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What’s the Latest Research in Development Economics? A Roundup from NEUDC 2022

Almedina music, david evans.

What’s the latest in international economic development research? Last weekend was the North East Universities Development Consortium annual conference , often called NEUDC. With more than 135 papers presented (and almost all of them available for download ), it’s a great way to see recent trends in the international development research by economists and to learn about new findings.

The studies come from all over the world, as you can see in Figure 1 below. Just like last year , the plurality of studies take place in India (30 studies). Kenya is next (12), then Bangladesh (8), Brazil (7), China (7), and Indonesia (7). More than 40 countries are represented overall, from almost all regions of the world.

Figure 1: Where are recent development economics studies focused?

Source: This map draws on a sample of 139 studies from the NEUDC 2022 conference. Studies that covered more than three countries (often broad global or regional analyses) were excluded.

Researchers draw on a wide range of empirical methods. Nearly a third of studies reported on the results of a randomized controlled trial (43 studies). Other commonly used methods include difference-in-differences, fixed effects, and instrumental variables.

Figure 2: What empirical methods do recent development economics papers used?

Source: This chart draws on a sample of 139 studies from the NEUDC 2022 conference. Some studies used more than one method.

Below, we provide a quick takeaway from every paper in the conference for which we could find a digital copy. As you read our takeaways, keep the following in mind. First, we can’t capture all the nuance of a paper in a couple of lines. Second, our takeaway may not be the authors’ takeaway. Third, some of the papers are marked as preliminary and not ready for formal citation (you can see which if you follow the paper links). Fourth, we largely take the findings of these papers at face value: most have not yet been through peer review, so feel free to dig into the data and analysis to decide how confident you are in the results.

Our takeways are sorted by topic. If your principal interest is in a country or region, you can also read the takeaways sorted by country . We provide some indication of the empirical method used (for empirical papers) with hashtags at the end of the takeaways. Some papers fit into more than one category: for example, is a paper about the impact of free childcare on mothers’ careers about labor or about gender? It’s about both! In those cases, we’ve repeated studies in multiple sections below so if you’re focused on health, you’ll find all the health-related papers in the health section. The second or third time a paper appears, we put an asterisk after the summary so you can skip it if you’re reading straight through.

Happy learning!

Guide to the methodological hashtags: #DID = Difference-in-differences, #FE = Fixed effects, #IV = Instrumental variables, #LIF = Lab in the field, #PSM = Propensity score matching, #RCT = Randomized controlled trial, #RD = Regression discontinuity, #Other = Other

Households and human capital

Education and Early Childhood Development

·        How critical are family conditions in early years for child development? Better weather (which means more agricultural income and better nutrition) at age 2 in Indonesia leads to higher adult cognitive ability. When households face hard times at earlier ages, they compensate with prolonged breastfeeding. ( Webb ) #FE

·        Data from Indonesia suggest that parental education and parental income are the main drivers of differences in skills once kids grow up. ( Thomas ) #Other

·        “Many teachers [in India and Bangladesh] underestimate the share of low performers in their classrooms, and...they believe that those students will perform better than they actually do. These results are not driven by less educated, trained, or experienced teachers or explained by biases against female, low-income, or lower caste students.” ( Djaker, Ganimian, and Sabarwal ) #Other

·        A 1985 change in Indian law discouraging the payment of dowries led to a 24 percent drop in dowry payments, but it also led to an 18 percent reduction in girls' education attainment (with no impact on boys' education). ( Jha ) #DID

·        Providing information about a learning app in Bangladesh didn't lead more people to use it, but it did lead some parents to arrange more tutoring, resulting in "lasting math learning gains, concentrated among richer households." ( Beam, Mukherjee, and Navarro-Sola ) #RCT

·        Students in Kenya often apply to secondary schools with little information about the available schools. Providing information to students "led them to apply to" schools that were closer to home "without compromising school quality." Adding parents to those information meetings "led students to enroll in lower cost schools." ( Bonds ) #RCT

·        Among students in 9th grade in India, student test scores rose similarly whether they were exposed to "rigidly defined remedial lessons that take time away from the curriculum" and "teacher determined remedial lessons," which allow teachers more flexibility. ( Beg et al. ) #RCT

·        Parental aspirations for their children matter, but they may not be enough on their own. “In rural Gambia, families with high aspirations for their children’s future education and career, measured before children start school, go on to invest substantially more than other families in the early years of their children’s education. Despite this, essentially no children are literate or numerate three years later. When villages receive a highly-impactful, teacher-focused supply-side intervention, however, children of these families are 25 percent more likely to achieve literacy and numeracy than other children in the same village.” ( Eble and Escueta ) #RCT

·        A ten day increase in the overlap between school days and peak farming periods in Malawi translates to children losing about a third of a year of schooling. ( Allen ) #IV

·        Eliminating school fees for secondary school in Tanzania led not only to increased secondary school enrollments; it also increased primary school pass rates. ( Sandholtz ) #DID

·        Indonesia's major school construction program from the 1970s led to eight percent overall higher national output forty years later, and much of that comes through migration from rural to urban areas. ( Hsiao ) #DID

·        Phone call tutorials during COVID-19 were effective at boosting learning in India, Kenya, Nepal, Philippines, and Uganda, whether implemented by government teachers or non-government organization instructors. ( Angrist et al. ) #RCT

·        An affirmative action policy in Brazil was effective at redistributing university spots to low-income students, with little drop in average achievement. "The policy also reduced the gap in applications to selective majors" between poor and rich students by more than 50 percent, but note that those are applications: many of those major-choice changes were among students unlikely to be accepted into a highly selective major. The policy worked, but it could work even better. ( Melo ) #DID

·        Peru shut down a bunch of low-quality universities in 2015. Graduates from surviving universities experienced an increase in wages and higher employment rates. ( Vivar, Flor-Toro, and Magnaricotte ) #DID

·        An influx of Syrian refugees in Jordan reduced school enrollment among Jordanians, particularly boys and kids with less-educated parents. More young Jordanians went to work instead. ( Almuhaisen ) #DID

·        An edutainment program in Bangladeshi schools to trace school-to-home transmission of handwashing find that children are induced to wash more at school but less at home, yielding a net negative effect of the program ( Hussam and Oh ) #RCT

·        Removing English language study from pubic primary schools in West Bengal, India, increased private school enrollment and---for those still in public schools---increased private tutoring among the richest households. ( Nandwani and Sen ) #FE

·        In utero exposure to high ocean salinity levels (induced by climate change) reduces a child’s height-for-age z-score in Bangladesh, and increased prevalence of stunting and severe stunting due to nutritional deficiencies by age five. ( Guimbeau et al. ) #FE

·        In Indonesia, “remittances increase household consumption, reduce poverty, and stimulate growth. Households send more children to school, and district governments increase public schools at the primary and junior secondary levels.” ( Hilmy ) #FE

·        The tariff reduction from the U.S-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement decreased school attendance and increased children’s work, mainly in non-wage and household business jobs. Effects were stronger for boys, older children and households where the head had little education. ( Nguyen ) #DID

·        Giving a widely known award "to top performers on a mandatory nationwide exam in Colombia" boosts their earnings by between 7 and 12 percent, and the effect endures for 5 years after graduation. It helps students graduating from low-reputation colleges the most. ( Busso, Montaño, Muñoz-Morales ) #RD

Health (including mental health)

·        A national vaccine program in Burkina Faso in 1984 boosted the country’s child vaccination rate (against measles, yellow fever, and meningitis) from 17 percent to 77 percent in a few months. Child mortality fell, primary school completion rose, and—when the children reached adulthood—employment and agricultural productivity rose. ( Daramola et al. ) #DID

·        School-based deworming in western Kenya—nearly a quarter of a century later—reduced under-5 mortality of the beneficiaries’ children by 24 percent! ( Walker et al. ) #RCT

·        In Ecuador, letting employees use work time to get a flu vaccine boosted vaccination rates, but employees got sick about as much. Why? Some evidence suggests that employees engaged in “riskier health behaviors after getting vaccinated.” ( Hoffman, Mosquera, and Chadi ) #RCT

·        In Kenya, “both patient subsidies and pharmacy incentives for diagnostic testing significantly increase usage of testing and may encourage malaria positive individuals to purchase high quality antimalarials.” ( Dieci ) #RCT

·        Women who were babies in utero during a cholera epidemic in Peru in the 1990s were nearly 20 percent more likely to die of COVID-19. ( Ritter and Sanchez ) #DID

·        After four years of using iron and iodine fortified salt in school lunches in India, children have lower likelihood of anemia, higher hemoglobin levels, but no differences in cognitive or educational outcomes. ( Grafenstein et al. ) #RCT

·        Gold mining in the Philippines created new bodies of stagnant water, which boosted malaria cases by nearly a third (relative to provinces without gold deposits). ( Pagel ) #DID

·        Giving households a flyer about mobile health services in rural Bangladesh didn't get them to use it more, but offering to save the access numbers in the participants' phone boosted take-up by 22 percent in the succeeding 2 months and reduced health expenditure, since households were less likely to go to "informal providers who usually overprescribe medicines." ( Sardar ) #RCT

·        A drug procurement program in China "brought down the prices of 10 chronic condition drugs by an average of 78" percent. As a result, "drug adherence was improved for the uninsured who had poorer adherence" before the price reduction. ( He and Yang ) #DID

·        In Dakar, Senegal, it can be hard to find someone to desludge your septic pit. Providing subsidies to use a government run call center to connect households with desludgers increases use, and that use continues for a while after the subsidies end. Later, a city-wide subsidy increased adoption most in those communities that had received subsidies earlier. ( Deutschmann ) #RCT

·        How critical are family conditions in early years for child development? Better weather (which means more agricultural income and better nutrition) at age 2 in Indonesia leads to higher adult cognitive ability. When households face hard times at earlier ages, they compensate with prolonged breastfeeding. ( Webb ) #FE *

Fertility and family planning

·        "Learning about government mistreatment of citizens undermines trust in institutions. In Perú, “disclosure of information about illegal sterilization reduced usage of contraceptive methods, prenatal and delivery services, and the demand for medical services, resulting in worsened child health."" ( León-Ciliotta, Zejcirovic, and Fernandez ) #DID

·        During the colonial period in the Congo, greater exposure to Catholic nuns increased women’s fertility (as opposed to exposure to Protestant or male Catholic missionaries). Catholic nuns likely promoted the image of an ideal Christian woman which explains the results. ( Guirkinger and Villar ) #DID

Households and marriage

·        Households in Bangladesh reduced their monthly residential electricity use by 15.8 percent (≈37 kWh) when they switched from postpaid electricity metering system to prepaid metering. ( Das ) #IV

·        A new method to infer causal effects on choices that exploits relationships between choices and hypothetical evaluations “can recover treatment effects even if the treatment is assigned endogenously and standard estimation methods are poorly suited, or if the treatment does not vary.” ( Bernheim, et al. ) #Other

·        In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 73 percent of households provided with access to childcare centers use them.  Both parents “increase their engagement in commercial activities, leading to gains in agricultural productivity, household income and women’s subjective well-being." Women reported increases in their concentration and sense of control.  Using the centers also led to  significant gains in early childhood development outcomes, particularly for younger children.  ( Donald and Vaillant ) #RCT

·        Can commitment-saving ahead of a lean season alter consumption downfalls among the ultra-poor? In Bangladesh, a temporary savings subsidy doubled formal savings, and resulted in increased food and non-food expenditure by 8.6-12.6 percent during the lean season, with no lasting post-lean season impact. ( Takahashi et al. ) #RCT

·        An “edutainment” intervention designed to reduce child marriage in rural Pakistan, significantly reduces marriage of girl adolescents. Targeting men alone reduced child marriage in sample households, while targeting women or men & women jointly reduces child marriage at the village level. ( Cassidy et al. ) #RCT

·        In Kenya, workshops and couples’ therapy sessions to decrease alcohol consumption lowered prevalence of sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) by 0.21 standard deviations, with smaller or no effects on physical and emotional IPV. ( Castilla, Aqeel, and Murphy ) #RCT

Migration and refugees

·        Can temporary foreign work permits “throttle human smugglers’ businesses? “Combining internal and external controls with a regulated market for temporary visas alleviates the policy trade-off between migration control and ending human smuggling.” Data from migration between Senegal & Spain and the Democratic Republic of the Congo & South Africa. ( Auriol, Mesnard, and Perrault ) #Other

·        Massive exodus of Venezuelans in Colombia had a larger negative effect on the lower tail of the natives’ wage distribution, increasing inequality in the host economy. Due to formal restrictions, immigrants ended up working in more routine and low-paying jobs. “A large-scale amnesty program reduced the magnitude of downgrading, mitigating the unequalizing impact of the exodus.” ( Lombardo et al. ) #IV

·        In Mexico, children in households with return migrants (from the U.S.) “benefit from an increase in school attendance and a decrease in the probability of schooling delay relative to children in non-migrant households.” However, females in return migrant households are likely to complete a lower grade relative to non-migrant households. ( Chakraborty, Bucheli, and Fontenla ) #IV

·        An evaluation of a large-scale migration loan program in Bangladesh revealed that capacity constraints at scale lead effort to be directed toward those already planning to migrate without a loan. ( Mitchell et al. ) #RCT

·        A Zambian fertilizer subsidy program led to “some households to intensify their agricultural activity, and others to out-migrate.” The subsidy increased the share of households with outmigrants by 40 percentage points and doubled the number of outmigrants net of in-migrants. ( Diop ) #DID

