In a world where constrained governments still trade temporary rights for security they can't otherwise afford, Russian history shows how outsourcing defense to local elites can bake coercion into the economic fabric.

Fascinating economic history research on serfdom ⤵️

🌍 Always nice to see that people are reading @voxdev.bsky.social across the world when checking the real-time updates from Google Analytics.

🗞️ There are now almost 7,000 development economists, practitioners, policymakers and students signed up to the @voxdev.bsky.social newsletter.

Sign up to join our growing community and stay up to date with the latest in development economics: voxdev.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=...

Really enjoyed this podcast. With all the focus on causality, it is nice to step back and look at key descriptive statistics about the world

We are trying out doing some video podcasts, any feedback is welcome. One benefit is that it allows for special guest appearances ⤵️

Robot adoption has skyrocketed in China in the last decade.

Today's article finds that this has led to a decline in employment & wages, while also influencing workers’ training & retirement decisions ⤵️

"Closing the gender gap in entrepreneurship is not just a social equity issue—it is a powerful lever for economic growth."

Women in South Asia (SAR in the graph below) face particularly pronounced barriers to starting their own businesses despite significant economic growth in previous decades ⤵️

Regularly reading summaries of other research, particularly outside your typical area of work, does wonders for your own writing.

Subscribe to our newsletter and you can choose from five articles to read every week :) voxdev.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=...

Pitching research findings at the right level is key. This requires two changes to the majority of paper summaries I see:
1. Don’t jump from impossibly broad introductions straight into the methodology
2. Don’t end impossibly narrow – think critically about external validity