com/leightjessica/status/1503800956714160132

Follow-up 🧵. First as usual, I aim to be interdisciplinary, but can't be comprehensive; a bias toward econ in these threads. Adding links + cites always welcome. 2/ Second, bc I'm focusing mostly on econ, economists have a comp advantage in analyzing how policymakers use econ (as opposed to other types of knowledge). Hopefully other disciplines are working in parallel - we should def understand how policymakers work w/other evidence.

1/ Wanted to do an #EconTwitter 🧵 on a new + important topic that's growing in the literature: rigorous evidence about how policy-makers use + respond to evidence! Most of these papers are very recent, many still WP 2/ One published in AER 2021 by @HjortJ @dianamoreira_sb Rao and Santini; an experiment w.mayors of 2,150 Brazilian municipalities; they find mayors are WTP for evidence, and update priors upon receipt; value large samples more, but not dev country studies
aeaweb.org/articles?id=10…

Caught up on this recent NBER WP on labor productivity growth and industrialization in Africa by McMillan and @AlbertZeufack
nber.org/papers/w29570
Offers a very useful overview of trends in manufacturing and structural transformation in SSA; worth quick 🧵 #EconTwitter The paper uses a range of data sources, but the first is the Economic Transformation Database (ETD) including 18 SSA countries that allows for estimation of value added per worker across countries.

Flyouts are starting, so here’s a quick 🧵 on advice for introverts like me. One of the challenging parts of the jm is high social interaction, possibly made more difficult if you have constraints (familial, locational) that you want to keep private at first. #EconTwitter As to strategy for disclosures – I’ll let others speak to that, other than to say I agree you should always be truthful, but you can choose not to reveal certain things. But that can add stress, making it even harder to chat comfortably.

As new PhD students start to look forward to their first year, short 🧵 on challenges in collaboration in grad school (and its potentially gendered dimensions).
Many people advise grad students to rely on their classmates: first in coursework, later on projects / as coauthors. I endorse that advice! But it can also be hard to follow. I attended two grad programs (MPhil and PhD) and had similar experiences in both. There were large, energetic, overlapping-networks problem set groups that formed quickly.

Enjoyed the presentation by @elianalaferrara today at World Bank DIME of work joint with Baumgartner, Rosa-Dias, Breza and my awesome coauthor Victor Orozco: evidence around a peer education program targeting early sexual activity teen pregnancy in Brazil. The authors have a fascinating evaluation comparing a peer educator program with three alternate selection mechanisms for educators (school-driven; selection via peer nomination of popularity; selection by centrality in a formally mapped network) to a control arm.

So much of what we hear around RCTs are exciting stories about how evidence is used to inform policy. Which is awesome! I love evidence-informed policy. However, I'm sure many of us have also had experiences that are different, and more challenging. In the spirit of transparency, wanted to share some different (anonymized) stories about use of evidence. Short 🧵