·        Clearance of slums in Santiago, Chile, and families’ relocation to public housing in low-income areas led to displaced children having 10 percent lower earnings and 0.5 fewer years of education as adults than non-displaced. ( Rojas-Ampuero and Carrera ) #FE

·        In refugee camps and surrounding communities in Uganda and Kenya, refugee children can be up to three times more likely to be poor than adults. Child’s age, household composition, and access to sanitation and clean water, predict child poverty in refugee settlements well, often better than per-capita household expenditure. ( Beltramo et al. ) #ML

·        In Indonesia, “remittances increase household consumption, reduce poverty, and stimulate growth. Households send more children to school, and district governments increase public schools at the primary and junior secondary levels.” ( Hilmy ) #FE *

·        During WWII, nine ethnic groups were entirely deported from the Soviet Union to Central Asia. In the 50s, five returned to their former homeland, while the other four remained marginalized in internal exile. Locals in host regions had significantly higher levels of education two generations later. “A strong positive effect on higher education is found among returnees to origin regions, suggesting that these ethnic groups hedged against further negative shocks.” ( Zimmermann ) #IV

·        An influx of Syrian refugees in Jordan reduced school enrollment among Jordanians, particularly boys and kids with less-educated parents. More young Jordanians went to work instead. ( Almuhaisen ) #DID *

·        Pairing employers in Uganda with a refugee and providing an incentive to offer a free internship to that refugee "improves employers’ beliefs about refugees’ skills, but it does not change their willingness to hire new refugees," but certain types of matches (depending on employer and refugee characteristics) do result in more refugee hires. ( Loiacono and Silva-Vargas ) #RCT

·        In India, Hindu women are subject to caste “purity” norms, while Adivasi, or Indigenous, women are not. “Having more Adivasi neighbors leads to: (i) higher rates of Hindu women’s paid work and lower perceived stigma of such work; and (ii) lesser adherence to a range of purity norms, including the practice of untouchability towards Adivasis.” ( Agte and Bernhardt ) #FE

·        Does free childcare improve mothers’ careers? Yes. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, mothers in sub-districts with above median childcare availability have a persistent increase of 8 percent in earnings, driven by 1 percentage point higher labor force participation and 4 percent longer hours. ( Garcia, Latham-Proença, and Mello ) #FE

·        Can cash transfers influence gender roles? In Chad, cash transfers increased women’s business profits (0.6 SD) as well as marital separation. The program also “led to large improvements (0.3-0.7 SD) in a broad set of women’s subjective well-being, including self-efficacy, depressive symptoms, and perceived social status.” ( Kandpal, Schnitzer, and Dayé ) #RD

·        In Nigeria, women prefer to defer budget allocation decisions to their husband even when deferral is costly and is not observed by the husband; the reverse is true for husbands. A randomized cash transfer receipt increases women’s demand for agency: if the decision is hidden from the husband, women want to make their own budget decisions, even if it is the same as their husband’s. ( Bakhtiar et al. ) #LIF

·        Showing teachers in Pakistan a pro-women’s rights award-winning movie (the 2011 film Bol) increased their own and students’ support for women’s rights, being unbiased in gender Implicit Association Tests, and willingness to petition parliament for greater gender equality. ( Mehmood, Naseer, and Chen ) #RCT

·        Profiles for women who signal on an online Indian matchmaking site that they want to work after marriage receive up to 22 percent less interest from men than those of women who have never worked. Women willing to give up work after marriage face a lower penalty. ( Dhar ) #RCT

·        In Chile, informing outstanding students in mathematics and science about their relative performance and presenting STEM majors as a feasible option, led to women applying more, but only in health-related majors, and not in STEM majors. ( Ramirez-Espinosa ) #RCT

·        In Brazil, union bargaining that prioritized women’s needs increased female-centric amenities (like longer maternity leave with job protection) at work. These led to women queueing for jobs at treated establishments and separating from them less, which are both indicators of firm value. ( Corradini, Lagos, and Sharma ) #DID

·        While both gender barriers to occupational choices and wage penalties persist across countries, the “reduction in wage gaps between 1980-2000 was primarily driven by economic channels while the more recent decline between 2000-2015 was driven by changes in gender barriers.” ( Chiplunkar and Kleineberg ) #Other

·        “A program targeting ultra-poor women in Uganda” paired “business and entrepreneurship skills development with psychological empowerment.” It increased profits by 105 percent. ( Lang and Seither ) #RCT

·        Expansion of the coffee mills in Rwanda led to increased “women’s paid employment, women’s and their husbands’ earnings and decreases domestic violence.” Decline in violence is driven by women’s increased bargaining power and their contribution to household earnings, not exposure reduction between couples. ( Sanin ) #DID

·        Sharing a hyperlocal digital job search platform with couples as well as the wives' social networks in Delhi, India, increased husband's labor market outcomes (including working hours and total earnings), but only home-based self-employment among the women, potentially due to social norms. ( Afridi et al. ) #RCT

·        New data from more than 90 countries demonstrates three things: (1) the shift out of agriculture that happens as countries grow richer is driven by whole households (not just individuals within households), (2) "in the poorest countries, the gap between female and male market employment is only large for married urban women," and (3) "countries where employment rates of urban married women are low relative to their rural counterparts also see low urbanization rates of married men." ( Doss et al. ) #Other

·        In Kenya, workshops and couples’ therapy sessions to decrease alcohol consumption lowered prevalence of sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) by 0.21 standard deviations, with smaller or no effects on physical and emotional IPV. ( Castilla, Aqeel, and Murphy ) #RCT *

·        A 1985 change in Indian law discouraging the payment of dowries led to a 24 percent drop in dowry payments, but it also led to an 18 percent reduction in girls' education attainment (with no impact on boys' education). ( Jha ) #DID *

Working and saving

Banking and credit

·        In India "delinquent borrowers who are offered a debt moratorium by their lender are 4 percentage points (6.9 percent) less likely to default on their loan, while forbearance has no effect on repayment if it is granted by the regulator.” ( Fiorin, Hall, and Kanz ) #RCT

·        What are the household welfare gains from financial inclusion? Applying a new approach using demand estimates from three RCTs (on retirement savings in the United States, commitment savings in the Philippines, and microfinance in Mexico) , welfare gains per dollar lent or saved are small as compensated demand elasticities are large, but still correspond to large aggregate welfare gains from financial inclusion. ( Loeser ) #Other

·        In Ghana, microenterprises receiving joint liability loans reported higher profits six to ten months after borrowing. Effects are driven by borrowers whose applications were not endorsed by political party operatives. ( Boso, Burlando, and Abdul-Rahaman ) #FE

·        A self-help group lending program in rural Bihar, India, “significantly improved risk-sharing in regions where the program had greater institutional capacity and was better implemented.” ( Attanasio et al. ) #FE #IV

·        In Kenya, “performance-contingent microfinance contracts can encourage investment and increase profits – and, as a result, increase household consumption.” ( Cordaro et al. ) #RCT

·        In India, “plants exposed to banking shocks redistribute this liquidity through the supply chain. As a result, firms extending trade credit can increase their own sales as their customers are able to purchase on credit. Downstream firms are able to increase their own sales, employment, and productivity.” ( Chakraborty et al. ) #DID

·        In India, “risk pooling creates a distortion in consumption such that food consumption is better protected from aggregate village shocks than nonfood consumption.” ( Fafchamps and Shrinivas ) #Other

Cash transfers

·        Can cash transfers influence gender roles? In Chad, cash transfers increased women’s business profits (0.6 SD), and marital separation. The program also “led to large improvements (0.3-0.7 SD) in a broad set of women’s subjective well-being, including self-efficacy, depressive symptoms, and perceived social status.” ( Kandpal, Schnitzer, and Dayé ) #RD *

Firms and microenterprises

·        In India, “larger cultural proximity [by way of caste and religion] between a pair of firms reduces prices and fosters trade at both the intensive and extensive margins.” ( Fujiy, Khanna, and Toma ) #FE

·        After close elections in India, entrepreneurs from the same social group as the winning candidate are more likely to start businesses. ( Bhalla et al. ) #FE

·        Politically connected firms in India were more likely to get access to short-term credit from banks and to be able to delay short-term payments to suppliers and creditors during the surprise demonetization of 2016. ( Chen et al. ) #Other

·        Variation of COVID lockdowns over time and across parts of India reveal that inputs delivered by suppliers within the same industry are complements (rather than substitutes), which means that "shocks propagate through supply chains," increasing the shock to overall GDP. ( Fujiy, Ghose, and Khanna ) #FE

·        "Starting in 1997, India dismantled its policy of product reservation whereby hundreds of products had been reserved for exclusive production by small firms." The effect? "entry in the downstream product market increases with no observable decline in quality of entrants." ( Rastogi ) #Other

·        Inviting Zambian farmers to participate in a simple budgeting exercise (i.e., think through their budget and formulate a spending plan) increased how much they expected to spend for the coming year by 20-60 percent and lowered their willingness to pay for a nonessential item of clothing by 34 percent. By the end of the year, farmers decreased their expenditures by 15 percent and ended up with one additional month of savings. ( Augenblick et al. ) #RCT

·        A new way to measure productivity of retailers in low- or middle-income countries captures their three-fold need to attract customers, manage a storefront, and maintain inventory across many products. In Malawi, "the three dimensions of productivity are correlated with one another" but not perfectly, so that a training that focuses on just one may fail to boost overall productivity. ( Huntington ) #Other

·        In Mexico, a rise in gas prices led to an increase in mom-and-pop shops but "their average size and quality fell." ( Ramos-Menchelli and Sverdlin-Lisker ) #IV

·        Waiving competitive bidding for small-value purchases in Brazil led to 23 percent more expensive purchased products. At least half of this overpricing is explained by discretion allowing agencies to purchase higher-quality products. ( Fazio ) #FE

·        “A program targeting ultra-poor women in Uganda” paired “business and entrepreneurship skills development with psychological empowerment.” It increased profits by 105 percent. ( Lang and Seither ) #RCT *

Labor (including child labor)

·        A late 1990s labor market reform in China led to tens of millions of layoffs in a short period. That led to a drop in employment for workers who did not finish high school—by 20 percent in the industrial sector—and a 5 percent increase in the high school completion rate. ( Zhao ) #DID

·        “A 2014 Bolivian law that recognized the work of children as young as 10 years old, whose age placed them below the minimum working age of 14 years old, enabling them to legally work (subject to a work permit) while simultaneously extending benefits and protections to child workers” (such as adult minimum wages) actually decreased work for children under 14. ( Lakdawala, Martínez Heredia, and Vera-Cossio ) #Other

·        A federal policy that set minimum fares for drivers of motorcycle taxis on a ridesharing app in Indonesia led to higher trip prices but not driver earnings, both because more drivers signed on for any given day AND drivers logged onto the app for more hours, meaning that each driver got fewer rides. ( Nakamura and Siregar ) #DID #SC

·        Providing mentorship to vocational students in Uganda to help with their training-to-work transition increased their likelihood of working a few months later by more than a quarter and also boosted their incomes after a year. Why? It's mostly through info about how the entry-level job market works (not through referrals): As a result, mentored youth "turn down fewer job offers." ( Alfonsi, Namubiru, and Spaziani ) #RCT

·        College students in Mumbai, India, were less likely to share information about jobs if they knew they'd have to compete for them, and the men in particular tended not to share the information with the peers they viewed as having high abilities. ( Chiplunkar, Kelley, and Lane ) #RCT

·        Why do "workers in richer countries experience faster rates of wage growth over their lifetimes than workers in poorer countries"? Cross-country data suggest that workers in rich countries received more training from the firms they work for, and that this is a major component of workers' skills. "Firm-provided training accounts for 38% of cross-country wage growth differences." ( Ma, Nakab, Vidart ) #Other

·        Many interventions help workers with job searches. Doing that without increasing the number of jobs could limit the effectiveness of those interventions. On the other hand, "making it easier for firms to find qualified workers could reduce the cost of hiring" and generate more jobs. With an intervention to subsidize job searches for people in Ethiopia, the lack of jobs ends up limiting the effectiveness. ( Van Vuren ) #RCT

·        A survey in Accra, Ghana, showed that lots of job vacancies were not widely circulated, and---as a result---many employers are unable to find qualified workers during six months. But publishing detailed advertisements on a state-operated online portal increases both the likelihood of finding workers and of those workers being suitable for the jobs. ( Lambon-Quayefio et al. ) #RCT

·        The timing of when auctions for public procurement contracts end in Brazil is random, which permits comparison of winners and runners-up. "Winning a government contract increases wages." ( Carvalho, Galindo da Fonseca, and Santarrosa ) #IV

·        In rural Kenya, a “future orientation” workshop that teaches participants techniques to imagine a positive future, lay out concrete short-term steps to achieve their vision, and plan for obstacles, lifted aspirations and expectations. It led to increased labour supply and spending on productive inputs. The “intervention is at least twice as cost-effective as an (unconditional) cash transfer.” ( Orkin et al. ) #RCT

·        Peru shut down a bunch of low-quality universities in 2015. Graduates from surviving universities experienced an increase in wages and higher employment rates. ( Vivar, Flor-Toro, and Magnaricotte ) #DID *

·        Does free childcare improve mothers’ careers? Yes. In Sao Paulo, mothers in sub-districts with above median childcare availability have a persistent increase of 8 percent in earnings, driven by 1 percentage point higher labor force participation and 4 percent longer hours. ( Garcia, Latham-Proença, and Mello ) #FE *

