After a hiatus, Ranil and Matt return to meet IN PERSON to discuss the learning crisis in developing countries and two papers: "Large Learning Gains in Pockets of Extreme Poverty: Experimental Evidence from Guinea Bissau" and "How much can we remedy very low learning levels in rural parts of low-income countries? Impact and generalizability of a multi-pronged para-teacher intervention from a cluster- randomized trial in The...

Ranil and Matt are joined by Kate Orkin from the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford to discuss Gender and the Dynamics of Economics Seminars by Pascaline Dupas, Alicia Sasser Modestino, Muriel Niederle, Justin Wolfers, and the Seminar Dynamics Collective. They talk about econ's gender problem, its seminar culture and Loki.  Paper: https://web.stanford.edu/~pdupas/Gender&SeminarDynamics.pdf Transcript:...

Matt and Ranil discuss Travis Baseler's "Hidden Income and the Perceived Returns to Migration" which investigates the degree to which urban migrants lie about their true income to their relatives back home, the degree to which this is driven by the pressures to remit money and, as a result, how people living in rural areas underestimate the returns to migration. They also argue about whether or not The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was quality Marvel content. Paper available here:...

Matt and Ranil take on NUDGE THEORY. They also discuss "RCTs to Scale: Comprehensive Evidence from Two Nudge Units" by Stefano DellaVigna and Elizabeth Linos, a paper comparing the impact of nudge interventions run by academics versus those run by special units that collaborate with governments to run nudges at scale.  Paper available here: https://www.nber.org/papers/w27594 Episode Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cuc1qujxm2tsdrf/Episode_2_Nudge_Nudge_transcript_mix.pdf?dl=0 Theme...

Ranil and Matt discuss "Why Do Poor People Stay Poor?" by Clare Balboni, Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Maitreesh Ghatak and Anton Heil, a study on whether those living in extreme poverty in Rural Bangladesh are stuck in poverty because they are in an asset-based poverty trap.  Paper available here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3594155 Episode Transcript:...