Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jules Gazeaud @gazeaud.bsky.social · 10d

A huge thanks for all your support @economeager.bsky.social. We are very grateful!!

Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Rafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social · 10d

this wonderful paper uses our R package, baggr, for Bayesian evidence aggregation! Give it a look :) !!

VoxDev @voxdev.bsky.social · 10d

🆕 Does index insurance work? Insights from eight experiments in agriculture

Today on VoxDev, Pauline Castaing (World Bank) & @gazeaud.bsky.social (@cerdi.bsky.social) discuss the impact of index insurance on smallholder productivity in developing countries: voxdev.org/topic/agricu...

Does index insurance work? Insights from eight experiments in agriculture

Index insurance can help smallholder farmers take on more productive risks, but its impacts remain modest, uncertain, and highly context dependent.

voxdev.org

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

David McKenzie @dmckenzie.bsky.social · 10d

In today's blog, I discuss 3 ways for international migration to be part of a structural transformation policy: 1) as an industry itself; 2) training people abroad in the skills to develop a new industry at home; and 3) through immigration (eg Start-up Chile) blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

International Migration as a Structural Transformation Policy

blogs.worldbank.org

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

VoxDev @voxdev.bsky.social · 10d

🆕 Does index insurance work? Insights from eight experiments in agriculture

Today on VoxDev, Pauline Castaing (World Bank) & @gazeaud.bsky.social (@cerdi.bsky.social) discuss the impact of index insurance on smallholder productivity in developing countries: voxdev.org/topic/agricu...

Does index insurance work? Insights from eight experiments in agriculture

Index insurance can help smallholder farmers take on more productive risks, but its impacts remain modest, uncertain, and highly context dependent.

voxdev.org

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Jules Gazeaud @gazeaud.bsky.social · 10d

Interested in agricultural insurance, meta-analysis, and external validity? Read my VoxDev blog with Pauline Castaing, based on an article published earlier this year in the JDE. voxdev.org/topic/agricu...

Does index insurance work? Insights from eight experiments in agriculture

Index insurance can help smallholder farmers take on more productive risks, but its impacts remain modest, uncertain, and highly context dependent.

voxdev.org

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Dean Eckles @eckles.bsky.social · Aug 28

I am teaching a PhD seminar this fall which attempts to put a decision-theoretic lens (or lenses) on research design.

So e.g., statistical decision theory, eliciting beliefs & preferences, and rational benchmarks.

Here's a draft syllabus docs.google.com/document/d/1...

What's missing?

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Jules Gazeaud @gazeaud.bsky.social · Aug 27

Thanks @berkozler12.bsky.social. Your various blog posts on the topic were essential in my thinking. In particular these two: blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva... and blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

List Experiments for Sensitive Questions – a Methods Bleg

About a year ago, I wrote a blog post on issues surrounding data collection and measurement. In it, I talked about “list experiments” for sensitive questions, about which I was not sold at the time. H...

blogs.worldbank.org

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Jules Gazeaud @gazeaud.bsky.social · Aug 26

How to get honest answers to sensitive survey questions? Our WP introduces the ballot-bag, a new method that is both precise and unbiased, improving on existing approaches such as list experiments. Joint work with Bruno Crépon and Ahmed Elsayed. #econsky www.iza.org/publications...

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

michaelbarenboim.bsky.social @michaelbarenboim.bsky.social · Aug 11

Israel has normalised killing journalists, like it normalised killing medical workers, like it normalised destroying hospitals and schools, like it normalised killing the equivalent of a classroom of children per day.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Anas al-Sharif, prominent Al Jazeera correspondent, among five journalists killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza

Israel admits deliberate attack on the journalist, known for frontline coverage, in a strike on a tent outside al-Shifa hospital

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Anita Gohdes @argohdes.bsky.social · Aug 11

I have studied the targeting of journalists for many years, but the scale and public display of these killings is truly shocking: “Israel admits deliberate attack on the journalist, known for frontline coverage, in a strike on a tent outside al-Shifa hospital“

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Anas al-Sharif, prominent Al Jazeera correspondent, among five journalists killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza

Israel admits deliberate attack on the journalist, known for frontline coverage, in a strike on a tent outside al-Shifa hospital

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Christine Binzel @christinebinzel.bsky.social · Aug 3

Israeli political scientist Lihi Ben Shitrit:

"The more I learn about genocide, the more shocked and embarrassed I am by my own ignorance. Once I actively tried to be better informed about genocide, the picture in Gaza became terrifyingly clear."

forward.com/opinion/7598...

As an Israeli political scientist, I resisted thinking this war was a genocide. Here's what changed my mind

The incitement for genocide in the Israeli public sphere is undeniable. So why are so many of us liberal Jews so reluctant?

forward.com

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

David McKenzie @dmckenzie.bsky.social · Jul 28

My practical tips for designing, implementing, and analyzing powerful experiments. In today's blog I summarize a new paper I've written for a special issue on power calculations. A key message is that it does not make sense to talk of “the” power of an experiment. blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

My practical tips for designing and analyzing powerful experiments

blogs.worldbank.org

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · Jul 24

I've been working on a new tool, Refine, to make scholars more productive. If you're interested in being among the very first to try the beta, please read on.

Refine leverages the best current AI models to draw your attention to potential errors and clarity issues in research paper drafts.

1/

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · Jul 21

A horrifying statement published today by the Editorial Committee of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.

"Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die"

Translation from French to English by @cnorristrent.bsky.social:

Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die
July 21, 2025

AFP has been working with 1 writer, 3 photographers and 6 videographers, all freelance, in the Gaza Strip since its staff journalists left in 2024.

Along with a few others, they are now the only ones left to report what is happening in the Gaza Strip. The international press has been banned from entering the territory for nearly two years.

