Justin Sandefur
Development economist, worrying about economic growth these days. openphilanthropy.org/about/team/justin-s…
- Reposted by Justin SandefurTwo minor updates, friends: - As of 1 January 2026, I'm an Associate Professor. - As of today, the first paper I started writing on palm oil, about a decade ago, is in print in the Journal of International Economics. Read, share, cite. Open access: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- For folks at the AEA meetings... Come hear us debate what we do and don't know about the impact of foreign aid.
- Preview of my take: 1. Health aid saves millions of lives. There's still low-hanging fruit; it could save millions more. www.cgdev.org/blog/malaria...
- 2. Aid for economic growth is tantalizing but much harder. The new enthusiasm for redirecting billions in aid to subsidize private enterprise is way ahead of the evidence. www.chat-gdp.org/development-...
- Two views of US strikes in Nigeria... FT reporting: They killed nobody. In the wrong state. WaPo editorial: Kudos to Trump for engaging, More, please!
- While it's possible both are right -- the strikes were tactically incompetent, but strategically wise -- that seems to assume this miss (if indeed it was a miss) was an aberration. And we won't just be bungling along, blowing things up in a region we don't understand. TBD.
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Justin SandefurMy least popular (and most correct) view is that cars should be automatically limited to the local speed limit. Put the pedal to the floor and you still can't go over 25mph in a residential area. (15 in Manhattan btw)
- New from Dev Patel, @arvind2011.bsky.social & me: "We were wrong about convergence." A few years back, we wrote a paper pointing out that Solow convergence had finally arrived. The developing world was catching up. Alas, it seems all good things come to an end. 1/
- To be precise, it's not so much that we were wrong, as that facts have changed. We're not the first to notice: see links in post to Soumaya Keynes, Olaberria & Reinhardt, and Jonathan Hartley. But having hyped the rise of convergence, we felt we should reflect on its fall. 2/
- One slightly more optimistic lens on this (2nd) reversal: if instead of a standard Solow-convergence metric, we look at the % of LMICs who are growing faster than the G7, that number remains high, around 70%. But it's also falling fast. 3/
-
View full threadWe end with some 'big think' speculation about deeper causes: the end of hyperglobalization, and the broader retreat from liberalism. Will leave that florid prose to the full post, link below. 5/5 www.chat-gdp.org/we-were-wro...
- Reposted by Justin SandefurGreat thread touching on why *ONLY* using private inv is NOT the solution. To echo once again the msg: focusing solely on private inv does not create much room for other riskier options (which in many EMDEs means investing in long term sustainable solutions for climate change, gender equality, etc)
- TOP: Household surveys ask women age 15-49 a lot more questions. BOTTOM: So enumerators appear to drop them, non-randomly. Adjusting for this "[calls] into question whether Africa’s fertility transition is as uniquely slow as previously thought." economics.yale.edu/sites/defau...
- Striking how uniquely exposed to Trump's tariffs India is: - 33% effective tariff rate (among the highest now) - 19% of exports went to US last year (not Mexico, but high-ish)
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Hello! I'm starting a new blog/newsletter thing. First post is about aid and growth, and what I think is missing from the renewed enthusiasm in DC to subsidize private investment in developing countries: i.e., export discipline. 1/
- Foreign aid is dead (not really, but it's been a rough year). In its wake, there's a healthy pivot to talking about economic growth in poor countries. But in DC, that manifests as a fixation on private finance & too little talk about the real economy. www.chat-gdp.org/development... 2/
- Notice the trend to private sector deals: USAID is dead. Meanwhile, the US DFC, which backs (preferably) American firms investing overseas, is growing. And down the street at the World Bank, private sector deals are on track to eclipse sovereign lending in a few years. 3/
-
View full threadWashington's new model of aid for growth has upsides if it can incubate new productive sectors. There's nothing wrong with development finance helping investors make money. But it also needs to help poor countries make stuff. /end
- It feels weird to me for the World Bank to focus on psychological training to make Togolese people better entrepreneurs but... it does seem to work. New in the AER:
- "An approximate cost-benefit calculation suggests firm owners have earned a cumulative return of 900 percent or more on the cost of this training over seven years... without the need for asset or cash transfers" openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/...
- I'm constantly confused by people who see a higher poverty line as a progressive goal, as opposed to shifting focus away from the 40% of the world living on <1/10th of that amount. $100k (PPP) for a family of 4 = 99.99th percentile in India = 99th percentile in China = 93rd percentile in the world
- Why aren't there more big, labor-intensive firms in poor countries? Answer here: bigger firms use more white-color workers who are in shorter supply in poorer countries.
