David Evans
daveevansphd.bsky.social
David Evans
@daveevansphd.bsky.social

Economist at the Center for Global Development. Formerly: Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, RAND Corporation, & my local movie theater. I mostly share about international development research plus books and movies. Views mine, not my employer's. .. more

Education 40%
Computer science 27%
Pinned
"Ten Findings about Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean" economia.lse.ac.uk/articles/10.... Now out in Economía (the LACEA journal)

Great to see my friend @owenozier.bsky.social capturing a prize in this year's @econ5k.bsky.social!

An entire social science paper, synthesized from nothing in one hour.

I see academic researchers very excited about this.

It seems to me catastrophic. “Flooding the zone“ will break our strained systems to distinguish between good and bad research.

I hope you’ll explain why I’m wrong. (Really)

"The huge economic and educational benefits of gaining early access to lifesaving vaccines and therapeutics make them high-return investments, despite the risk that they may not work." www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/m... by Crystallin & @rglenner.bsky.social (@cgdev.org)

A thoughtful piece on Venezuela from my colleague Dany Bahar: "After all the destruction, repression and displacement, anything less than a full transition to democracy would mean failing Venezuelans once again." thehill.com/opinion/inte...

Reposted by David K. Evans

Most read articles of 2025 in the #JournalofAfricanEconomies

1️⃣ Education in Africa: What Are We Learning?
✒️ @daveevansphd.bsky.social & Amina Mendez Acosta
Volume 30, Issue 01, January 2021 #openaccess
doi.org/10.1093/jae/...

🧐The list: www.csae.ox.ac.uk/article/most...
Education in Africa: What Are We Learning?
Abstract. Countries across Africa continue to face major challenges in education. In this review, we examine 145 recent empirical studies (from 2014 onward
doi.org

I love this post!
New post!

There was a lot of innovation in medicine and biomedical research this year, and I've tried to summarize the biggest ones in this blogpost.

Medical breakthroughs in 2025. Plus a serious note at the end.
www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/medical-br...
Medical breakthroughs in 2025
... and a happy new year.
www.scientificdiscovery.dev

Bullying in Italian primary schools: "Boys are more likely than girls to report both perpetrating and experiencing bullying" BUT "girls are significantly more likely to report victimization in response to an increased share of male peers."

www.iza.org/publications...

What do economists do?

abdouecon.github.io/research/pub...

6 career types and how to enter them, from Abdoulaye Ndiaye

Where do we find the earliest national estimates of child poverty? www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/b... UK, late 1600s.

(from David Gordon's history of child poverty measurement)

Paradox of measurement www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1... "This is the paradox of measurement: to make something known it must be countable, but if it has not already been translated into commensurable and quantifiable terms, it is difficult to count and may remain unnoticed and uncounted."

We found similar challenges in Bangladesh. openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/pub... "Few students (21 percent) have access to government provided online learning programs."

When we hear talk about the promise of AI for providing tutors to student, just remember how many of the most vulnerable students still lack digital access. repository.gyaanarth.com/pdfs/ijriss/...

The challenge of language-of-instruction policy in Malawi journals.udsm.ac.tz/index.php/jl...

I can't argue with that!

I get that the movie doesn't honor the style of Breathless (it's clearly very carefully planned), but FWIW, I knew nothing about Zoey Deutch going in, and having just watched Breathless a couple of weeks before, I thought Nouvelle Vague was both fun and seemed to capture the chaos.
For econ RCTs: Make your pre-analysis plan public in the AEA registry before submitting to a journal. Most people set them as private initially and never update that. If you're lucky, referees ask the editor to nag you. More often, no one knows what's prespecified, increasing chance of rejection.

UNESCO (2016): "Teachers also receive little training in behavior management skills which would help them to better cope with large class sizes." teachertaskforce.org/sites/defaul...

Barnes-Story et al (2025): "Teaching & managing large classes" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Finland: "Admission to [initial teacher education] programmes ... is highly competitive, with acceptance rates around 10%." www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... from Varis et al

Still #1 on most viewed online at Journal of African Economies: "Education in Africa: What Are We Learning?" academic.oup.com/jae/article/...

I saw that one twice in the theater with different friends, I liked it so much.

Paper submitted! #GetYourManuscriptOut Maiden voyage for this one...
a paper airplane with the words `` first trip '' written below it .
ALT: a paper airplane with the words `` first trip '' written below it .
media.tenor.com

It ends up being 4-5 per week, I think. Thoroughly enjoyed! Maybe I should do some work this year...

I do! But I'll warn you: lots of heterogeneity in genre and quality... :) www.goodreads.com/review/list/...

I watched more than 225 movies in 2025. These were my favorites. letterboxd.com/daveevans/fi...

What were yours?

Here are many of the books I read or listened to in 2025.

My rating system:
5=Mind-blowing
4=Great
3=Good. (And when I say good, I mean it was actually good. I liked it!)
2=Okay. (No regrets on a 2 or higher, but not running around recommending it.)
1=Boo!

Your faves? Your hates?
I often hear about how tough it is for kids to learn to read in a language they don't understand. True!

Also tough for kids to learn to read from a teacher who doesn't speak the language they're supposed to be teaching in. wiki.santafe.edu/images/e/ec/...

I gathered a group of 10+ very game fellow viewers to go and see the new Anaconda in theaters, and we howled with laughter. A great one to watch with friends.

letterboxd.com/daveevans/fi...

(I never saw the original Anaconda and still thoroughly enjoyed this.)