·        Can temporary foreign work permits “throttle human smugglers’ businesses? “Combining internal and external controls with a regulated market for temporary visas alleviates the policy trade-off between migration control and ending human smuggling.” Data from migration between Senegal & Spain and the Democratic Republic of the Congo & South Africa. ( Auriol, Mesnard, and Perrault ) #Other *

·        Pairing employers in Uganda with a refugee and providing an incentive to offer a free internship to that refugee "improves employers’ beliefs about refugees’ skills, but it does not change their willingness to hire new refugees," but certain types of matches (depending on employer and refugee characteristics) do result in more refugee hires. ( Loiacono and Silva-Vargas ) #RCT *

·        Expansion of the coffee mills in Rwanda led to increased “women’s paid employment, women’s and their husbands’ earnings and decreases domestic violence.” Decline in violence is driven by women’s increased bargaining power and their contribution to household earnings, not exposure reduction between couples. ( Sanin ) #DID *

·        Sharing a hyperlocal digital job search platform with couples as well as the wives' social networks in Delhi, India, increased husband's labor market outcomes (including working hours and total earnings), but only home-based self-employment among the women, potentially due to social norms. ( Afridi et al. ) #RCT *

·        Giving a widely known award "to top performers on a mandatory nationwide exam in Colombia" boosts their earnings by between 7 and 12 percent, and the effect endures for 5 years after graduation. It helps students graduating from low-reputation colleges the most. ( Busso, Montaño, Muñoz-Morales ) #RD *

·        New data from more than 90 countries demonstrates three things: (1) the shift out of agriculture that happens as countries grow richer is driven by whole households (not just individuals within households), (2) "in the poorest countries, the gap between female and male market employment is only large for married urban women," and (3) "countries where employment rates of urban married women are low relative to their rural counterparts also see low urbanization rates of married men." ( Doss et al. ) #Other *

Poverty Measurement

·        Poverty is often measured using annual income. But using monthly data from India shows that “experiences of poverty are substantially more common than annual measures suggest; entry into and exit from poverty are much less clear than typically assumed;” and the use of monthly poverty measures “is a stronger predictor of development outcomes – child weight and height – than conventional” annual measures. ( Merfeld and Morduch ) #Other

·        Are poverty lines real? This study articulates social and theoretical underpinnings for such a distinction between the poor and the nonpoor. ( Dutta et al. )

·        Many social programs identify their beneficiaries collaboratively with multiple community members together. Comparing the judgments that the same individuals make about who to target when they’re deciding collaboratively versus individually in Indonesia suggests that gains from collaborative targeting are negligible. “These results suggest that policymakers should think carefully before asking community members to invest valuable time in participating in [community-based targeting] exercises.” ( Trachtman ) #Other

Governments, institutions, and conflict

Conflict and crime

·        A national-level electoral reform in Mexico that increased politicians’ cost of accepting bribes decreased the number of suspicious financial reports by around 4 percent ( ∼ 650 fewer reports), while the number of attacks by violent groups increased by approximately 2 percent ( ∼ 44 more attacks), in places with the presence of criminal organizations. ( Rámon Enríquez ) #DID

·        How does ethnic violence and subsequent segregation shape children’s lives? In India, Muslims perform better in cities that were more susceptible to (Hindu) communal violence in terms of early education outcomes. ( Kalra ) #PSM

·        In India, judges are more likely to convict offenders in cases of sexual crimes (excluding rape) if they are exposed to more media coverage about sexual crimes that are unrelated to the case on trial. A central mechanism behind this result is heightened judicial scrutiny in response to greater media coverage. ( Vasishth ) #DID

·        During WWII, nine ethnic groups were entirely deported from the Soviet Union to Central Asia. In the 50s, five returned to their former homeland, while the other four remained marginalized in internal exile. Locals in host regions had significantly higher levels of education two generations later. “A strong positive effect on higher education is found among returnees to origin regions, suggesting that these ethnic groups hedged against further negative shocks.” ( Zimmermann ) #IV *

·        In Colombia, close family connections in the public administration are pervasive and they weaken performance. “Connected bureaucrats receive higher salaries and are more likely to be hierarchically promoted but are negatively selected in terms of public sector experience, education, and records of misconduct.” A 2015 anti-nepotism legislation had limited effectiveness. ( Riaño ) #RCT

·        In China, after a high-profile corruption inspection, labor “strikes experienced a twofold increase within six months and a threefold increase in two years.” ( Chen ) #Other

·        Reducing corruption in China "induces positive selection for integrity and public-mindedness into the state sector, which remains present even when conditioning on ability and family background." ( Hong ) #DID

·        Do autocrats favor their supporters during economic shocks? The Maduro regime was more likely to exempt regime-supporting regions affected by the Venezuelan blackout from later power rationing. In Sub-Saharan Africa, “droughts magnify differences in development, protests and state-coercion outcomes in favor of leaders’ home regions.” ( Morales-Arilla ) #FE

·        In Brazil, a 1 percentage point increase in the share of Pentecostals increased Evangelical and far-right candidates’ vote share by 18 percent and 16 percent, respectively. These effects are larger in municipalities with less educated, poorer, and more rural populations. ( Solá Cámpora ) #DID

·        During a social media ban at the climax of the Uganda 2021 election campaign, those maintaining access through the use of virtual private networks (VPNs)—who are more likely to be opposition partisans—came to view the dominant National Resistance Mmovement party relatively positively. This is driven by an increase in pro-NRM social media content during the ban. ( Bowles, Marshall, and Raffler ) #DID

Taxes and subsidies

·        Simulations suggest that removing subsidies for electric vehicles in China would raise the effective marginal costs of vehicle production, reducing total welfare by 7.4 billion yuan (RMB) per quarter, amounting to 13.9 percent of the total subsidy expenditure. ( Kwon ) #IV

·        In South Africa, "firms with paid tax practitioners exhibit sharper bunching, driven primarily by a lower lumpiness parameter rather than by a different income elasticity." ( Anagol et al. ) #Other

·        In Liberia, creating a new property database and including identifying information from it (the name of the owner and a property photograph) in tax bills more than quadruples the tax payment rate, from 2 percent to almost 10 percent, when the notice also includes details on the penalties for noncompliance. Compliance goes up even more when the tax bill warns delinquent property owners that they’re in the “next batch” of properties designated for “intensive follow-up.” ( Okunogbe ) #RCT

·        An increase in the subsidy for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in India leads to a surprising decrease in LNG purchases by poor households. Why? The subsidy goes up when the market price rises—i.e., the government keeps the price to consumers stable—but consumers only receive the subsidy as a refund a few days after they purchase the LNG, and “poor households may find it difficult to pay the higher unsubsidized price upfront.” ( Afridi, Barnwal, and Sarkar ) #FE

Regulation and government

·        In Argentina, “serving in the military leads to stronger national identity and openness to fellow countrymen several decades after serving.” ( Ronconi and Ramos-Toro ) #FE

·        In Pakistan, policymakers who received a special training in econometrics are twice as likely to actually choose policies for which there is evidence from randomized controlled trials. They triple the funding for those same policies. ( Mehmood, Naseer, and Chen ) #RCT

·        In Brazil, state judges with higher grades on admission examinations perform better than their lower-ranked peers. ( Dahis, Schiavon, and Scot ) #FE

·        In India, improving the maintenance of fee-funded community toilets improved delivery and reduced free riding, but excludes a share of residents from using the service. ( Armand et al. ) #RCT

·        In, Kenya’s nationwide electrification program, imposing audits improved network size, voltage, household connectivity, and electricity usage at African Development Bank (AfDB) sites. (World Bank sites already had lots of inspections, so random audits didn’t affect those.) The World Bank’s procedures delayed construction at the average site by 9.6 months relative to AfDB sites but improved construction quality by 0.6 standard deviations. ( Wolfram et al. ) #RCT

·        In Bihar, India, instituting a complaint filing system for politicians who run into bureaucratic obstacles in the implementation of their projects led to a 26 percent rise in the implementation of public projects in constituencies run by low-caste local politicians. ( Kumar and Sharan ) #RCT

·        Informing government agents about illegal (gold) mining in Colombia, reduced illegal mining by 11 percent in the disclosed locations and surrounding areas. ( Saavedra ) #ML

·        In India, switching the approving authority of economic development projects that require forest diversion from central to state government “leads to a modestly adverse impact on forest conservation while approving lower quality development work.” ( Chiplunkar and Das ) #DID

·        When two districts in India share groundwater resources, extraction is more likely to be unsustainable and districts are more likely to have defunct wells. ( Bhogale and Khedgikar ) #DID

Agriculture, infrastructure, and the environment

Agriculture and land

·        In Mozambique, contract farming has spillover effects: “both contracted farmers and non-contracted farmers from villages with contracted farmers earn approximately 11 percent more in price per kilogram of maize” than farmers in areas without contract farming. ( Ingram ) #FE

·        The vanilla price boom in Madagascar led to increased asset accumulation and higher informal savings, improved performance on cognitive tests, well-being, and optimism. There were positive effects for smallholder vanilla farmers, but without spillover benefits on non-producing households. ( Boone, Kaila, and Sahn ) #FE

·        In Rwanda, using text messages to remind agricultural extension workers of their self-set goals increased their performance by 0.08 SD. ( Abel et al. ) #RCT

·        How do rural marketplaces shape local development? In Kenya, “while rural population quadrupled, two thirds of weekly markets operating in 1970 no longer do so today.” Population concentrated around markets that were active in 1970, and markets further from large cities saw the most population concentration. ( von Carnap ) #FE

·        If you rely on farmer reports on what seeds they’re using in Ethiopia, you’ll see apparently small, negative returns to using new seed varieties. But that’s because farmers are including “older and genetically diluted varieties, for which” they “may be paying a premium.” If you just look at seed varieties with “higher-purity germplasm, drought-tolerant maize, and newly released varieties,” you do see positive returns. ( Michuda et al. ) #Other

·        How much is one farmer in Uganda willing to pay for their neighbor to use a pest-control technology? A “novel incentive-compatible elicitation mechanism” finds that “a farmer’s willingness-to-pay for one other farmer [to use the technology] is equal to two days’ wage on average, about half the willingness-to-pay for self.” ( Lerva ) #RCT

·        Maybe farmers don’t train their workers in modern planting technologies because they know they won’t get all the benefits of that training: the workers may go and use it somewhere else. In Burundi, providing a contract that guaranteed farmers the benefit from training their workers increased farmers’ willingness to train their workers by about 90 percentage points! ( Cefala et al. ) #RCT

·        In Odisha, India, villages with more variation in castes have lower adoption of flood-resistant seeds. Adoption is more likely to spread within castes and less likely to spread to castes with lower status. ( de Janvry, Rao, and Sadoulet ) #RCT

·        In India, bureaucrats who are assigned to their home states decrease protests or riots in opposition to land acquisition projects by 9-12 percent. ( Tóth ) #DID #RD

·        Lake Chad shrunk by 90 percent between the 1960s and the late 1980s: the reduced water supply had negative effects for neighboring communities in Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger—25 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population—on fishing, in addition to farming and herding which outweighed any positive land supply effects. ( Jedwab et al. ) #DID

Climate and pollution

·        Lake Chad shrunk by 90 percent between the 1960s and the late 1980s: the reduced water supply had negative effects for neighboring communities in Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger—25 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population—on fishing, in addition to farming and herding which outweighed any positive land supply effects. ( Jedwab et al. ) #DID *

·        Households from heavily damaged communities in Indonesia after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami saw a 75 percent decline in real wealth immediately after the tsunami. The large adverse effects persisted 10 years after the tsunami. ( Lombardo et al.) #FE

·        In India and Pakistan, the incidence of fires from crop burning drops by 10 percent when air pollution is likely to be borne by the bureaucrats’ own constituents. “Reduction in fires is present or larger when bureaucrats can better monitor (due to road proximity) or manage fires (due to changes in experience during a turnover), and when they have incentives to act (e.g., when pollution is most visible).” ( Dipoppa and Gulzar ) #DID

·        In utero exposure to high ocean salinity levels (induced by climate change) reduces a child’s height-for-age z-score in Bangladesh, and increased prevalence of stunting and severe stunting due to nutritional deficiencies by age five. ( Guimbeau et al. ) #FE *

Infrastructure

·        In Kenya and Ethiopia, the “impact of bundled road and electricity investments on reducing the sectoral employment share in agriculture is … 2.5 times larger than the impact of roads alone.” ( Dappe and Lebrand ) #FE #IV

·        Aerial bundled cables (an infrastructure improvement) in Karachi, Pakistan, reduced utility losses and increased revenue recovery, with the greatest gains in the worst-performing areas pre-intervention. Gains come via two channels: the formalization of customers previously informally (illegally) connected and the improvement in payment behaviors among existing, formal consumers. ( Ahmad et al. ) #DID

·        A large-scale roll-out of electric transmission infrastructure in Nigeria from 2009 to 2015 increased individuals’ likelihood of migrating by 6 percent and reduced household size by 0.8 individuals, mainly driven by young adults and older teenagers. ( Budjan ) #DID #IV

·        How does transportation infrastructure investment affect spatial inequality of opportunity in Benin, Cameroon, and Mali? “On average only 6 of the top 10 aggregate opportunity-increasing roads also decrease inequality of opportunity.” ( Milsom ) #IV

·        In Dakar, Senegal, it can be hard to find someone to desludge your septic pit. Providing subsidies to use a government run call center to connect households with desludgers increases use, and that use continues for a while after the subsidies end. Later, a city-wide subsidy increased adoption most in those communities that had received subsidies earlier. ( Deutschmann ) #RCT *

