Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
Fellow at the Development Policy Centre. Aid, political economy, Melanesian politics. My writing at: https://devpolicy.org/author/terencewood/
Political science
40%
Sociology
28%
Fifteen Years
xkcd.com
i’m not crying you’re crying
xkcd: Fifteen Years
xkcd: Fifteen Years
Reposted by Lawrence F. Katz, Dan Goldhaber, Will Jennings , and 12 more Lawrence F. Katz, Dan Goldhaber, Will Jennings, Brendan Nyhan, Scott L. Greer, Michael A. Clemens, Nathan Nunn, Jason N. Doctor, Joshua Goodman, Aaron Sojourner, Amy W. Ando, Juan Moreno‐Cruz, Terence Wood, Evan Roberts, Peter Bergman
Republican Support and Economic Hardship: The Enduring Effects Of the Opioid Epidemic
Abstract. In this paper, we establish a causal connection between two of the most salient social developments in the United States over the past decades: t
doi.org
Recently accepted by #QJE, “Republican Support and Economic Hardship: The Enduring Effects of the Opioid Epidemic,” by Arteaga (@caroartc.bsky.social) and Barone (@vickybarone.bsky.social): doi.org/10.1093/qje/...
Argument well made in this NY-Times op-ed that China, whilst not benevolent, is not an expansionary power. Link to interesting journal article too. It would be great if the Australia/NZ Fright Industry paid attention. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/o...
Opinion | The Thucydides Trap Is Coming for America
www.nytimes.com
Might be of interest @robertwrighter.bsky.social
Opinion | The Thucydides Trap Is Coming for America
www.nytimes.com
Argument well made in this NY-Times op-ed that China, whilst not benevolent, is not an expansionary power. Link to interesting journal article too. It would be great if the Australia/NZ Fright Industry paid attention. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/o...
Reposted by Terence Wood
“Food, doctors, and everything else are desperately needed”
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
An interesting new paper: would people be willing to trade off democracy against things such as affluence and security? journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Beyond aid part 3: rethinking the role of private finance from trillions to realism - Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre
The ”billions to trillions” narrative has faded and the focus has now shifted to global public finance, says Nicola Nixon et al.
devpolicy.org
File under: "well who could have seen that coming". The Billions to Trillions agenda of using aid to crowd in private finance for development hasn't worked: devpolicy.org/beyond-aid-p...
Tying New Zealand aid is an awful idea
Some people want New Zealand to tie its aid. Here's why that would be a bad idea
open.substack.com
New Zealand businesses are lobbying the government to tie more of its aid to the Pacific. In this post I explain why this would be a terrible idea: open.substack.com/pub/terencew...?
Reposted by Terence Wood
Pacific faces major aid shortfall as NZ and Western donors scale back - Lowy Institute report
Lowy Institute report says New Zealand is expected to reduce its overseas aid funding by about 35 percent in the next two years.
www.rnz.co.nz
Dr @terencewoodnz.bsky.social “said that New Zealand's aid approach, amid an ever-increasing scarcity, is becoming more transactional rather than being based on a larger vision for long-term outcomes”. 😬
www.rnz.co.nz/internationa...
www.rnz.co.nz/internationa...
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Oct 22
MrBeast is Aid's Biggest Spokesperson
If you're surprised, it's because you're living in yesterday's media environment
timhirschelburns.substack.com
Welcome to the new world of aid influencing. This from @timhirschelburns.bsky.social makes me think I need to get out more often, or actually stay in more often and watch YouTube: timhirschelburns.substack.com/p/mrbeast-is...
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Oct 22
electiondataarchive.org
Note to self THEA (used to be CLEA) has election data on a lot of Pacific countries: electiondataarchive.org/wp-content/u...
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Oct 21
The Social and Individual Effects of Homeless Shelter: Evidence from Temporary Shelter Provision
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
More interesting research on NBER: homeless shelters help www.nber.org/papers/w34376
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Oct 21
The Impact of Cellphone Bans in Schools on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Florida
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
Interesting research: cellphone bans are not unproblematic, but they do seem to lead to better education outcomes: www.nber.org/papers/w34388
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Oct 14
Other Official Flows: Why More Than ODA Matters
In this blog I highlight that by ignoring Other Official Flows (roughly, official finance not concessional enough to be counted as ODA), analysts are significantly misinterpreting trends in developmen...
www.cgdev.org
Prediction: this is all going to end in tears - www.cgdev.org/blog/other-o...
jamelle
@jamellebouie.net
· Oct 8
Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.
apnews.com
i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...
