Weekly links September 4: listening, how to not make your AI RCT useless, many conference calls, and more...

· Biju Rao in In Development magazine on “Why economists don’t listen”: “Economics tends to focus on the measurable, which can exclude what is important; if it cannot be included in a survey module, it is not worth studying. But life is about more than survey modules, and the wall between economist and subject is not a methodological convenience. It is the central problem with the discipline.” – he then provides four ways to listen and involve subjects in your research. · On VoxDev, Tim Ohlenburg and co-authors use AEA registry data to show that the number of AI RCTs in the pipeline is growing rapidly, and discuss the challenges in randomizing a rapidly evolving and increasingly widely adopted technology, and in generating durable and generalizable lessons. “ In a worst-case scenario, we could see a wave of one-and-done research projects in LMICs, that are out of date before the results are public, don’t generalise, and aren’t taken up by governments or scale” – they offer several proposals for how to fund and do evaluations with AI to prevent this. · Participants at the Conference on Field Experiments in Strategy (CFXS) helped put together AI Skill files for turning tacit knowledge into skills to help do better experimental research. At better-not-more-ai.lovable.app/ you can find these as well as contribute your own. We are flattered that one of their demo ones Rem Koning created is “Power Calculations the Development Impact way” · In Science, Imran Rasul summarizes recent work on how past experiences shape economic decision-making · BREAD-IGC Virtual PhD course in the fall on political economy · Emory news piece on how Pedro Sant’Anna uses AI for research and in the classroom – and to free up more time to spend with his kids. And the Economic Innovation Group has Chad Syverson give his take on what we are seeing now on AI and productivity and employment effects, and how some tricky issues around measurement of intangible assets can affect the productivity picture. · AI-refereeing becomes mainstreamed: Refine.ink will now be used by both the American Economic Association and Econometric Society as a final pre-publication audit of the technical execution and exposition of a paper. · Conference calls for papers: o NBER Development conference on December 4, submissions due September 10. o Better Data for Better Lives: Innovations in Survey Measurement in the Age of AI conference, December 8–9, 2026, at World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C.. Deadline for submissions is October 15, 2026. o Y-RISE conference on the complexities of scaling up policy interventions in global development on December 17-19, submissions due September 15. For this year’s conference, they are placing special focus on questions of implementation. This includes both papers that document and analyze implementation challenges in moving from pilot to scale as well as those that test promising new interventions to facilitate scalability and resolve implementation bottlenecks. o NBER Workshop on Development Economics and Networks for Early-Career Researchers – submissions due Sept 15. o PAA 2027 Annual meeting in Seattle March 31-April 3, submissions due Sept 20. Look at the sessions under topic 10 “international settings and multi-country comparisons”, including one organized by Kathleen “1002 Families, Children, Women and Work from an International Perspective” and “1006 Measurement and Conceptualization of Poverty, Inequality and Well-being” co-organized by Jed Friedman, one of our original Development Impact team.