Macroeconomics

Growth and inequality

·        Gaining subnational capital status leads to an influx of public investments, an increased population, skilled migration and foreign investments, with positive spillovers to nearby cities. ( Bluhm, Lessmann, and Schaudt ) #FE #DID

·        In China, state-level special economic zones (SEZs)—"geographically delimited areas targeted by governments to implement” policies like tax incentives, government innovation grants, and policies that favor human capital mobility—"have a positive and significant impact on patent output,” but SEZs established at geographic areas smaller than the state don’t have significant impacts. ( Wu, Lu, and Zhao ) #DID

·        Initial foreign direct investment into China “was mainly driven by the Chinese diaspora,” particularly to prefectures in China that members of the diaspora came from. Later, foreign investment that didn’t come from the diaspora was more likely to enter those same prefectures. ( Chen, Xiong, and Zhang ) #DID

·        “Countries are more likely to enter ‘nearby’ industries, i.e., industries that require fewer new occupations.” Also, “countries are more likely to diversify into products that require fewer new inputs,” which means that countries can get stuck on particular paths in their quest toward industrial development, “with certain routes leading to stagnation and others on a pathway to prosperity.” ( Diodato, Hausmann, and Schetter ) #Other

·        “The construction process of many residential buildings in African cities proceeds very slowly and may take over a decade.” Data from Nairobi plus a new theoretical model suggest that “improvements in credit provision can (a) substantially speed up the expansion of the aggregate housing stock which facilitates rural-urban migration, and (b) increase the city’s density by enabling the construction of taller buildings.” ( Gomtsyan ) #Other

·        Giving information about market prices and official border costs to traders in Kenya increases switches across markets and routes, leading to a large improvement in traders’ profits and significant formalization of trade. ( Wiseman ) #RCT

·        Can temporary trade disruptions lead to a persistent change in domestic trade? Yes. In India, COVID-19 induced lockdowns led to a collapse in trade across states, driven by plants reorienting “trade towards their home states to ... insure against any future disruptions.” ( Chakrabati, Mahajan, and Tomar ) #DID

·        The 2001 US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement reduced US import tariffs from Vietnam, leading to rapid Vietnamese export growth with “entry responses, driven by foreign and Vietnamese private firms. Entrants—rather than incumbents—drive the tariff-induced employment growth, particularly foreign entrants.” ( McCaig, Pavcnik, and Wong ) #FE

·        The tariff reduction from the U.S-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement decreased school attendance and increased children’s work, mainly in non-wage and household business jobs. Effects were stronger for boys, older children and households where the head had little education. ( Nguyen ) #DID *

·        In India, “larger cultural proximity [by way of caste and religion] between a pair of firms reduces prices and fosters trade at both the intensive and extensive margins.” ( Fujiy, Khanna, and Toma ) #FE *

The order of authors on this blog was determined by a virtual coin flip. This blog post benefited from research assistance from Amina Mendez Acosta .