Reposted by Terence Wood
Palestine and the Pacific • Nic Maclellan
Why have island nations been so prominent among supporters of Israel?
insidestory.org.au
Last month, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka opened Fiji’s new embassy in Jerusalem. My Inside Story report looks at recent Pacific diplomatic support for Israel - a sharp contrast to international condemnation of Israeli policy in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
insidestory.org.au/palestine-an...
insidestory.org.au/palestine-an...
Australians are becoming more supportive of aid – slowly - Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre
Australians on the right and the left of the political spectrum are now more supportive of aid than they once were, says Terence Wood.
devpolicy.org
Australians are becoming more supportive of aid spending over time. My latest blog post from our public opinion survey data. Very surprised by trends among conservative voters: devpolicy.org/australians-... @amitam.bsky.social
Mythbusters: Development economics edition
Economic research plays a very useful role in testing our priors and establishing when widely held beliefs turn out to be false.
voxdev.org
Very useful discussion of some key development economics myths: voxdev.org/topic/mythbu...
Fossil Fuels and Fossilized Minds
What’s driving the doomed attempt to revive coal?
open.substack.com
Of windmills and windbags, @pkrugman.bsky.social debunks nonsense from the usual suspects on the rise of renewable energy and the decline of coal: open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Sep 25
A New and Unfamiliar Sea: Politics, Geopolitics and the 2024 General Elections in Solomon Islands
The 2024 elections in Solomon Islands received an unusual amount of international attention, much of it focused on China. The elections were unusual in a range of ways: parties appeared to become m...
www.tandfonline.com
Thanks to the New Cold War the 2024 Solomon Islands elections ended up on the international stage. How did things work out? A lot better than the pundits predicted. My new open access journal article on what happened: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Sep 24
Proposed war authorization could allow Trump to target 60+ countries
An 'insanely broad' draft AUMF could provide the president with wide latitude to go after supposed 'narco-terrorists'
responsiblestatecraft.org
NZ and Australia on this list. Overreach. responsiblestatecraft.org/drug-war-aumf/
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Sep 23
Globally, an increasing share of people say they feel safer walking at home at night, though it varies from country to country obviously, and is gendered too.
www.gallup.com/analytics/35...
www.gallup.com/analytics/35...
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Sep 18
U.S. to Cut Out Nongovernmental Groups in Refocusing Health Aid
www.nytimes.com
The latest on US aid. Likely lessons to emerge from this: vertical funds are ok actually if they get medicines to people in need; in poorly governed states NGOs are a good alternative; well given aid doesn't cause poor governance, domestic political economy does. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/u...
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Sep 15
A blast from the past. What Australia thought about the Pacific during the Old Cold War (1987): nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3381...
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Sep 15
pngnri.org
This is very helpful. From PNG's NRI a bibliography of all chapters, papers, studies etc. on elections in Papua New Guinea: pngnri.org/images/Publi...
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Sep 10
File under trivial curiosities: in the 2002 general election in Papua New Guinea a party called National Front stood 30 candidates. My guess is that their ideology was somewhat different from their northern hemisphere namesakes.
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Sep 10
As censure increases over war in Gaza, Israel finds support among Pacific Islands
Countries including Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Tonga have given Israel vital backing at the UN
www.theguardian.com
Interesting on attitudes to Israel in the Pacific. In North Malaita there are actually people who believe they are lost tribe of Israelites. Other support is to do with evangelical Christianity and the internet. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
The Pocket Rescission Gambit: Trump's Strategy to Cut Foreign Aid Without Congressional Approval
Official word came Friday that the administration would pursue a pocket rescission of $4.9 billion in international assistance funding. The move sets the stage for a larger fight over Congress’s const...
www.cgdev.org
What might the Trump administration's proposed pocket rescission mean for aid flows? Good explainer on @cgdev.org: www.cgdev.org/blog/pocket-...
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Aug 29
Assessing Australia's climate adaptation aid - Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre
In the rush to increase climate finance, Australia is focusing more attention on climate adaptation in places where it is needed less, say Wood and Leng.
devpolicy.org
Is Australian climate adaptation aid really on the rise? Alyssa Leng and I dug into the data. Much of the rise is due to recoding of projects. To make matters worse projects are now more likely to have an adaptation focus in countries less vulnerable to climate change: devpolicy.org/assessing-au...
Terence Wood
@terencewoodnz.bsky.social
· Aug 29
New Zealand's development NGOs need to take action on Gaza: terencew.substack.com/p/new-zealan...