Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Andrew Zeitlin

The JHR @j-humanresources.bsky.social · 2d

Cash grants beat job training? A 3.5 year study in Rwanda by Craig McIntosh & @andrewzeitlin.io found both helped youth start businesses, but COVID wiped out half the gains. Neither escaped poverty. Liquidity matters – but so do bigger structural barriers.
doi.org/10.3368/jhr....

Skills and Liquidity Barriers to Youth Employment: Medium-term Evidence from a Cash Benchmarking Experiment in Rwanda
Craig McIntosh and Andrew Zeitlin
We present results of an experiment benchmarking a workforce training program against cash transfers for underemployed young adults in Rwanda. 3.5 years after treatment, the training program enhances productive time use and asset investment, while the cash transfers drive productive assets, livestock values, savings, and subjective well-being. Both interventions have powerful effects on entrepreneurship. But while labor, sales, and profits all go up, the implied wage rate in these businesses is low. Our results suggest that credit is a major barrier to self-employment, but deeper reforms may be required to enable entrepreneurship to provide a transformative pathway out of poverty.

1 2

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Aug 14

And the link to the job details and application is here: www.jobinrwanda.com/job/senior-r...

Feel free to reach out with any questions!

STARS Scale-up Advisor | Job in Rwanda

www.jobinrwanda.com

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Aug 14

More details about the ongoing partnership to learn about and deploy teacher contracts at scale are here: gui2de.georgetown.edu/our-work/edu...

Supporting Teacher Achievement in Rwandan Schools (STARS) - Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development and Evaluation

gui2de.georgetown.edu

1

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Aug 14

This work builds on our prior randomized, controlled trial (Leaver, @owenozier.bsky.social , Serneels, and Zeitlin, AER 2021 www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...) and multiple rounds of A/B testing in government systems.

Recruitment, Effort, and Retention Effects of Performance Contracts for Civil Servants: Experimental Evidence from Rwandan Primary Schools

(July 2021) - This paper reports on a two-tiered experiment designed to separately identify the selection and effort margins of pay for performance (P4P). At the recruitment stage, teacher labor marke...

www.aeaweb.org

1

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Aug 14

🚨 COOL JOB!!! 🚨

In Rwanda, @poverty-action.bsky.social and gui2de are hiring a Scale-Up Advisor to work within the MINEDUC to scale up a revised teacher performance pay contract ("imihigo"). We're looking for an excellent manager to help lead this initiative to take evidence into policy at scale.

1 7 5

Reposted by Andrew Zeitlin

Filipe Campante @filipecampante.bsky.social · May 22

This is the stuff of authoritarian regimes. There isn't even the pretense that this is anything but persecution, unbound by law.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · May 22

Breaking News: The Trump administration halted Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, a major escalation in its battle with the school.

Trump Administration Halts Harvard’s Ability to Enroll International Students

www.nytimes.com

8 120 380

Reposted by Andrew Zeitlin

Charles Kenny @charlesjkenny.bsky.social · May 21

A few points with regard to Secretary Rubio's testimony about US foreign assistance on the Hill the last couple of days... a thread.

2 16 35

Reposted by Andrew Zeitlin

VoxDev @voxdev.bsky.social · Apr 15

🆕 Do carbon offsets work? Evidence from the world’s largest offset programme

Today on VoxDev, Raphael Calel (Georgetown University), Jonathan Colmer (University of Virginia), Antoine Dechezleprêtre (OECD) & Matthieu Glachant (Mines Paris) outline research on India: voxdev.org/topic/energy...

Do carbon offsets work? Evidence from the world’s largest offset programme

Carbon offset programmes allow polluters to pay others to reduce emissions on their behalf. In theory, this can achieve the same emissions reductions at a lower cost, but only if the payment actually ...

voxdev.org

4 5

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Apr 10

Craig McIntosh @gpsucsd.bsky.social and I wrote about a conversation that was ongoing about efficiency at USAID -- and what it might mean for US bilateral aid going forward:

VoxDev @voxdev.bsky.social · Apr 8

🆕 Cash transfers can outperform more complex economic aid programmes

Today on VoxDev, Craig McIntosh (UC San Diego) & @andrewzeitlin.io (Georgetown University) outline research on Rwanda: voxdev.org/topic/social...