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• Economics State and Local Officials Webinar on RealEcon: Reimagining American Economic Leadership Play Matthew Goodman, distinguished fellow and director of the Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies at CFR, discusses CFR’s new RealEcon initiative and the role of state and local officials in contributing to a consensus on U.S. leadership in the international economy. A listening session follows his opening remarks, during which Matt poses a series of questions on American economic leadership and solicit feedback from participants. TRANSCRIPT FASKIANOS: I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president for the National Program and Outreach here at CFR.  CFR is an independent and nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher focused on U.S. foreign policy. CFR is also the publisher of Foreign Affairs magazine. And, as always, CFR takes no institutional position on matters of policy. Through our State and Local Officials Initiative, CFR serves as a resource on international issues affecting the priorities and agendas of state and local governments by providing analysis on a wide range of policy topics. We appreciate you all taking the time to be with us for this very special session of this webinar series. We’re delighted to have over 200 participants confirmed from forty-seven U.S. states and territories. As a reminder, the webinar is on the record. The video and transcript will be posted on our website after the fact at CFR.org.  So we’re pleased to have Matthew Goodman with us today to lead this discussion. Matthew Goodman is a distinguished fellow and the director of the Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies at CFR, where he recently launched CFR’s newest initiative, RealEcon, Reimagining American Economic Leadership. And the purpose of this initiative—I’ll leave it to him to tell you the reason why the Council has mounted this initiative. Prior to joining CFR, he served as senior vice president for economics and the Simon chair in political economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He’s served as director for international economics on the National Security Council staff, undersecretary for economic affairs at the State Department, and as an international economist at the U.S. Treasury Department. So, Matt, thank you very much for being with us.  Just to set the table, the format for today’s webinar is as follows: Matt will introduce the goals of RealEcon, and how officials at the state and local level can contribute to the dialogue on American economic leadership. We’ll run a short poll after his remarks and have a guided discussion on the U.S. and the international economy. So we’re very much looking forward to hearing your views and getting your insights in this conversation. And I’m going to now turn it over to Matt to take it away from here. GOODMAN: Great. Well, thanks, Irina. It’s a pleasure to be here. And welcome, everyone, to the Council on Foreign Relations. I’m in Washington here where we have our satellite—more than a satellite office, I guess, our co-headquarters down here, as well as New York. But delighted to be with you here for this great opportunity for me. I hope you’ll get something out of it too, but it’s really—it’s really important to my work. So, as Irina said, I’ve been here about six, seven months. And I’ve been building this new project, new initiative called RealEcon, which is short for Reimagining American Economic Leadership. And what we’re trying to do is to have a conversation about America’s role in the international economy, why and whether that matters to U.S. interests, and to Americans. And to try to work towards something more like a durable consensus for a kind of American engagement that benefits us and the rest of the world in the best possible way. As you know, just a tiny bit of background, you know, the U.S. really created the international economic system that emerged after World War II, when we were the biggest kid on the block, and we created all these institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. We created kind of the rules of the road. And that was good for everybody. It was good for us—or, most people. Good for us, good for people around the world. But something started to change, you know, as early as the 1970s but certainly in more recent times, that has eroded the support for that American role as a kind of leader and champion of this international economic order. And so we want to understand why that has eroded and what to do about it, and whether, you know, this is something to be spending a lot of policy time here in Washington trying to fix. Which, you know, I’ll be honest, we think it is worth it. But we want to hear from people.  So the first thing we’re doing—and we’re going to dig into different issues of trade and investment. We’re going to get into foreign assistance, which has been a main tool of U.S. policy, foreign aid. We’re going to talk about the new topic of economic security, which is really about how we manage risks—like the rise of China, like climate change, and supply chain disruptions, other risks that have emerged in the international economy that need kind of new policy solutions. We’re going to, in our project, dig into all of those things. And we’ll give you a little pop quiz about some of that stuff later so we can get a sense of what you think.  But the first thing we’re doing in this project really is a listening tour. And we’ve been around now to a couple of states. We were in Florida last month. We were in Wisconsin last week meeting with local officials, businesspeople, students, journalists, dairy farmers, and ginseng farmers in northern Wisconsin—which was fantastic. And we’re asking them about the issues that we’re going to discuss here today, and that are included in this pop quiz. Don’t worry, there’s no—it’s all pass/fail, and you’ll pass. But we are—think this is really important. And this opportunity and meeting with all of you in this format—I hope we can all meet in person too—but this is a convenient way for us to tap into your knowledge, expertise views. And, you know, views not only as officials, but as kind of citizens of the United States. What do you think about things like trade, and so forth?  So with that background, I’m willing—you know, along the way here I think I can see when you raise your hand. If I can’t, I’ll put up a—send up a flare. But, you know, if there are any sort of fundamental questions about the project, I would welcome those. But what we could do here, I think, is jump straight into the—into this quiz. And then we’ll go through some of the answers. So if, Emily, you’re controlling the quiz, maybe you could put that up here. And it’s just five questions. And I’ll give you all kind of a minute or two to go through and answer. It’s multiple-choice. It’s not challenging. And you can just—your answers won’t be personalized. I mean, we won’t know who answered what. But we’ll get some kind of sense of the room from these results.  I am not seeing the poll. I don’t know whether I’m supposed to be or I’m in the wrong place. But, Emily, or—oh, there it is. OK. So I think you can control the scrolling up and down on your screen. That is, you know, the audience in the webinar. So please just—I’ll stop talking and just take a minute to go through and answer these five questions. And then we’ll talk about them. I’m still here, in case anyone’s worried that they’ve lost the connection. I’m going to give you another thirty seconds. Not sure if I’m allowed to answer, it just occurred to me. OK. Folks think they’ve had enough time, I hope? OK. I hope everybody was able to see those and able to answer them. Again, fairly straightforward questions and don’t require a huge amount of thought, I hope. OK. With that, maybe, Emily, if you could share the results. We have this amazing technology to be able to show you—and if you—if everyone watching could just not scroll down and just focus one question at a time, because I really would like to try to get—try to get some feedback on each of these questions.  So what I will first do is this first question: Which of the following captures best what most people in your state think about international trade? And it seems as though we have a close tie between very good thing and somewhat good thing. But most importantly is that a total of 88 percent of you who at least think it’s somewhat of a good thing. And that’s interesting and not totally inconsistent with the polling done by a Pew Research, or by the Chicago Council, and other polling outfits, that show, you know, something between two-thirds and three-quarters of the American people in answer to this kind of question-answer affirmatively that it is least somewhat good.  But I’d like to challenge people, if we can do this in a sort of timely way, if anybody is brave enough to raise their hand who voted for the somewhat bad thing option—if someone’s willing to raise their hand and explain to us all why they voted that way, and why they think, you know, that their state is not so positive. Is anybody brave enough? And I just want to make sure that we’re going to be able to capture this person. I don’t so far see any hands. Could some brave person just put up their hand using the raise-hand button at the bottom and just even—actually, if you could just even—somebody who’s brave, just put that up and say hello, so I can make sure that I can actually see the raise-hand function, which I am still not seeing.  And I just want to give another thirty seconds to make sure it’s not just that you’re—it’s not just a technical problem here that I’m not seeing it, as opposed to people just being shy. Can somebody—there we go. There are raised hands. OK, I can’t—oh, there they are. OK, well, I see the—I see chat. I don’t see the raised-hand function anywhere. So could somebody from our team, Emily or Andrew or somebody, just call on someone and recognize them, and then have them identify themselves, and then go ahead and try to answer my question?  OPERATOR: Sure. We have Sean Smith.  GOODMAN: OK, Sean. Go ahead and identify yourself, if you would, where you are and what you do. Yeah, go ahead. Q: So I was trying to help you overcome your technical challenges. I was more in the somewhat positive realm, although I think it depends on which of my constituents you’re talking about. So I’m— GOODMAN: Where are you? Where are you? Q: Yeah, Jackson County, Missouri, which is Kansas City, and the suburbs of that. And I will say that the biggest thing that seems to be pointing people toward it being less positive recently is when we seen some of the issues with respect to our supply chain—whether that was in pharmaceuticals or semiconductors. We see that this overreliance on foreign trade results in us not being totally able to take care of ourselves, puts us at risk for economic and security disruptions. And I think that’s pointing people towards the less positive feelings on foreign trade. GOODMAN: I see. OK. And, I mean, can you give an example of a business or sort of type of activity that people are— Q: Yeah. So medication, right? Certain medications that help people that have ADD right now are in limited supply. And there’s just this very basic understanding that that comes from challenges that are outside of the United States, getting these ingredients. And the idea that we just outsource so many things that, you know, we can’t necessarily take care of ourselves the way we used to. People don’t like that. GOODMAN: Got it. That’s really interesting and helpful. And I have now discovered in my great technological capability where—I’ve just discovered where the hands are. So now I—now I do see the hands. And I see that Lystra McCoy has raised her hand. Lystra, go ahead. Q: Yes. Hi. This is Lystra McCoy. GOODMAN: Lystra, sorry. Q: And I am a Monroe County legislator in Rochester, New York, Monroe County area.  So I did put somewhat a bad thing. I’m looking at recently, the Biden and Harris administration designated our area as a tech hub for semiconductor and manufacturing supply chain stability. So we’re—in the area, we look at it as, you know, we’re keeping jobs in home, high labor in the area. So we’re keeping jobs in home, or in the country, and not shipping them out. We’re also keeping money within the country by building locally and building within the country. GOODMAN: That’s, you think, a sort of widely held view, or there are a lot of people, or at least some significant portion of your— Q: There’s a significant portion. GOODMAN: Is that based on kind of current reality or sort of historical experience with—you know, I know I happen to have a favorite aunt who lives in Rochester, and I know the city has been through some hard times historically. But is that what kind of some of this is based on? Q: Yes, absolutely. I would say that it’s based on history. And then right now, I think the labor movement is really big here, big on American jobs, big on American manufacturing, and keeping things—especially, you know, we’re old rust belt in this area, looking to revive the area and bring that technology, bring that economy back. You know, Rochester, known for Xerox, Bausch + Lomb, and Kodak. So kind of to bring that essence back to the area.  GOODMAN: Interesting. Yeah. A good point. That’s really interesting. Thank you, Lystra, for that. And I’ll take Eric January. If you’re—go ahead and unmute and go ahead and make your point, if you would. Go ahead, Eric. You have to unmute, I think. Your hand’s down, but you’re still muted. I don’t know whether the— Q: Can you hear me now? GOODMAN: There we go. Go ahead. Q: OK, great. All right. Yeah. Excuse me, one second. All right. Yeah. So my name is Eric January. I’m CPA and also the clerk treasurer for the town of Merrillville, recently elected.  GOODMAN: Town of? Q: Merrillville, Indiana, the largest town— GOODMAN: Oh, Merrillville, Indiana. Got it. Great. Q: Yes. Right. So I’ve been opposed to the type of trade—and, first of all, when I mentioned, I’m in steel capital, the steel capital of the world where people benefited from the Trump tariffs on Chinese steel. But prior to that, I’m from the Chicagoland area, for the most part. I wrote a book way back in 2005 basically explaining what the first gentleman articulated, is that when we are outsourcing the majority of our goods because of, quote/unquote, “cheaper labor,” what it ultimately ended up doing is creating a level of dependency where we lose—we lose not only the jobs that were associated with it, but we ultimately end up losing the skills, and we become dependent on other people to produce things that we’re more than capable of doing. For no other reason, because it’s cheaper.  And I just think that it creates a lot of economic problems down the road, which manifested during the pandemic when we couldn’t even get our—(inaudible, technical difficulties)—because the Chinese were deciding to keep the stuff for themselves and we had to outsource all of the manufacturing. The same thing with Taiwan Semiconductor. We’re at the—at risk of going to war over producing—China invading Taiwan, because we really don’t want to lose Taiwan Semiconductor. But we started the chip industry, and we decided to outsource it to somebody else, and we created a dependency that’s completely unnatural. So there are a number of reasons, but just to be dependent on anybody as an adult is completely unnatural. It is not about the money. That is completely unnatural. And I think that it’s a setup for failure in the American economy.  GOODMAN: OK. That’s a—that’s a really clear and convincing perspective. And I want to take just one more, which I assume is going to be also somebody who voted in that category, Booter. And then I want to maybe invite—while I’m waiting for Booter to unmute and make a comment, just to say to other people who have heard those comments who voted in the more positive category, either very good thing or somewhat good thing, if there’s anything you want to say in response to any of that, feel free to jump in. Although we’ll have other chances as we go through the other questions. Booter, do you want to go ahead?  Q: Well, actually I was just raising my hand for your technical stuff. But I do have a point from—that I agree with, that the gentleman that just spoke about the outsourcing stuff. But also, I’m in Tallahassee, Florida. But I think down here, especially in the agricultural business with a lot of international trade and exports to other countries, it has been a benefit to Florida. So it’s kind of a mixed bag, I think, from our point of view. GOODMAN: Really good point. And, Booter, we were in Tallahassee—I’d mentioned we were in Florida last month. We were in Tallahassee. I’m sorry we didn’t meet. But, yeah, we heard—we heard some of that. Although, we also heard, you know, tomato growers down there who felt a little threatened by the Mexican competition when the NAFTA agreement was renegotiated, and sort of were concerned about that. So you hear—you hear that as well. But you’re making a very good point. Q: It’s really a mixed bag, I think.  GOODMAN: Yeah. But you’re definitely—you hear a lot from the agriculture sector that are looking for—you know, for foreign markets. The trade is important.  Anybody else want to jump in on this question? Otherwise, we can go down. And we’re not going to leave the topic of trade, so you’ll have other chances to jump in. But I just wanted—if anybody wanted to respond to any of the points that were made there.  Oh, Eric, did you have something else to say, or are you still— Q: Oh, I guess I didn’t lower my hand.  GOODMAN: Oh, no problem. No worries. OK. Well, why don’t we—well, let me just say one thing. Those are all really good points. And I think—I guess—actually, maybe I have a question for you, Eric, because you mentioned the point about the steel industry valuing the Trump tariffs. Actually, you know what? Let me—let me make this point when we get to the second question, because it gets right to this question. So why don’t we look at the—scroll down, everybody, to question number two, or answer number two. And the question was about, you know, how people in your state feel about tariffs imposed by the U.S. government on imported goods. And it looks like a pretty strong majority here feel that targeted tariffs are justified to protect some American firms. And it sounds like, Eric, you’re in that category. At least that category, if not the broad¬-based tariffs. Are others who voted that way—oh, go ahead, Eric. Do you want to say something? Q: No, I’m undoubtedly in that category of targeted tariffs, and maybe tariffs just in general, because at the end of the day governments have to result in tariffs because people are going for the lowest priced goods because they’re out to make some money. But that can be short sighted, in a sense, because they understand that people need jobs, but they’re trying to protect their interests and thinking in the short term. In the long term, it ends up costing the economy. And the only solution to that, in many cases, is to implement a tariff, so the price equals one another. And people are just making decision about who they want to employ, an American or a Chinese? GOODMAN: Right. That makes a lot of sense. But let me just give you another story from our road trip. We were in Wisconsin last week. And we went to a canning factory for canned green beans and other vegetables. That is—I guess it’s OK to say—it was Del Monte, was the brand. And they pick the beans locally and Americans are picking them and then putting them into the cans. But the cans are procured—there’s a factory next door that makes the cans using steel that is both imported and domestically sourced from U.S. Steel and other great steel companies.  And they said that when the tariffs—at this factory, they said when the tariffs were imposed on imported steel—not just from China, but remember it was also Korea, and Japanese, European steel that was also hit—that caused a rise in the price of the steel used in those cans, and made those cans of beans that Del Monte produces less competitive than cans of beans coming from China with, you know, China’s steel over there, with beans over there, than coming over here tariff-free and competing with the—with the Chinese—with the Del Monte beans.  And so the people in the Del Monte company were concerned about whether they were going to be able to support their position and job. So, you know, there are these sort of downstream effects are caused if you—if you put tariffs on, you know, inputs like steel, and, you know, I’d welcome response to you—from you, Eric, or others who voted that, you know, tariffs are either not a good thing or are only justified in some cases. Is there anybody who wants to—Tom Smith, you want to say something about that? Please identify yourself first, if you would. And you have to unmute here. Still not—there we go. Q: Can you hear me now?  GOODMAN: Yeah. Q: OK. Tom Smith, mayor pro tem, Weddington, North Carolina, which is a—basically, a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina.  So we were in the area that was the textile hub of the U.S., which was decimated. And things have transitioned. But I look at—and I’ll say this, I’m a retired banker. And I’ve financed a lot of companies domestically and internationally. And when we first started the international part, I thought this was pretty good. We’d get cheap things for the consumers. And unfortunately, you know, the business gravitated heavily to China. And once we let them in the WTO, everything that—I think the wheels just came off of the fairness factor of competition. It is so difficult to compete with people who do not have the same values.  And back in the textile industry, there was a time they were importing finished apparel into our country lower than the world market price for the cotton. So how can anybody compete against trade tactics like that? So—and that goes on with the steel industry. They’re heavily subsidized. You know, Nucor Steel is headquartered in Charlotte. And I know the CFO real well. And they’re—and they’re the lowest-cost producer in the world, if you take away tariffs—not tariffs, but subsidies. And subsidies are the issues they have to compete against. Not production. The cost of a facility, the machinery and equipment, is a huge part of it. The cost of capital is the same around the world. Labor is an insignificant part of the whole component of making the steel.  It is regulations and subsidies that are the main factors against them. And I’ll just say this, the U.S. did a great job of exporting what were deemed to be polluting companies to Asia. That’s what we effectively did, because they didn’t have the same environmental rules as we do. We cleaned up our water and air to a huge degree at the expense of them. And that’s where we are. But the price was hollowing out our manufacturing base. So I think it is just terribly difficult to work with a country like China, where their idea of the rules and the rest of the world’s is something else. Europe is going through that heavily right now with China. We have a lot of German businesses in our town—not—in our area. And, you know, what goes on with China affects them. And they’re having tremendous issues with competition and— GOODMAN: Especially now, from electric vehicles and— Q: Oh, everything. Everything. And— GOODMAN: No, that’s a really good—sorry. Go ahead. Q: Yeah. But, I mean, I look at the point that they do not play—I mean, the worst thing, in my mind, the Western world ever did was allow China in the WTO. This decimated manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and Europe, and took—and took away the ability to work with the Caribbean and Central American countries for labor, to employ them by doing, you know, the labor-intensive work of, let’s say, a textile industry or your car. It just took it away. You know, everything—you know, it was all taken away and gravitated to one place. So I financed a lot of Chinese businesses over the years as they imported in here, their import operations. And basically regret every minute of it now. But they’re very good—very good businessmen. But when it comes to equity and fairness in trade, that’s not in their vocabulary. GOODMAN: Right. So I really appreciate those comments, Tom. And I—when I—as I—as I—let me say a couple things in response to that. But let me—let me invite others who want to jump in on this question about tariffs if they want to raise their hand and contribute, you’re very welcome.  All good points. And, you know, in theory, the WTO system that we created had rules about things like subsidies, right? And that you can’t subsidize, you know, to create these unfair advantages. And if you do, you can be subject to penalties, you know, the other country can retaliate, and so forth. That was, I think, constructed at a time before China was really such a big part of the WTO. It wasn’t even in the WTO when those rules were created. And I think it envisaged a different kind of scale of subsidization. You know, it was more targeted, specific subsidies. And China, you know, was over time seen to be massively subsidizing a lot of their production. And that—the WTO, at least a lot of people would argue, is not fit for purpose to try to constrain those subsidies. They’re just too massive and too widespread. So that is a big part of the debate now about trade policy.  On the other hand, it raises the point that the purpose, at least in theory, of trade policy is to try to not just open markets in both directions, but also to try to establish those kinds of rules, that then subject countries to, you know, penalties if they don’t, including your environmental point. You know, raising standards there and having penalties of countries don’t live up to those. That’s the theory. Whether it’s actually been done or implementable is another question. But that’s—but if we—if we don’t try to do trade policy rules, then, you know, you could argue that that’s going to create even more of these problems. I think that’s that would be the argument on that. But your points are very well taken, and very well-articulated. Thank you, Tom.  Did Gail want to jump in here? Go ahead, Gail. You need to unmute there. Q: All right. Can you hear me now?  GOODMAN: Yeah.  Q: Yes. Thank you. My name is Gail Patterson-Gladney, I’m a Van Buren County commissioner in Michigan.  And I represent a lot of farmers, blueberry farmers. And I don’t know if that will be classified under what you’re discussing now, but because lot of the farmers are undercut in their prices by Canada and Mexico, they are struggling. And I don’t know if it’s because they don’t have enough tariffs on those crops coming into the country, but I didn’t know if you could clarify that.  