- Ungated link: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/w5sm...
- Reposted by Justin SandefurSome news: Open Philanthropy is now Coefficient Giving! Our mission is unchanged but the new name reflects our growing work with other donors to multiply the impact of their giving. 🧵 on our work to make philanthropy a more efficient "market" and plans going forward:
- Reposted by Justin SandefurAccessible to all! ...my paper in Journal of Econ Perspectives on World Bank's 1993 East Asian "Miracle" report ("Too Much A Product of Its TIme?") (www.aeaweb.org/full_issue.p...). @cgdev.org @mclem.org @arvind2011.bsky.social @justsand.bsky.social
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Book launch day -- congrats to @arvind2011.bsky.social & Devesh Kapur! The book is full of data and historical vignettes, but more importantly, really challenges a lot of received wisdom about India's development trajectory. Must read.
- Reposted by Justin SandefurNew @devex.com article, ft. @justsand.bsky.social, on our our $40m fund to accelerate economic growth in low- and middle-income countries, including a great explanation of hits-based vs. GiveWell-style philanthropic giving www.devex.com/news/as-aid...
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- America's offer to Africa: Trade not aid! But also, no more trade preferences.
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Tourists sun by the pool overlooking the high court next door, where Tanzania’s opposition leader — previously shot 16 times — is being tried for treason. A metaphor perhaps for the international community’s response to Tanzania’s democratic backsliding.
- Meanwhile, X is blocked but b-sky works. Make of that what you will.
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur“For all intents and purposes, Nkrumah paralleled Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in his reach and influence. That little is known about him outside of Africa and African diasporic communities is a reflection of the continued marginalization of the continent in the Western imagination.”
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur“I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” Cook said. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... Amen.
- My experience is if you send Mauricio a half-baked idea, he might just code it up for you and send back a TeX file. Dunno if it’ll work with him as an editor, but worth trying at least…
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Lesotho was one of the biggest successes of AGOA -- which meant 'liberation day' hit particularly hard. Little early to see this in the trade data, but doesn't look great. NYT reporting factories shuttered. People going from $7/day factory jobs to $1/day hawking on the street.
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur@charlesjkenny.bsky.social & @justsand.bsky.social focus on the impact that US foreign aid budget cuts & freezes will have on the field of public #health and find that approx 1/2 million lives will be lost each year mainly from a lack of HIV drugs & vaccinations. cepr.org/publications... #EconSky
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Justin SandefurThey're terminating OPT. Today the nominee to head USCIS stated directly: he will end Optional Practical Training, the single largest channel for high-skill immigrants to work in the US. 6 weeks ago I warned about this & summarized the research on impacts of this drastic action—> @piie.com
- Some personal/professional news... After 14 (!) years, this was my last week at @cgdev.org Posted a longer thread on the other site, and will share more later on what's next. For now, just want to say thank you.
- Thank you, in particular, to my brilliant CGD colleagues, who created such a supportive and intellectually vibrant place to work. CGD's mission of influencing rich-world policy to the benefit of the global poor remains unqiue and vital. Proud to have been a small part of it.
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Justin SandefurTIL Argentina gets **one-third** of all IMF loans
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Make America Great Again by slashing basic health services in the Congo. Hopefully Congress doesn't take these numbers as given.
- The Economist joins the call here to accelerate malaria vaccine rollout — citing our work on prioritizing R21 for both speed and cost. www.economist.com/middle-east-...
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Justin Sandefur[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Justin SandefurElon Musk says that no one has died because he slashed humanitarian aid. I went to South Sudan to check if that's true. It's not. Meet Peter, Achol and Evan, ages 10, 8 and 5. The reckless actions of the world's richest men are killing the world's poorest kids www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
- Each dot represents 10 people whose lives depend on US foreign aid, just for HIV prevention & treatment. Without it, 1.6m people could die *per year*.
- @charlesjkenny.bsky.social & I were pleased to work with @nickkristof.bsky.social and the NYT data viz team to show the stakes of what’s happening at USAID. Gift link to their full investigation here: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
- In our CGD piece, Charles and I estimate that U.S. foreign aid likely saves somewhere on the order of 2.3 to 5.6 million annually. Our preferred number is 3.3 million. www.cgdev.org/blog/how-man...
-
View full threadIn sum: US foreign aid saves millions of lives a year. Despite pledges to preserve life-saving aid, Rubio has cancelled contracts covering billions of dollars for exactly that. But it's not too late to make things right. The fiscal year is young. Time to get back to work.
