Research Articles

Are there any articles we're missing? Send us suggestions, whether in English or another language, by emailing Chrispine at crl2 (at) williams (dot) edu, and we'll put them up!

Our Latest Recommendations

Course Text: “Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia”

Excerpts from this article have been assigned as required reading for a core CDE course, “Public Economics.”

Foundational Article: “Rethinking the Growth Diagnostic Approach”

Growth diagnostics attempts to determine what particular factors are inhibiting a country from achieving a higher growth rate. This report by Felipe and Usui first delves deeper into that definition, and then analyzes the limitations and the advantages of growth diagnostics, as well as providing some practical advice for donor agencies about the potential pitfalls.

Foundational Article: “Behavioral Design: A New Approach to Development Policy”

This article on behavioral design by Saugato Datta and Sendhil Mullainathan focuses on recent developments in incorporating human psychology into the design of policy interventions, and how small changes can have large impacts.

Full Article: “Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities”

This paper on the effects of deworming treatments on children in Kenya, by Michael Kremer and Edward Miguel, was one of the pioneers in the use of randomized controlled trials at a scale of interest and with implications for cash-strapped governments.

Full Article: “Worms at Work: Long-Run Impacts of a Child Health investment”

In this study, Michael Kremer and crew assess the impacts of childhood de-worming interventions in Kenya on how those same children perform in the labor market once they’ve grown up, and find some surprisingly persistent effects on their welfare.

Our favorite sources for the latest research