GOODMAN: That’s really interesting. And I don’t know the blueberry business. But I—but I understand from, you know, again, having just been in Wisconsin, where there’s a lot of dairy and other—actually ginseng too—where there’s competition with Canada, in particular, that you hear things like what you just said about blueberries. And that is, you know, a part of the story here, that there’s competition from especially these neighboring countries, but also, you know, China and other places, that can make it harder for, you know, American producers to compete.  And, you know, I—again, I don’t know about the blueberry case, and what kinds of tariffs we might impose, or do impose, or might impose on those, and how they’re treated under the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Free Trade Agreement. But the—you know, the—you know, it’s very—just like any other product that we put tariffs on, that can help provide some protection to or level that sort of competitive playing field. On the other hand, you know, as I was mentioning, in the steel can case with Del Monte, you know, it probably ends up raising prices for consumers and for folks, as it were, downstream of that—of that production. So that’s the—that’s the sort of trade-off here, if we were to use tariffs, you know, on a product like blueberries. But interesting point. Thank you. I didn’t—maybe need to get up to Michigan and see the blueberry business up there at some point. Q: Yes. OK. Thank you. GOODMAN: That’s very helpful. Thank you, Gail. Q: You’re welcome. GOODMAN: I mean, unless there are other points on that, and I’d welcome other points on trade, we’ll probably have a chance to circle back on that. But I do want to get through the other questions, and then we can have a period at the end there, of just sort of open comments that anybody wants to make. But, so number three, if we could scroll down to that. We asked you about foreign aid. And the question is, does—you know, do folks in your state think that foreign aid is mostly good for the U.S. or mostly harms the U.S.? And it seems like—unless there were just two people who answered and it was a tie—there seem to be sort of split views here. And I wondered if anybody wanted to take that on. I see Lynette has got her hand up. I don’t know whether it’s this question or the previous one. Either one is fine. Go ahead. Lanette. Q: It’s this one, Can you hear me?  GOODMAN: OK. Yes, ma’am. Go ahead. Q: It’s this one. And let me preface it by saying that my citizens here—I’m from Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I’m a city council member here. And I do know that—let me preface it by saying that there are a lot of— GOODMAN: Oops, we lost you there. At least I can’t hear Lanette anymore. FASKIANOS: I think Lanette, you muted herself. There you go. GOODMAN: There you go. OK, go ahead. Q: Am I there? OK. GOODMAN: Yes, you’re back. Good. Q: Can you hear me? GOODMAN: I can hear you and see your wonderful Zoom picture too, so. Q: OK. I am the city council member here in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  And let me preface it by saying that the citizens here, there are some citizens here who really do think that the United States need to help more of our Americans before we start giving aid overseas. But overall here, we do believe in aid, foreign aid, because a lot of our citizens here are veterans, and educators, and farmers. And so we do believe in foreign aid, because we do believe that it promotes stability, you know, in regards to addressing poverty and inequality. And that can help us not have a lot of terrorism come our way. You know, it kind of lightens the threat of terrorism. But also economic interest, just being able to foster that economic growth where Americans, we can have our goods also have opportunities to grow into other markets outside the United States. You know, that win-win situation. And then just with the United States being the humanitarian country that we are, you know, being able to help those that are in need gives us a great reputation globally.  And then, in regards to—and I’m trying to go quick because I know everybody else got to speak too, but there’s a lot that I want to say on that. But also, it could build alliances with other nations and countries when we give foreign aid to others. And so just and then—and having that foreign—helping with the foreign aid, and having that camaraderie and that relationship with other countries can also help us nationwide attack a problem that all of us are having, in reference to climate changes, and pandemics, and food insecurities, and anything else that we might be facing that’s not just localized to America, but to everybody globally. So that’s just what I wanted to say.  GOODMAN: OK. So, Lanette, I think that the current administrator—that is, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is our, you know, government agency that provides bilateral foreign aid, she could not have given a better speech than the one you just gave—about the case for foreign aid, the combination of stability, sort of prosperity, and economic benefit, the humanitarian cause, the diplomatic benefits. I think you’ve perfectly summarized the case for. And you preface it by—you know, by saying that, obviously, people want—you know, want— Q: More aid here. GOODMAN: Well, they want money to be spent at home, too.  Q: Mmm hmm. GOODMAN: So I think that’s understandable. You know, we don’t spend that much on foreign aid. It’s, you know, 1 percent of the national budget. So it’s not nearly as big as people think it is.  Q: It isn’t.  GOODMAN: Right? But it is—but it is a legitimate issue for people to be—to be looking at and questioning. But I think you’ve made a lot of great points there. And that would be exactly what somebody would say about, you know, everything from the Marshall Plan after World War II, when we made that sort of bet that if we reinvested in rebuilding Europe and Japan they would become strong allies, they’d become strong markets, economically they’d be more stable, and so forth. Right up to things like—I often talk about the PEPFAR initiative, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which President George W. Bush launched twenty years ago in sub-Saharan Africa. And, you know, for a cost of only a few billion, I think, over that twenty years—which, you know, in the scheme of things is not a huge amount of money—we’ve saved something like 25 million lives and created huge, great goodwill in Africa. So, you know, it is a strong thing.  On the other hand, it’s American taxpayer money. And, you know, people are right to question whether this is the best use of that money. So you hear that as well. And I suspect that some of the people who said it harms the U.S.—does anybody else want to jump in on this, especially to make that point about why it’s not a great investment for the U.S.? If not, we can skip on. I know we’re—time is ticking here. So why don’t we go through the next two, and then we’ll—and then we’ll come back and give you a few minutes at the end to intervene on anything you want to talk about.  So, number four: Would you support or oppose the government’s further restricting investment with China? So it looks like a pretty significant majority support that, at least somewhat, if not strongly. For, like, almost 90 percent. So does anybody want to comment on that, either—I was like to take the minority who didn’t make that point. Like, why would you oppose further restricting investment with China? Does anybody want to who—voted that way, that 13 percent, want to raise their hand and explain why they don’t think restricting investment with China is a good thing, or further restricting it? Or on the other side is fine too. Welcome any additional hands. I don’t see any hands yet. There we go. Michael, go ahead. You need to unmute. There we go. Go ahead, Michael. Still can’t hear you. You look like you’re unmuted, but—OK. I’ll tell you what, Michael—are you there? OK. I’m not hearing you. Is anybody else hearing Michael? I think maybe— OPERATOR: I think we’re having problems hearing Michael. But, Michael, I encourage you to use the written Q&A as well if your microphone is not working.  GOODMAN: OK. OK. And I—if anybody else wants to comment on this question about further restricting investment with China? Anybody have any thoughts? Michael, you want to try again? Still not coming through. Anybody else want to jump in on that? OK, Eric. Oh, you got to unmute there. OK.  Q: Can you hear me? GOODMAN: Yes, go ahead.  Q: Sorry. Just in terms of investing in China, it’s already been proven that they’re using the investment to gain intellectual knowledge that they didn’t have before. And I’m all for businesses and countries being able to support themselves, but it shouldn’t be at the detriment of our intellectual property. And so restricting foreign investment in China, it can make some sense. But at the same time it can also do us some harm with the relationship that we have with China as a trading partner. But the trading has been completely in favor of China.  And on that basis, I would probably agree that we should restrict the transfer of intellectual property to China. But at this point, so much of our intellectual property has already been stolen, I don’t know that we could ever recover from it, because they dominate the solar industry, and so many other different industries, and they’re determined to dominate the electric industry as well by flooding our country with so many cheap goods with intellectual property that they may have gained unlawfully, that I just don’t know that we can recover from it. And just in terms of that. So restricting it, yes, I think we should restrict it. GOODMAN: OK. So that’s investment to China. And there is both a concern, you know, here in Washington about investment going in for that reason, intellectual property also, because of the point about concentrating our risks, or, you know, our dependencies. I think you made this point earlier about dependencies in China. And so trying to get countries—companies to pull out. Of course, companies have their own reasons why they’re pulling out of China, because it’s not growing as fast, because it’s a difficult market to be in, in addition to U.S. government policy measures that may be incentivizing that move out of China.  And then there’s also a new set of guidelines on outbound sort of financial investment, like Tom who’s a finance guy would probably know about this. That there’s an effort to restrict financial investment into certain technologies in China, like, you know, advanced AI-related and other high-tech production in China. So there’s a lot of conversation about investment that direction. There’s also investment this direction. And the question about whether there—we ought to be restricting Chinese investment into the United States from China. And I don’t know if anybody has a view on that. I see Alderman Lanette has got her hand up again. Do you want to offer any thoughts on this topic, Lanette? Go ahead. Q: OK. Can you hear me?  GOODMAN: Yes, ma’am.  Q: And, again, I agree with the gentleman that just spoke about the intellectual property. We have to protect it. You know, so limiting Chinese investments can definitely help us in that regard. And then also just thinking about national security on the whole. When it comes to Chinese investments and stuff. We already have seen issues as far as technology and espionage and things like that. So we want to definitely have some kind of control, and some kind of mechanism in place to guarantee—we can’t always 100 percent guarantee national security. But we should come doggone close to it. So we want to be careful of what we do in regards to—in regards to that.  So I just wanted to tap in on the gentleman’s question. I definitely agree with him. And then, just being able to level the playing field. I mean, the Chinese, like we know they have different values and different kinds of thoughts sometimes when it comes to trade and business and things like that that we do. So just being able to level the playing field and stuff. So I think the restrictions definitely need to be in place. I think that we got to be careful when we’re dealing with Chinese—well, anybody, really, outside of the United States. But we definitely know that they are—they can be a potential threat if we don’t be careful. GOODMAN: Great. Well said. OK, great, great points, all of those. Again, thanks, Lanette.  And let me take John Kurtz and then Stephanie Agee. And then we’ll come back to you, Tom, again. But I wanted to get new voices in here. So, John, go ahead and unmute yourself, and then feel free to make your point.  Q: Hi, this is John Kurtz from Buchanan County, Iowa. I’m a county supervisor.  We’re very heavily in the agricultural industry, but we’re also adjacent to two John Deere factories here. And Chinese investment is a frightening thing in our farm economy. They’re buying up land. It’s not just Iowa, it’s South Dakota. There’s a lot of areas that are being invested by China. They’ve also taken over one of the biggest pork producers in the United States, Smithfield Foods. And I’m afraid that if we let China have too much power over there, if we were to get into an armed conflict with them, they could shut us down. And we would really stifle our production at factories and everything else with all the product that is being imported to support those factories. GOODMAN: Right. Good. And that national security point is a particularly important one, and one that obviously gets a lot of conversation here in Washington these days.  Q: Well, remember what happened during COVID when the ports were all backed up and we couldn’t get any product in the United States. And that could very easily happen again.  GOODMAN: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s another problem in the world, another disruptive factor right here around Washington. Here we have this terrible thing with the bridge in Baltimore that’s having a visible effect here on supplies of a lot of things. So good points. Thank you, John. Appreciate that.  Stephanie, do you want to jump in here? Q: Yes. Hi. Can you hear me?  GOODMAN: Hi. Q: Great. Matt, good to see you. Stephanie Agree from the state of Virginia, vice president for— GOODMAN: I remember you. How are you?  Q: Doing great. Doing great. Thank you so much for—to you and CFR for organizing this session. I really appreciate it.  So as my title would suggest, I’m focused on international trade. I’m here for it. I absolutely understand many of the—the impacts that it has had negatively in parts of the country, but I don’t want to ignore the tremendous positive impact it’s had on our country as well, and the world for that matter. Which is also important. Impacting the world and having positive impacts for the world is important. And I think that’s been noted in several different comments here, where people have talked about the importance of U.S. aid and how it’s important for us to have these positive impacts so that we have less unrest in other parts of the world, that the U.S. then has to end up responding to.  But specifically, back to the comments about restrictions on China investment. I answered this—I said, you know, somewhat oppose them. And the way that I was thinking about it was more about restrictions by the United States on companies’ ability to invest in or trade with China. So I probably—I might have answered it slightly differently than others. But I think my point here is my reservations about the government, the U.S. government, limiting the private sector’s ability to make investments and to make decisions. Also noting that there are lots of rules around the exports of products and services that have any impact on national security. The U.S. government is doing a very good job, I feel, at that, and being very protective of those things.  So I just want to note that those restrictions are in place. They certainly impact a lot of my Virginia companies that are trying to export their products, not necessarily to China but to other parts of the world. So if we—if we—if we paint it with a broad brush and say that, you know, limitations on the private sector’s ability to make government—to make their own decisions about where they—who they do business with and how they do business, that’s really where my—kind of where my opposition lies.  GOODMAN: Right. Got it. Those are really good points, Stephanie. And, you know, traditionally in the investment policy world there’s been a concept of the negative list approach, which means things that you feel for national security reasons or other reasons you don’t want, you know, foreign investment into your country. And that’s a legitimate issue for every country. That you put them on a negative list, and you say: You cannot do these things. But if it isn’t on that list, then it—you know, it’s open and it’s possible to do investment and have the benefits of that cross-border flow, and the private sector dynamic that you discussed. That’s been the traditional approach to investment policy. We tried to get China to move to that approach too, by the way, a more negative list approach. But these days, there’s more talk about broader sets of restrictions and arguments in favor of a new approach here. But there is a cost.  By the way, I didn’t say at the beginning, we have a—sort of a branded platform as part of RealEcon called Trade-Offs. And we’re writing essays. And we might also do debates or other things over time to talk about the trade-offs. Any one of these policies that we’ve been talking about, there’s some good things, some bad things. So it’s, like, there’s no—very few things in life, probably, but also in this area of international economics, are absolute. It’s sort of there’s some positive, some negative. And either choice might be legitimate, but there’s usually a cost of some kind. And so the question is, you have to decide which—you know, how much cost are you willing to pay for some other benefit? You know, that’s part of—it is intrinsic to—it's really at the heart of a lot of the stuff we’re looking at here. So stay tuned for more trade-offs conversations.  OK, Tom, you’ve been patient. And then I’m going to just give you—if you can be as concise as you can. And then I’d want to just get to this last question, then give anybody any further chances to jump in on any of this. Go ahead, Tom. You’ll need to unmute there. There you go. Q: There it went. It finally went. I was clicking on it several times and it finally took. On the foreign aid issue, I am for targeted foreign aid. I believe most people here are. You do have to screen it carefully to make sure you are getting value for what you’re doing and it’s not just indiscriminate, giving the taxpayers’ money away to—because people are very sensitive to that. Like, there’s a lot of places with needs. And a lot of it’s because of upheavals or refugee status, or whatever in the world that we really need to help them. I was just reading the Financial Times today about the Solomon Islands just electing a prime minister who is pro-China friendly. And the U.S. evidently over the past number of years has not been, let’s say, trying to give them the warm and fuzzy. And the Chinese have made great inroads there.  And so that’s—you know, you have to pay attention to that and that take your eye off the ball. But, again, when it comes to trade, my real beef is with China. And it’s because its authoritarian regime, all the businesses, basically, are—even the private business, technically, have to kowtow to whatever the regime says. And once the current leader came in place a number of years ago, they took a real hard tack in a different direction from where they’d been going for twenty-odd years. You know, they’ve gone back to really centralizing everything and to trying to be extremely outwardly aggressive. And it is unfortunate. GOODMAN: Yeah. Yeah, no, under this president— Q: And the initial intent of going—working with China was to improve them and improve the world and make them a better place and more agreeable and/or a country that could easily assimilate into the world, if you know what I’m saying. And it’s having a total turn. And it’s become very, very authoritarian. And when you combine authoritarianism with the power they had developed under the more liberal policies, and convert that one way, it is very dangerous for the world and extremely impossible to compete with. And given they’ve turned so authoritarian—I mean, they’re a virtual police state over there. And nothing gets done unless the government wants it done. And this may sound hard and crass, but they have almost become what I would call the new Nazi, Germany, when it comes to a business model. And they’re a police state. And it’s very difficult to deal with something like that. And feeding that monster isn’t going to help us. It’ll never, never help us. So it sounds hard, but I look at it. It’s a police state. Government control. And they wield a lot of power. But people still say, I can make money—free enterprise. I can make money off of trading with them. So to me, it’s a dangerous game. It’s a dangerous game we’re in right now. And I wish the leadership would change and become more moderate, obviously, but— GOODMAN: Yeah. I think no question under Xi Jinping, the current president who took over in 2012-2013, there has been that shift, as you mentioned, very sharply. And it’s very problematic for us and, I think, actually for them too. I think long term it’s not good for them. And but, yeah, there was, you know, twenty years ago a sort of different leadership that had, I think, a different approach to reform. And that I think was genuine. I think they were trying to move in a different direction. But that’s the China we’re dealing with today. So those are good points.  Let me—let me just ask—I see that—I see that we’ve got a comment in the—in the chat from Greg. I don’t know if you want to make that point to the group by raising your hand or just speaking. That’d be great. And meanwhile—OK, you got your hand up. Go ahead, Greg. If you can introduce yourself. You’ll need to unmute there. Yeah. Can’t hear you yet, Greg. But if you could try to unmute one more time. And then if not, I can read your question, and your point quickly here. OK. Don’t think we’re getting you here. So yeah.  No, the point you’re making is about electric vehicles. And China’s advancing and making actually, frankly, quite good electric vehicles now. Whatever you think of how they got the technology or whatever, the reality is they are producing electric cars that are pretty good and are cheaper than Teslas and things. And I drove one of these in Europe last summer when we just happened to rent a car and it was one of these BYD Chinese cars. And it’s not bad, actually. So and it helps address climate change, as you make in your point, but it also—because they’re making these things with huge subsidies and undercutting producers here and in Europe and so forth, it’s creating a backlash and a concern about whether we’re going to be able to produce these things ourselves, or sustain it.  So let me just quickly for—great point. And just before, John, you get on there, just thirty seconds. Does anybody have anything to say about the climate change point? I guess, in a way, Greg was just getting to that by talking about electric vehicles. Anybody want to say—is that the point you wanted to address, John, or was it something else? John Kurtz. Go ahead. Q: Yes. I wanted to comment on the climate change issue. No matter what we do in the United States, until India and China do something it—we’ve already made huge strides in the United States. And right now, in Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, we’re being pressured put in this CO2 sequestration plan to capture CO2 from our ethanol plants. And it’s crazy. I mean, CO2 is what fuels plants to live. And here, we’re making this big push to capture all the CO2. What’s that going to do to our farming economy? Trees, everything—we all learned it in school. That’s the only way they survive, they produce oxygen from CO2. And our farm community is very, very concerned about it. GOODMAN: Good. And that is a strong argument on the side of, you know, of concern about some of these efforts to address climate change. On the other hand, you know, there’s an argument that’s pretty powerful that this is a—you know, becoming a planetary problem that is going to cause all kinds of other, you know, disruptions to our economic capabilities. And certainly, the Biden administration feels pretty strongly about that, and has invested $370 billion or something through the Inflation Reduction Act in climate and clean energy solutions.  And some of that’s providing economic benefit in your states, I can imagine. I wish I could explore this really important topic more thoroughly, but we’re already past time and there’s a hard rule at CFR not to go over time, which I apologize for having done. Let me just thank everybody for great comments and input. Not enough time. It’d be great to do this again. And I hope to do it in person. Certainly, if you come to Washington please swing by CFR. We’d love to hear more, have more conversation with you. In the meantime, thanks a lot, everybody. And back to you, Irina. FASKIANOS: Thank you so much, Matt. Really appreciate you doing this, and to all of you for your comments. We will send out a link to the webinar recording and transcript, along with contact information for Matt if you want to follow up with him, and if you want to invite him to your state for—to show him what’s happening in your communities. I’m just offering you up there, Matt.  And to learn more about CFR’s RealEcon Initiative, you should go to CFR.org/initiative/RealEcon, which we put in the chat window and we will also include in our follow-up note to all of you. And, as always, we encourage you to go to CFR.org. ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for the latest developments and analysis on international trends and how they are affecting the United States. Of course, please do share your thoughts for speakers and topics for future webinars. You can email [email protected] . Again, thank you for all that you do in your communities. And we look forward to continuing the dialogue. Enjoy the rest of your day. END Webinar by Matthew P. Goodman and Irina A. Faskianos May 2, 2024
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Economics Thesis Topics