We refuse to watch them die.

One of them, Bashar, has been working with AFP since 2010, first as a fixer, then freelance photographer, and since 2024, as lead photographer. On July 19th he managed to post a message on Facebook: “I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work anymore.”

Bashar, 30, works & lives in the same conditions as all Gazans, moving from one refugee camp to another under Israeli bombings. For > a year he’s lived in utter destitution, working at extreme risk to his life. Hygiene is a major issue for him, with recurring bouts of severe intestinal illness.

Since Feb, Bashar’s been living in the ruins of his home in Gaza City with his mother, 4 brothers & sisters and the family of one of his brothers. Their house is devoid of any furnishings, except a few cushions. On Sunday morning, he reported that one of his brothers had “fallen, due to hunger.”

Even though these journalists receive a monthly salary from AFP, it’s no longer enough to buy food, or they have to pay completely exorbitant prices. The banking system has collapsed, and those who exchange money via online bank accounts charge a commission of up to 40%.

AFP no longer has the ability to provide them with a vehicle and there is not enough fuel to allow these journalists to travel for their reporting. Driving a car means becoming a target for Israeli airstrikes. AFP reporters therefore travel on foot or by donkey cart. (alt txt continued in next post)

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Joey Cherdarchuk - Obumbratta @obumbratta.com · Jul 16

Since you folks seem to like lengthy threads, let's look at visualizing distributions. I'll visualize one data set 16 ways and give some other examples of each chart type. #dataViz

DISTRIBUTIONS: 16 ways to visualize them

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Alice Evans @draliceevans.bsky.social · Jul 3

Call me basic, but my theory of fertility can be condensed to 6 bullet points:

t.co/uxM6qq4lwx

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Oliver Hanney @olihanney.bsky.social · Jun 30

Additionality: What it means & why it matters @voxdev.bsky.social

Before taking credit for offsetting carbon/reducing emissions, organisations need to ask: Would this have happened anyway?

Non-additional projects are common, but economists have offered solutions ⤵️ voxdev.org/topic/energy...

Additionality: What it means & why it’s crucial in the fight against climate change

Before taking credit for offsetting carbon or reducing emissions, organisations need to ask: Would this have happened anyway?

voxdev.org

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · Jun 20

🚨 New draft 🚨

Measuring the Emperor's Clothes: Estimating Latent Opposition to Authoritarian Regimes with Randomized Response Qs

Want to know how much support a dictator really has? You might have heard of a list experiment... but we've got something *so* much better.

Link: osf.io/preprints/so...

our abstract: While many studies of public opinion in authoritarian regimes rely on list experi-
ments to overcome sensitivity bias, we show in this paper that a different technique,
the crosswise variant of the randomized response design, has superior performance
at measuring latent opposition to authoritarian regimes with fewer assumptions.
To show the power of this design, we randomly assigned a panel of 924 Tunisian
survey respondents to receive either a direct question about support for Tunisian
President Kais Saied or a randomized response question. Our results reveal that
between 10% to 30% of Tunisians oppose the president but would not report this
opposition on a direct question. We further employed a Bayesian parameterization
of the randomized response design to decompose the sensitivity bias and model
latent opposition and bias as a function of survey covariates. We find that ideolog-
ical and policy disagreement with the president strongly predicts latent opposition,
but that these same measures are negatively related to sensitivity bias. As a result,
we show that respondents who are ideologically closer to the president–that is, the
moderate opposition–tend to be more afraid of reporting their resistance to the
regime than the more radical opposition.

estimated latent support for kais saied from randomized response model -- about 50%

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Oliver Hanney @olihanney.bsky.social · May 22

Unintended consequences: When policy backfires in unforeseen ways

I have written on @voxdev.bsky.social about what we can learn from when policies go wrong, from the war on drugs, biodiversity, digitisation, prisons, and more: voxdev.org/topic/uninte...

Unintended consequences: When policy backfires in unforeseen ways

Evidence on VoxDev has shed light on many examples of unintended consequences in economics. What have we learned from when things go wrong?

voxdev.org

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

undercoverhist.bsky.social @undercoverhist.bsky.social · May 16

A splendid 4 episodes series on PhD supervision from the "Ceteris Never Paribus" podcast

Produced by @mariabach.bsky.social, based on 2 years of interviews w/ supervisors & students, w/ fun, emotional & deep reflections about intellectual challenges and personal struggles

ceterisneverparibus.net

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Antoine Zalc @antoinezalc.bsky.social · May 5

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Dean Yang @deanyang.bsky.social · Apr 24

As cardinals gather to elect a new pope, I found Philip Shenon's new book, "Jesus Wept," to be fascinating reading! A biography of popes and history of Catholic Church from WW2 (Pius XII) to Pope Francis. Highly recommended!
@philipshenon.bsky.social
#EconSky #Religion

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Rachel Glennerster @rglenner.bsky.social · Apr 21

As I meet people from aid agencies around the world this week I will be making the case for a radical simplification in how we do aid:
fewer countries,
fewer projects,
radically simpler programs.

It was key takeaway from my time in govt. Read why.
www.cgdev.org/blog/radical...

Radical Simplification: A Practical Way to Get More Out of Limited Foreign Assistance Budgets

With major cuts to foreign assistance announced or anticipated in the US, the UK, and across the EU, and in the World Bank’s subsidized lending program, we must urgently work to get the most out of sh...

www.cgdev.org

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Reposted by Jules Gazeaud

Sebastien Desbureaux @sebadbx.bsky.social · Apr 17

Hi #econsky and conservation friends, if you need a hopeful story, the RCT we completed in eastern DRC might be for you. It is about a viable path to clean (electric) cooking, human development, and the protection of endangered wildlife, including mountain gorillas 🧵🧪 tinyurl.com/4jccmcaw

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