Cash transfers can outperform more complex economic aid programmes

Benchmarking multi-dimensional in-kind programmes against cost-equivalent unconditional cash transfers reveals that cash can be more effective in improving consumption and asset accumulation.

voxdev.org

1 5

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Mar 29

Alternatively if you're building up a figure incrementally, it might be best to do within the tikz figures, at the level of individual elements. The `visible on` property of \draw, \node, \fill, etc., can control what overlays these elements appear on. I've had some luck with that.

2

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Mar 29

If you want to replace these figures, I imagine you could wrap your \input{} statements in \only or \onslide commands, as in

\only<1>{inputs/axes.tex}
\only<2>{inputs/MC.tex}

2 1

Reposted by Andrew Zeitlin

Steven Mazie @stevenmazie.bsky.social · Mar 5

BREAKING: Supreme Court DENIES President Trump‘s emergency bid to cancel nearly $2 billion in USAID spending. The vote is 5-4.

160 1.3K 5.9K

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Mar 4

xkcd.com/927

2

Reposted by Andrew Zeitlin

Esteban J. Quiñones, Ph.D. @estebanjq.bsky.social · Feb 25

The Demographic and Heath Survey program received their USAID termination email last night

www.linkedin.com/posts/caren-...

3 34 51

Reposted by Andrew Zeitlin

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Jan 27

I don’t have a definitive source on this yet but it looks like NSF review panels have been canceled.

Sixty-some years ago, Eisenhower transformed higher education because he viewed a science education gap as the single greatest threat to national security.

This is absolutely an act of sabotage.

150 1.9K 7K

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Dec 12

TARL?

1 1

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Dec 11

cc #econ_ra

Sara Lowes @saralowes.bsky.social · Dec 10

Please consider applying to a pre-doc position at UCSD. Projects at the intersection of development and culture in Africa with Eduardo Montero Nathan Nunn James Robinson & others. Possible fieldwork in DRC. French skills preferred. Thank you! employment.ucsd.edu/research-ass...

Research Assistant - 133553

Apply for Research Assistant - 133553 position at UC San Diego in Remote, National on https://employment.ucsd.edu/

employment.ucsd.edu

1

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Dec 8

Cc #econ_ra

Chris Barrett @cbb2cornell.bsky.social · Dec 7

Please share ...
CIDER development economics pre-doc fellows program now accepting applications for a July 2025 start date. Come work with me, Jenny Aker, John Hoddinott, Martina Occelli, Heather Schofield, Joanna Upton, @johanneshaushofer.com, and more cornell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/CornellCaree...

Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Cornell Collaborative for International Development Economics Research (CIDER), Cornell University

CIDER: The Cornell Collaborative for International Development Economics Research (CIDER) is a new cross-campus venture at Cornell University encompassing 23 faculty from multiple units across the Cor...

cornell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com

3 6

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Nov 19

Thanks Aaron. This is a really useful public service.

1 4

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Nov 19

There’s a feed! bsky.app/profile/did:...

1 3 12

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Nov 13

#econsky with recent growth on this platform it seems like a good time to re-up that we're hiring at Georgetown's McCourt School, in _quantiative social science_ (including econ, polisci, computer science, etc)

Come join our growing school in a beautiful new building!

apply.interfolio.com/156634

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

2 16

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Nov 12

thanks - a really helpful list. Taking (self)nominations?

1

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Nov 7

-> Short-run findings from our parallel benchmarking experiment in job training here: doi.org/10.1016/j.jd...

Redirecting

doi.org

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Nov 7

-> Popular summary of this work here: www.vox.com/world/2018/9...

The small study in Rwanda that could change the way the US does foreign aid

A nutrition program went head to head with cash.

www.vox.com

1 3

Andrew Zeitlin @andrewzeitlin.io · Nov 7

(bringing this across from the other site)

Thrilled to see Craig's and my original cash benchmarking experiment featured in the EJ this month (doi.org/10.1093/ej/u...).

1 3 13