Yale Economic Growth Center

In a new working paper (ungated EGC link in comments), Patrick Agte, Daniel R. Morales, PhD, EGC affiliate Christopher Neilson, Sebastián Otero & Gautam Rao ask what factors influence a national scale-up of an effective program.

In a national experiment in the Dominican Republic scaling an effective education program with school principals: "We find precise null effects of sharing research evidence, providing modest financial incentives, or offering implementation assistance to principals. In contrast, additional reminder calls increased implementation by 20 percentage points."

Testing what gets bureaucrats to implement mandated programs. Incentives, evidence, support: zero effect. Reminder phone calls: +20 percentage points. Attention matters, from Patrick Agte, Daniel R. Morales, Christopher Neilson, Sebastián Otero, and Gautam Rao https://www.nber.org/papers/w35291

Come work with us & Yale Inclusion Economics (please share with interested colleagues!):

US-based:
(Predoctoral) Research Fellow in Development and Experimental Economics: https://ie.yale.edu/opportunities/development-and-experimental-economics-research-fellow

Kenya-Based:
Research Associate/Predoctoral Fellow:
https://ie.yale.edu/opportunities/research-associatepredoctoral-fellow-yale-inclusion-economics

Research Scientist (postdoctoral):
https://egc.yale.edu/opportunities/inclusion-economics-research-scientist

And see all of Inclusion Economics' current job opportunities, including in India and Nepal, here:
https://ie.yale.edu/opportunities-ie

Explore Opportunities Explore the current job openings at Yale, as well as Inclusion Economics India Centre at IFMR and Inclusion Economics Nepal at Governance Lab.

In 1974, Yale students staged hunger strikes and teach-ins to raise awareness of global hunger. One of the lasting effects was the return of farmer-turned-economist Robert Evenson to Yale University & Yale Department of Economics, where he would spent the next 30 years working to help feed the world.

Read about his work bringing empirical approaches to agricultural economics 👇

https://egc.yale.edu/news/260603/robert-evenson-farmer-scholar-who-brought-agricultural-economics-yale

📣 New working paper! Do the impacts of revolutionary governments persist in post-conflict institutions?

Bhishma K. Bhusal, Michael Callen, Rohini Pande, Soledad Artiz Prillaman, Deepak Singhania & Apurva Subedi found that in Nepal's transition out of two decades of conflict, areas that were previously exposed to more minority-inclusive rebel governance were more inclusive and better able to deliver services under the new national democratic system.

A new paper in the Cowles Econ Yale working paper series.

https://cowles.yale.edu/research/cfdp-2529-peoples-war-peoples-rule-rebel-governance-and-foundations-inclusive-democracy

🎓 Meet the class of 2026 and please join us in congratulating them! 🎉

EGC Celebrates the Class of 2026, their achievements and future plans A diverse group of students passionate about international development – Economics PhDs, IDE masters students, and our own Postgraduate Associates and Interns – are moving on. The Economic Growth Center community congratulates them on their achievements and looks forward to their next steps.

We are pleased to announce 𝟮 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 as part of the Firms, Trade, and Development conference, co-hosted by the IGC and the Yale Economic Growth Center (EGC), in collaboration with the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale and the Global School of Sustainability at LSE. The conference will take place in person at Yale University (New Haven, CT, USA) in September 2026.

📄 1. Call for Papers: 𝗜𝗚𝗖/𝗘𝗚𝗖 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗺𝘀, 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
Conference dates: 10–11 September 2026

We invite submissions on topics related to 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺𝘀, 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁, with particular encouragement for papers focusing on climate, energy, and environmental issues.

🗓 Submission deadline: 1 June 2026: https://www.theigc.org/call-papers-igcegc-conference-firms-trade-and-development-2026

🎓 2. Call for Applications: 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆-𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽 (PEDL Growth Research Platform (GRP))
Workshop date: 10 September 2026 (morning session)

As part of the conference week, PEDL will host a half-day workshop for working on firms, trade, and development.
The workshop aims to bring together junior scholars (PhD awarded, pre-tenure or within 8 years of PhD) to present work and engage with senior researchers across the PEDL–IGC–EGC network.

We welcome submissions of:
📌 Work-in-progress papers
📌 Full papers

🗓 Submission deadline: 1 June 2026: https://www.theigc.org/call-papers-early-career-researchers-workshop

New! Researchers Kexin Feng and Pablo Valenzuela-Casasempere are using the tools of economic history to understand how governments can spur technological innovation and boost employment.

Kexin Feng and Pablo Valenzuela Casasempere on using economic history to inform current policy EGC postdocs Kexin Feng and Pablo Valenzuela Casasempere combine historical and economic methods to research how economies evolve across time and space.

Recent EGC Kuznets visitors Girija Borker (of the World Bank) & Ieda Matavelli (of the University of New South Wales) discuss their research on gender in development, how their backgrounds growing up in India & Brazil inform their research, and what it takes for research to make change in the world.

In Conversation: Girija Borker & Ieda Matavelli on gender, education, and labor Two researchers discuss how gender norms and constraints can limit economic opportunities and outcomes – and how policy can respond.

Despite economic growth in India, gender gaps in the labor force persist. Charity Troyer Moore and EGC's Aishwarya Ratan review recent research on what factors might be responsible and the economic gains the could be unlocked by addressing gender-based distortions in the workforce.

Beyond participation: Tackling the misallocation of women’s talent in India While India’s female labour force participation rate has increased rapidly in recent years, women’s labour appears to be misallocated across the economy, to the detriment of aggregate output. In this post, Lakshmi Ratan and Troyer Moore draw on recent evidence and put forth three ways in which t...