Why the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics is so Important
The 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics was given to David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens for their work in using observational data and natural experiments to help us understand…
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Why You Should be Glad the FDA has Resumed Johnson & Johnson Vaccines
David Levine and Bruce Wydick Americans—and the world—should cheer the government’s news Friday to lift the pause on the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. The decision will…
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How Much Does this Operation Make Kids Smile?
Recently my coauthors and I finished a CEGA working paper for a research project that fell into the category of one of those “dying to know if this popular thing…
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Snap-Back and Gone-Forever Goods: Understanding the COVID Recession’s Economic Winners and Losers
The smartest administrators will not only plan for delivering education during the pandemic, but will develop capacities to meet the surge in demand for higher education when the pandemic fades.
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How You Can Help a Local Small Business Survive COVID-19
The only way to feel worse about the impacts of COVID-19 than talking to people in public health is to talk to people in business and economics. Macroeconomists often tell…
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What Do We Know About the Impact of Microcredit? Review of an Important New Research Paper
Microcredit has arguably been through more ups and downs than virtually any modern poverty intervention. For decades up through the 1980s, the thought was that the poor would never repay…
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Reflections on a Self-Experiment: 24 Hours of Homelessness in San Francisco
We as development economists are poverty “experts” in many respects. We are experts at talking and writing about poverty. We are experts at developing mathematical models that explain poverty. And…
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Introduction to Shrewd Samaritan: Faith, Economics, and the Road to Loving Our Global Neighbor
(Excerpt from the introduction to the book–now available July 2019.) It’s been my experience that most people have a genuine desire to help the poor—including the poor in their communities…
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Review of Judea Pearl’s The Book of Why
A great number of life’s important questions are causal questions. Whether we are a parent trying to choose the best school for our child, a physician pondering the best approach…
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3 Reasons the Impact of Microcredit May be Bigger Than We Thought
Beginning about four years ago, microcredit as an effective poverty intervention seemed dead, or at least on life support. Along with a couple of earlier studies, the six famous randomized…
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Assessing the Status of Microcredit
Recently I had the opportunity to take part in a webinar that discussed the status of microcredit, specifically whether or not researchers believe it works. To complement a piece on…
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On Giving Tuesday: The Gift of Entrepreneurship
It’s Giving Tuesday, a day that has become prominent enough in our culture to make us either give, feel guilty about not giving, or come up with a powerful, self-justifying…
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Six Roles in Global Poverty Work
When giving talks to college students at different universities, I find that most students are looking to align their lives with a cause greater than themselves. Among these, many could…
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Myths About Immigrants and Why We Believe Them
From the San Francisco Chronicle, Online July 13, Print July 15, 2018 The Trump administration repeatedly makes two claims to justify its crackdown on immigrants and their families: 1) Immigrants…
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Secrets of Effective Giving
Published in Christianity Today, 11/27/2017 Ryan Loofbourrow is a homelessness guru, a recognized leader in the urban poverty field. He is also my brother-in-law. During the holidays, we have been…
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Review of Randomistas: How Radical Researchers Changed Our World
Written for the World Bank Impact Blog, May 21, 2018 It isn’t hard to understand why Andrew Leigh would write a book on randomized controlled trials. A kind of modern…
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The Behavioral Economics of Police Stops
by José Gutierrez, Police Officer, Oakland, CA Police Department and Bruce Wydick, Professor of Economics, University of San Francisco Stephon Clark. Michael Brown. Freddie Gray. Alton Sterling. Keith Scott. Compliments…
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The Statistical Case Against the NRA and America’s Relationship with Guns
The most recent school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, warrants an update of a post I wrote recently about the statistical case against the arguments put forth by the National…
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For Black History Month: A Review of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a novel that I’d heard about since elementary school, but never read until now. February is Black History Month, and I thought I would contribute by…
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New Year’s Resolutions for Development Practitioners and Researchers
Another cycle around the sun and here we are again, the season of New Year’s resolutions, the time when we resolve not to do the stuff we were disappointed that…
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Cash With No Strings Attached?
This Story Appears in Christianity Today, December 2017 (Print Edition) One year, instead of buying my dad the usual unattractive necktie for Christmas, we bought him a goat. He loved…
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What We Are Learning about Goals, Aspirations, and Development
For the past several years, a number of co-authors and I have been working on a series of projects that have explored the relationship between the psychology of poverty and…
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On Domestic Poverty and the Family
Earlier this month I was invited to speak at a retreat led by the Archbishop of San Francisco for the board of Catholic Charities. They asked me to talk on…
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Calfornia’s New Industrial Policy: Tesla
Pulling away ever farther from the federal government Washington, California seems to be developing its own strategic industrial policy. This one is not only designed to create jobs in its…
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Why I Cannot (Fully) Embrace Effective Altruism
One of the most popular schools of thought in global ethics today is a movement called Effective Altruism. Founded on the work of Princeton philosopher Peter Singer, it draws heavily…
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