600 Economics Thesis Topics and Ideas

Economics is a diverse and evolving field that addresses some of the most pressing global issues, from market fluctuations and inflation to labor dynamics and sustainable development. For students writing a thesis in economics, selecting the right topic is essential for making an original contribution to this ever-changing landscape. To help students find the perfect research focus, we have compiled a comprehensive list of 600 economics thesis topics, divided into 20 categories. These categories span traditional fields such as macroeconomics and international trade, as well as emerging areas like environmental economics and circular economies. Whether your interest lies in policy analysis, behavioral insights, or global economic trends, this list will provide the foundation for your thesis.

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Get 10% off with 24start discount code, 1. agricultural economics thesis topics.

• The impact of climate change on agricultural productivity.
• Investigating agricultural subsidies and their effect on rural economies.
• The role of technology in improving food security in developing countries.
• The effects of agricultural trade policies on global food prices.
• Exploring the relationship between agricultural biodiversity and food security.
• The economic impact of sustainable farming practices.
• Investigating the role of agricultural microfinance in rural development.
• The effects of land tenure systems on agricultural productivity.
• Agricultural commodity markets: Price volatility and risk management.
• The role of government intervention in stabilizing agricultural markets.
• Exploring agricultural supply chains and their role in reducing food waste.
• The impact of organic farming on economic sustainability.
• Investigating agricultural trade barriers in developing countries.
• The role of biotechnology in increasing agricultural productivity.
• Exploring the economic impact of genetically modified crops.
• Investigating the economics of agroforestry systems.
• Agricultural policy reforms and their impact on smallholder farmers.
• The role of irrigation systems in improving agricultural output.
• The economic effects of crop insurance programs.
• Investigating the role of women in agricultural development.
• Exploring the effects of agricultural mechanization on labor markets.
• Investigating the role of cooperative farming in rural economic growth.
• The economics of food distribution and access in urban areas.
• Investigating the economic impact of farm-to-table movements.
• Exploring agricultural export trends in developing countries.
• The role of agricultural extension services in increasing productivity.
• Investigating the economic impact of drought-resistant crops.
• The role of international organizations in promoting agricultural sustainability.
• Exploring the future of vertical farming in urban agriculture.
• Investigating the role of biofuels in agricultural economics.

2. Behavioral Economics Thesis Topics

• The role of cognitive biases in consumer decision-making.
• Exploring the impact of social norms on economic behavior.
• The effects of framing and choice architecture on savings decisions.
• Investigating the role of emotions in investment behavior.
• Exploring the relationship between behavioral economics and public policy.
• The impact of anchoring and loss aversion on financial markets.
• The role of behavioral interventions in promoting healthy eating habits.
• Investigating the effects of nudges on retirement savings.
• Exploring the economic impact of mental accounting on household budgeting.
• The role of fairness concerns in labor market negotiations.
• Investigating behavioral factors that influence charitable giving.
• The impact of default options on insurance enrollment decisions.
• Exploring the role of social preferences in economic cooperation.
• Investigating the behavioral determinants of risk-taking in financial markets.
• The role of overconfidence in entrepreneurial decision-making.
• Investigating the impact of behavioral economics on energy conservation.
• The role of bounded rationality in consumer behavior.
• Exploring the effects of behavioral economics in healthcare policy design.
• Investigating the role of trust in economic transactions.
• Exploring the impact of peer influence on financial decisions.
• The role of present bias in credit card debt accumulation.
• Investigating the effects of behavioral economics on tax compliance.
• Exploring the role of loss aversion in real estate investment decisions.
• The impact of behavioral economics on the design of pension systems.
• Investigating the role of behavioral insights in promoting environmental sustainability.
• The role of behavioral factors in influencing labor supply decisions.
• Exploring the impact of behavioral economics on the housing market.
• Investigating the effects of time inconsistency on savings behavior.
• The role of behavioral economics in the design of public health campaigns.
• Investigating the role of optimism bias in business decision-making.

3. Business Economics Thesis Topics

• The impact of digital transformation on business models.
• Investigating the role of innovation in business growth.
• Exploring the economic effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR).
• The role of mergers and acquisitions in market competition.
• Investigating the economic impact of family-owned businesses.
• The effects of globalization on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
• Exploring the role of e-commerce in the global economy.
• Investigating the economic impact of intellectual property rights.
• The role of corporate governance in business performance.
• Exploring the economic implications of automation in manufacturing.
• Investigating the role of business analytics in improving decision-making.
• The effects of technological advancements on labor productivity.
• Exploring the role of business networks in fostering innovation.
• Investigating the economic impact of corporate tax policies.
• The role of business incubators in promoting entrepreneurship.
• Exploring the effects of leadership styles on business performance.
• Investigating the economic effects of business cycles on investment decisions.
• The role of market research in shaping business strategies.
• Exploring the impact of supply chain disruptions on global trade.
• Investigating the effects of inflation on business profitability.
• The role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in business expansion.
• Exploring the impact of economic crises on business survival strategies.
• Investigating the role of business ethics in corporate decision-making.
• The effects of government regulations on business competitiveness.
• Exploring the economic impact of franchising on small businesses.
• Investigating the role of digital marketing in business growth.
• The role of human capital in business innovation and productivity.
• Exploring the economic effects of outsourcing on business efficiency.
• Investigating the role of financial markets in business expansion.
• Exploring the economic implications of corporate sustainability initiatives.

4. Circular Economy Thesis Topics

• Investigating the economic impact of circular economy practices on business models.
• Exploring the role of recycling in promoting circular economy systems.
• The role of government policies in fostering a circular economy.
• Investigating the relationship between circular economies and sustainable development.
• Exploring the economic potential of circular supply chains.
• The role of eco-design in reducing waste in a circular economy.
• Investigating the impact of circular economy practices on consumer behavior.
• Exploring the economic benefits of product life extension strategies.
• The role of remanufacturing in a circular economy.
• Investigating the role of circular economy in reducing environmental degradation.
• The effects of extended producer responsibility (EPR) on waste management.
• Exploring the role of closed-loop supply chains in circular economies.
• Investigating the role of collaborative consumption in fostering a circular economy.
• The economic benefits of resource efficiency in circular economy models.
• Exploring the role of reverse logistics in achieving a circular economy.
• Investigating the impact of circular economies on urban development.
• The role of green technologies in advancing circular economy practices.
• Exploring the economic potential of upcycling in the fashion industry.
• Investigating the role of shared economy platforms in promoting circular economy practices.
• The role of waste-to-energy technologies in circular economies.
• Investigating the impact of circular economy policies on global trade.
• Exploring the economic implications of circular economy transitions for developing countries.
• The role of digital technologies in promoting circular economies.
• Investigating the economic benefits of circular economies in the manufacturing sector.
• Exploring the potential of circular economies in reducing carbon emissions.
• The role of circular economy principles in reducing plastic waste.
• Investigating the economic impact of circular economies on job creation.
• The role of circular economies in promoting sustainable agriculture.
• Exploring the economic challenges of transitioning to circular economy models.
• Investigating the role of consumer education in promoting circular economy practices.

5. Development Economics Thesis Topics

• The role of foreign aid in promoting economic development.
• Investigating the relationship between education and economic development.
• Exploring the impact of infrastructure investment on economic growth.
• The role of health care in improving economic outcomes in developing countries.
• Investigating the effects of microfinance on poverty alleviation.
• The role of technology in promoting economic development in rural areas.
• Exploring the relationship between gender equality and economic development.
• Investigating the economic impact of remittances on developing countries.
• The role of financial inclusion in promoting economic growth.
• Exploring the effects of trade liberalization on economic development.
• Investigating the role of government policies in promoting sustainable development.
• The impact of international organizations on economic development in emerging markets.
• Investigating the relationship between population growth and economic development.
• The role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in promoting economic growth.
• Exploring the impact of corruption on economic development.
• Investigating the role of education in reducing income inequality.
• The effects of rural-urban migration on economic development.
• Exploring the relationship between environmental sustainability and economic development.
• Investigating the impact of infrastructure development on economic performance.
• The role of innovation in promoting economic development in low-income countries.
• Investigating the role of international trade in economic development.
• Exploring the effects of globalization on economic development.
• The role of economic policies in addressing income inequality.
• Investigating the impact of climate change on economic development in developing countries.
• The role of agricultural development in promoting economic growth.
• Exploring the economic impact of social protection programs in developing countries.
• Investigating the role of entrepreneurship in promoting economic development.
• The role of public-private partnerships in fostering economic growth.
• Exploring the impact of international development assistance on poverty reduction.
• Investigating the role of political stability in promoting economic development.

6. Development Studies Thesis Topics

• Investigating the role of education in poverty alleviation in developing countries.
• The impact of foreign aid on economic and social development.
• Exploring the role of women’s empowerment in sustainable development.
• Investigating the effects of political instability on development outcomes.
• The role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in promoting development.
• Investigating the impact of globalization on developing economies.
• The effects of urbanization on rural development: A case study.
• Exploring the role of social enterprises in promoting development.
• Investigating the relationship between human rights and economic development.
• The role of microfinance in promoting social and economic development.
• Exploring the impact of population growth on sustainable development.
• Investigating the relationship between environmental degradation and development.
• The role of international organizations in promoting development in fragile states.
• Exploring the impact of health policies on development outcomes.
• The role of infrastructure development in promoting economic growth in low-income countries.
• Investigating the role of climate adaptation in sustainable development strategies.
• The impact of migration on development outcomes in home and host countries.
• Exploring the role of social protection programs in poverty reduction.
• Investigating the effects of agricultural development on rural economies.
• The role of education in promoting gender equality and development.
• Exploring the relationship between economic growth and income inequality in developing countries.
• The role of clean energy initiatives in promoting sustainable development.
• Investigating the impact of remittances on household welfare in developing countries.
• The role of information and communication technology (ICT) in development.
• Exploring the effects of environmental policies on development outcomes.
• Investigating the role of entrepreneurship in promoting development in post-conflict regions.
• The impact of cultural heritage on development strategies in emerging economies.
• Exploring the effects of child labor on social and economic development.
• The role of public health initiatives in promoting development in low-income countries.
• Investigating the relationship between social capital and economic development in rural communities.

