Evidence from village elections in Indonesia shows that changes in leadership improve information flows between citizens and the state, revitalise bureaucracies, and improve public service delivery.

A long-run study tracking students nine years after a school financial education programme finds lasting reductions in expensive credit use, improved loan repayment and a shift towards entrepreneurship. This suggests that well-designed curricula can reshape both financial and occupational decisions.

Exporting factories in India employ more women and pay smaller gender wage gaps than non-exporters, but these gains erode as capital intensity rises – because women lack access to the technical skills that technology-intensive production demands.

Evidence from a randomised evaluation in Mexico shows that an AI-powered mental health app can improve mental health, daily functioning, and labour market outcomes, while also helping users experiencing more severe psychological distress engage with formal care.

🆕 Why farmers struggle to adopt new agricultural technology in Africa 📢 Today on VoxDevTalks, Karen Macours (Paris School of Economics) & Rachid Laajaj (Universidad de los Andes) discuss why agricultural technology adoption takes years to get right: https://ow.ly/sFwa50Zlsvk

A field experiment in Colombia found that disclosing the identity-based criteria used to select students for a free training programme reduced enrolment, suggesting that how targeted invitations are framed shapes whether intended beneficiaries actually participate.

When women in Saudi Arabia gained the right to drive, not all benefited equally: while some gained employment, others saw little labour market gain and instead faced tighter restrictions on their economic autonomy.

Policies that allocate scarce resources often embed hidden values. Researchers develop a method to recover the value judgments implicit in allocation rules and apply it to Mexico’s flagship cash transfer programme, PROGRESA.

Global evidence from 33,262 mining sites shows that mineral price booms increase deforestation in nearby areas, beyond immediate mine sites. Investor origin shapes the size of these effects: mines owned by investors from higher-income countries generate lower deforestation responses.

🆕 Interpersonal violence costs the world more than war 📢 Today on VoxDevTalks, James Fearon (Stanford University) discusses why homicide, intimate partner violence, and child abuse cost more than war yet get far less attention: https://ow.ly/6fqO50ZjaCK

Audits do more than recover unpaid taxes. New evidence from South Africa suggests that they also increase tax reporting by audited firms’ geographic neighbours and by other clients of the same tax practitioner.

However, the high dropout rate and choices made at sign-up suggest that low baseline enrolment reflects a genuine lack of demand for the product, with important implications for how governments design and promote social insurance schemes.

A large temporary cash incentive rapidly enrolled millions of informal workers into Thailand's voluntary social insurance programme, demonstrating that enrolment barriers can be overcome when incentives are strong enough.

In Afghanistan, counterinsurgency efforts weakened community ties and local trust – ultimately undermining the foundations needed for reconstruction and peace.

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🆕 How courts really work in developing countries 📢 Today on VoxDevTalks, Fiona Shen-Bayh (University of Maryland) discusses how courts in the Global South can function effectively despite weak statehood, political instability, and social fragmentation: https://ow.ly/Wgsg50Zg8K5

Thirty years after South Africa created its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, its legacy remains contested. New evidence shows why.

During South Korea’s growth miracle decades, firm concentration rose sharply. The largest firms powered the rise in concentration and contributed to the growth miracle.

Instant payments can substitute for cash when adoption moves quickly beyond high-income early users. Evidence from Brazil, Costa Rica, and Mexico finds that the key is a rapid low-income gradient.

Evidence from Brazil shows that an air interdiction policy in 2004 shifted cocaine routes to rivers, increasing violence in Amazonian municipalities.

🆕 Non-elite women in politics: Participation, power, and patriarchal norms 📢 Today on VoxDevTalks, Soledad Artiz Prillaman (Stanford University) discusses how patriarchal norms and social networks shape non-elite women's political engagement: https://ow.ly/ebj450Ze67B

📢 Our new VoxDevLit on Air Pollution is out now! In this VoxDevLit, Senior Editors Teevrat Garg (UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy) & Anant Sudarshan (Warwick Economics) summarise the economic evidence on air pollution. Read & download here: https://ow.ly/9WR150ZcCUO

A land formalisation programme in Benin significantly increased the likelihood that widows – especially those without a son – remained in their villages, offering formal institutional protection where customary norms left women most vulnerable.

A national drug reimbursement reform in China, which traded price reductions for guaranteed patient access, dramatically expanded the country’s pharmaceutical innovation, offering a rare policy model that reconciles drug affordability with R&D incentives.

📢 Our new VoxDevLit on Technology & Development is out now! In this VoxDevLit, Senior Editors Julieta Caunedo (Cornell University) & Tommaso Porzio (Columbia Business School) summarise economic research on technology and development. Read & download here: https://ow.ly/U2f450ZbJwK

Drawing on varied empirical evidence from sub-Saharan Africa, researchers argue that women’s conversion to new Christian churches may be an attempt to pursue emancipation, subtly undermining clan authority.

In Mexico, income transfers targeted at women are effective at improving their decision-making position within the household, translating into significant changes in household consumption and time allocation patterns.

In Andhra Pradesh, credit contraction in the rural economy, triggered by microfinance regulation, lowered educational investments and caused lasting learning losses, with larger effects for girls and younger children.

Colonial railways reshaped local economies in Bosnia, but lasting gains depended on human capital, state capacity, and external competition.

🆕 The end of aid dependency 📢 Today on VoxDevTalks, W. Gyude Moore (Center for Global Development) discusses why developing countries must recentre on growth diagnostics as international aid structurally declines: https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/end-aid-dependency