John Levendis
@johnlevendis.bsky.social
Economist and data science professor focusing on digital technology's effect on economic development.
Interests: IT4D, efficient markets, digital financial inclusion
Interests: IT4D, efficient markets, digital financial inclusion
What do F.A. Hayek and postcolonial development scholars have in common?
A lot more than I thought.
A lot more than I thought.
The (Indigenous) Knowledge Problem in Development Economics
There’s a curious overlap across ideological lines that few people seem to have noticed.
buff.ly
January 23, 2026 at 2:15 PM
What do F.A. Hayek and postcolonial development scholars have in common?
A lot more than I thought.
A lot more than I thought.
Prediction: Thanks to AI, academics will publish an exponentially greater number of research papers than ever before. Universities will soon double down on quality over quantity. AI automates writing routine correlational statistical papers. Their value will plummet.
January 20, 2026 at 2:15 PM
Prediction: Thanks to AI, academics will publish an exponentially greater number of research papers than ever before. Universities will soon double down on quality over quantity. AI automates writing routine correlational statistical papers. Their value will plummet.
New on Substack: "Collapse Your Instruments when using GMM". If you use Arellano-Bond GMM estimators, you're probably using too many instruments and getting biased estimates. Here's a short post on what to do about it. [https://buff.ly/qXfXdSH]
Collapse Your Instruments when using GMM
This one’s a bit inside baseball, so apologies in advance to readers who don’t regularly estimate dynamic panel models.
buff.ly
January 16, 2026 at 3:00 PM
New on Substack: "Collapse Your Instruments when using GMM". If you use Arellano-Bond GMM estimators, you're probably using too many instruments and getting biased estimates. Here's a short post on what to do about it. [https://buff.ly/qXfXdSH]
Happy to announce that my paper on dynamic panel GMM estimation was just published in Economics Bulletin. I show that using a collapsed instrument set outperforms the default settings across virtually all panel configurations of panel GMM. buff.ly/sFNyUwR
Default and collapsed instruments in dynamic panel GMM: a Monte Carlo comparison
www.accessecon.com
January 16, 2026 at 4:02 AM
Happy to announce that my paper on dynamic panel GMM estimation was just published in Economics Bulletin. I show that using a collapsed instrument set outperforms the default settings across virtually all panel configurations of panel GMM. buff.ly/sFNyUwR
I miss using em-dashes. Thanks, AI.
January 10, 2026 at 3:08 PM
I miss using em-dashes. Thanks, AI.
The Indian government had a plan. The economy had other ideas. Check out my new blog post on Chen (2026), Hayek, and why large-scale interventions produce surprises.
johnlevendis.substack.com/p/papers-wor...
johnlevendis.substack.com/p/papers-wor...
Papers Worth Reading: Chen (2026) and the Limits of Economic Planning
In my previous post, I summarized Yutong Chen’s 2026 paper on how India’s demonetization affected firms differently across sectors (click here). Service firms in digitally-prepared districts gained;…
open.substack.com
January 9, 2026 at 5:10 PM
The Indian government had a plan. The economy had other ideas. Check out my new blog post on Chen (2026), Hayek, and why large-scale interventions produce surprises.
johnlevendis.substack.com/p/papers-wor...
johnlevendis.substack.com/p/papers-wor...
India's digital currency push its service firms and hurt manufacturers, in the same cities, and at the same time. Yutong Chen's new paper shows why averages lie. johnlevendis.substack.com/p/papers-wor...
Papers Worth Reading: Chen (2026) on Digitalization’s Uneven Effects in India
johnlevendis.substack.com
January 3, 2026 at 5:40 PM
India's digital currency push its service firms and hurt manufacturers, in the same cities, and at the same time. Yutong Chen's new paper shows why averages lie. johnlevendis.substack.com/p/papers-wor...
The hardest part of teaching in 2025 isn't the material. It's figuring out how to teach when every assignment can be outsourced to a chatbot.
January 2, 2026 at 6:54 PM
The hardest part of teaching in 2025 isn't the material. It's figuring out how to teach when every assignment can be outsourced to a chatbot.
Spring semester is coming and I'm prepping my new Machine Learning class. Teaching AI, testing with pen and paper. LoL Anyone else switching back to in-person exams?
December 30, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Spring semester is coming and I'm prepping my new Machine Learning class. Teaching AI, testing with pen and paper. LoL Anyone else switching back to in-person exams?
Granted, we can't all agree on specific AI ethics principles. But why can't we just vote to get something the majority of us can agree on? Here's why...
open.substack.com/pub/johnleve...
open.substack.com/pub/johnleve...
Why Voting Won't Save AI Ethics Either
In my previous post, I explained how two ethical principles most people accept (individual autonomy and unanimous agreement) can be logically incompatible.
open.substack.com
December 26, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Granted, we can't all agree on specific AI ethics principles. But why can't we just vote to get something the majority of us can agree on? Here's why...
open.substack.com/pub/johnleve...
open.substack.com/pub/johnleve...
In 1970, Amartya Sen proved something that makes AI alignment much harder than most people realize. Two principles everyone agrees on (respect autonomy + respect unanimous preferences) can be mathematically incompatible. No algorithm can fix that.
johnlevendis.substack.com/p/why-we-can...
johnlevendis.substack.com/p/why-we-can...
Why We Can't Just Program Ethics Into AI
We agree: we should hard-code ethics into the AIs.
johnlevendis.substack.com
December 19, 2025 at 8:17 PM
In 1970, Amartya Sen proved something that makes AI alignment much harder than most people realize. Two principles everyone agrees on (respect autonomy + respect unanimous preferences) can be mathematically incompatible. No algorithm can fix that.
johnlevendis.substack.com/p/why-we-can...
johnlevendis.substack.com/p/why-we-can...
Just presented my paper on "IT and Stock Market Efficiency" at the GlobDev workshop at #ICIS2025. Great ideas on IT as a tool for political resistance and resilience. Thanks to @SajdaQ and Pitso Tsibolane for organizing. 10/10 would go again.
December 15, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Just presented my paper on "IT and Stock Market Efficiency" at the GlobDev workshop at #ICIS2025. Great ideas on IT as a tool for political resistance and resilience. Thanks to @SajdaQ and Pitso Tsibolane for organizing. 10/10 would go again.