7. Econometrics Thesis Topics

• Investigating the use of econometric models in forecasting economic growth.
• The role of panel data analysis in understanding income inequality trends.
• Exploring time-series econometrics in analyzing financial markets.
• Investigating the effectiveness of econometric models in predicting inflation.
• The role of econometrics in analyzing the impact of fiscal policies on economic performance.
• Exploring the use of econometric techniques in labor market analysis.
• Investigating the relationship between education and wage growth using econometric methods.
• The impact of trade liberalization on economic growth: An econometric analysis.
• Exploring the use of instrumental variables in addressing endogeneity issues in econometric models.
• Investigating the role of cointegration in understanding macroeconomic trends.
• The role of econometrics in analyzing the impact of monetary policies on interest rates.
• Exploring the use of econometric models in assessing climate change’s economic impact.
• Investigating the effects of financial shocks on economic volatility: An econometric approach.
• The role of econometrics in understanding the determinants of housing prices.
• Exploring the use of dummy variables in econometric models for policy evaluation.
• Investigating the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation using econometric analysis.
• The impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic development: An econometric perspective.
• Exploring the role of econometrics in analyzing the effects of income distribution on economic growth.
• Investigating the effectiveness of economic stabilization policies through econometric models.
• The role of heteroscedasticity in econometric models and its implications for policy analysis.
• Exploring the use of probit and logit models in labor market analysis.
• Investigating the effects of international trade agreements on economic growth: An econometric approach.
• The role of dynamic panel data models in understanding economic growth patterns.
• Exploring the use of autoregressive models in analyzing stock market trends.
• Investigating the role of econometrics in assessing the economic impact of environmental regulations.
• The effectiveness of econometric forecasting models in predicting unemployment rates.
• Exploring the role of unit root tests in understanding macroeconomic fluctuations.
• Investigating the relationship between exchange rates and trade balances using econometric models.
• The role of econometrics in assessing the impact of demographic changes on economic growth.
• Exploring the use of non-parametric econometric methods in income distribution analysis.

8. Energy Economics Thesis Topics

• Investigating the economic impact of transitioning to renewable energy sources.
• Exploring the role of energy efficiency in promoting economic growth.
• The impact of carbon pricing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions: An economic analysis.
• Investigating the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth.
• The role of energy subsidies in shaping energy markets and economic development.
• Exploring the economic implications of energy market deregulation.
• Investigating the role of energy security in promoting economic stability.
• The effects of energy policy reforms on household welfare in developing countries.
• Exploring the economic impact of electric vehicle adoption on the energy sector.
• Investigating the role of natural gas in promoting energy diversification and economic growth.
• The economic potential of offshore wind farms: A case study analysis.
• Investigating the effects of fossil fuel dependence on long-term economic sustainability.
• The role of international energy agreements in promoting economic cooperation.
• Exploring the economic benefits of decentralized renewable energy systems.
• Investigating the economic impact of oil price shocks on global markets.
• The role of energy storage technologies in reducing energy costs: An economic analysis.
• Exploring the relationship between energy poverty and economic development in rural areas.
• Investigating the economic impact of green energy policies on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
• The role of government incentives in promoting renewable energy investments.
• Exploring the potential of hydrogen as a renewable energy source: An economic analysis.
• Investigating the role of public-private partnerships in financing energy infrastructure projects.
• The impact of climate change on energy demand: An economic perspective.
• Exploring the effects of energy market integration on economic growth in developing countries.
• Investigating the economic implications of carbon capture and storage technologies.
• The role of energy market regulations in promoting energy access in underserved regions.
• Exploring the potential of bioenergy for promoting economic growth in rural areas.
• Investigating the effects of energy efficiency programs on reducing energy consumption.
• The economic impact of nuclear energy on national energy security.
• Exploring the role of energy innovation in driving economic competitiveness.
• Investigating the relationship between renewable energy policies and employment creation.

9. Environmental Economics Thesis Topics

• Investigating the economic impact of climate change mitigation strategies.
• The role of environmental policies in promoting sustainable economic growth.
• Exploring the economic benefits of biodiversity conservation.
• Investigating the effects of deforestation on long-term economic development.
• The economic impact of carbon trading schemes: A case study analysis.
• Exploring the role of eco-friendly technologies in reducing environmental degradation.
• Investigating the relationship between environmental sustainability and economic growth.
• The economic impact of water scarcity on agriculture in developing countries.
• Exploring the role of environmental taxes in reducing pollution and promoting green growth.
• Investigating the effects of climate adaptation policies on national economies.
• The role of environmental regulations in promoting corporate environmental responsibility.
• Exploring the economic benefits of reducing plastic waste in coastal regions.
• Investigating the relationship between green innovation and economic competitiveness.
• The role of natural capital in promoting long-term economic sustainability.
• Exploring the effects of environmental policies on industrial competitiveness.
• Investigating the economic impact of renewable energy policies on rural development.
• The role of environmental economics in shaping international trade policies.
• Exploring the potential of circular economy practices in reducing environmental costs.
• Investigating the economic impact of marine pollution on coastal economies.
• The role of environmental education in promoting sustainable economic development.
• Exploring the relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth in emerging markets.
• Investigating the economic impact of renewable energy transition on developing economies.
• The role of environmental protection policies in promoting economic resilience.
• Exploring the effects of global environmental treaties on economic performance.
• Investigating the relationship between tourism development and environmental sustainability.
• The role of eco-labeling in promoting sustainable consumer behavior.
• Exploring the economic potential of green infrastructure in urban development.
• Investigating the effects of environmental degradation on global trade.
• The economic impact of climate-induced migration on developing countries.
• Exploring the role of environmental economics in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

10. Game Theory Thesis Topics

• Investigating the role of game theory in understanding oligopoly market dynamics.
• Exploring the application of game theory in international trade negotiations.
• The role of Nash equilibrium in analyzing competitive strategies in business.
• Investigating the use of game theory in climate change negotiations.
• Exploring the application of cooperative game theory in resource allocation problems.
• The role of game theory in understanding pricing strategies in monopolistic markets.
• Investigating the use of game theory in labor market negotiations.
• Exploring the application of game theory in the design of auction mechanisms.
• The role of evolutionary game theory in understanding economic behaviors.
• Investigating the use of game theory in analyzing voting behavior in democratic elections.
• Exploring the application of game theory in supply chain management.
• The role of mixed strategies in game theory and their application in economics.
• Investigating the effects of game theory on strategic decision-making in business.
• Exploring the application of game theory in resolving environmental conflicts.
• The role of game theory in understanding bargaining power in trade negotiations.
• Investigating the use of game theory in competitive pricing models.
• Exploring the application of game theory in financial market regulation.
• The role of game theory in designing optimal contract structures.
• Investigating the effects of repeated games on cooperation and competition in business.
• Exploring the application of game theory in understanding conflict resolution in international relations.
• The role of game theory in analyzing supply chain disruptions.
• Investigating the application of game theory in understanding technological innovation races.
• Exploring the effects of signaling in game theory on market competition.
• The role of game theory in understanding the dynamics of public goods provision.
• Investigating the application of game theory in understanding firm entry and exit decisions.
• Exploring the role of game theory in understanding financial contagion during economic crises.
• Investigating the application of game theory in the design of social welfare programs.
• The role of game theory in understanding network effects in digital markets.
• Exploring the application of game theory in determining optimal pricing strategies in e-commerce.
• Investigating the role of game theory in addressing global environmental challenges.

11. Health Economics Thesis Topics

• Investigating the impact of health insurance on access to healthcare services.
• Exploring the economic implications of aging populations on healthcare systems.
• The role of preventive healthcare in reducing long-term medical costs.
• Investigating the economic effects of healthcare privatization.
• The impact of pharmaceutical pricing regulations on healthcare affordability.
• Exploring the relationship between public health spending and economic growth.
• Investigating the role of telemedicine in reducing healthcare costs.
• The economic impact of pandemics on global healthcare systems: A case study analysis.
• Exploring the role of health economics in designing universal healthcare systems.
• Investigating the economic effects of obesity on national healthcare expenditures.
• The role of health economics in analyzing the efficiency of public health interventions.
• Exploring the economic impact of mental health on labor productivity.
• Investigating the role of health literacy in reducing healthcare costs.
• The effects of healthcare market competition on service quality and costs.
• Investigating the relationship between healthcare access and income inequality.
• The economic impact of vaccination programs in developing countries.
• Exploring the effects of pharmaceutical patents on drug prices and accessibility.
• Investigating the role of healthcare reforms in improving economic productivity.
• The economic impact of chronic diseases on national healthcare systems.
• Exploring the relationship between healthcare quality and economic development.
• The effects of out-of-pocket healthcare expenses on household financial stability.
• Investigating the economic implications of medical tourism for developing countries.
• The role of health insurance in improving healthcare access in rural areas.
• Exploring the relationship between healthcare infrastructure investment and economic growth.
• Investigating the impact of healthcare workforce shortages on service delivery and economic outcomes.
• The role of cost-effectiveness analysis in healthcare decision-making.
• Exploring the economic impact of early childhood healthcare programs on future earnings.
• Investigating the role of public-private partnerships in financing healthcare infrastructure.
• The effects of healthcare disparities on economic development in low-income communities.
• Exploring the role of health economics in shaping public health policies.

12. Home Economics Thesis Topics

• Investigating the relationship between household income and consumption patterns.
• Exploring the impact of financial literacy on household financial decision-making.
• Investigating the effects of consumer credit access on household spending.
• The role of home ownership in wealth accumulation and economic mobility.
• Exploring the relationship between family budgeting practices and financial well-being.
• Investigating the effects of inflation on household purchasing power.
• The economic impact of dual-income households on family savings and investments.
• Exploring the role of household debt in macroeconomic stability.
• Investigating the effects of housing market fluctuations on household wealth.
• The role of home economics education in improving financial literacy.
• Exploring the relationship between household energy consumption and environmental sustainability.
• Investigating the effects of tax policies on household savings and investments.
• The economic impact of child care costs on family financial stability.
• Exploring the role of home economics in promoting sustainable household practices.
• Investigating the relationship between food security and household income.
• The effects of consumer protection policies on household financial health.
• Exploring the role of household consumption in driving economic growth.
• Investigating the impact of retirement planning on household financial security.
• The role of consumer behavior in shaping household spending patterns.
• Investigating the relationship between household financial management and poverty reduction.
• Exploring the impact of technological advancements on household consumption patterns.
• The role of housing affordability in shaping family financial decisions.
• Investigating the relationship between homeownership rates and economic inequality.
• Exploring the effects of financial education programs on household debt management.
• The economic impact of food prices on household nutrition and health.
• Investigating the role of household financial resilience in times of economic crisis.
• The relationship between household savings behavior and economic growth.
• Exploring the effects of household consumption on environmental sustainability.
• Investigating the role of household financial planning in improving economic outcomes.
• The economic impact of social safety nets on household income stability.

13. Human Development Thesis Topics

• Investigating the role of education in promoting human development.
• The impact of healthcare access on human development outcomes.
• Exploring the relationship between income inequality and human development.
• Investigating the effects of gender inequality on human development indices.
• The role of sustainable development policies in improving human development.
• Exploring the impact of nutrition programs on human development in developing countries.
• Investigating the relationship between child mortality rates and human development.
• The role of international aid in promoting human development.
• Exploring the relationship between environmental sustainability and human development.
• Investigating the effects of social protection programs on human development outcomes.
• The impact of poverty reduction strategies on human development indicators.
• Exploring the role of political stability in promoting human development.
• Investigating the relationship between economic growth and human development.
• The role of human development in shaping economic policies.
• Investigating the effects of migration on human development outcomes.
• The impact of technological advancements on human development in emerging economies.
• Exploring the relationship between social capital and human development.
• Investigating the role of education policies in improving human development.
• The effects of climate change on human development outcomes.
• Exploring the role of healthcare policies in promoting human development in rural areas.
• Investigating the relationship between human rights and human development.
• The role of social inequality in shaping human development outcomes.
• Exploring the relationship between human development and economic empowerment of women.
• Investigating the role of infrastructure development in improving human development.
• The impact of global trade policies on human development in low-income countries.
• Exploring the role of public health initiatives in improving human development.
• Investigating the relationship between access to clean water and human development.
• The role of international organizations in promoting human development in conflict-affected regions.
• Investigating the effects of youth employment programs on human development outcomes.
• The role of global health initiatives in improving human development in developing countries.

14. Inflation Thesis Topics

• Investigating the causes of hyperinflation in emerging economies.
• Exploring the effects of inflation on income inequality.
• Investigating the role of central banks in controlling inflation.
• The impact of inflation targeting on economic stability: A case study analysis.
• Exploring the relationship between inflation and unemployment in developed economies.
• Investigating the effects of inflation on consumer purchasing power.
• The role of monetary policy in managing inflation expectations.
• Exploring the effects of inflation on investment decisions in financial markets.
• Investigating the relationship between inflation and wage growth.
• The impact of inflation on business profitability and pricing strategies.
• Exploring the role of government policies in curbing inflation in developing countries.
• Investigating the effects of inflation on household savings behavior.
• The role of inflationary expectations in shaping monetary policy decisions.
• Exploring the relationship between inflation and economic growth in emerging markets.
• Investigating the effects of inflation on public debt sustainability.
• The impact of inflation on currency valuation and international trade.
• Exploring the role of inflation-linked bonds in hedging inflation risks.
• Investigating the effects of inflation on capital market volatility.
• The role of inflation in shaping central bank communication strategies.
• Exploring the effects of cost-push inflation on manufacturing industries.
• Investigating the role of global supply chain disruptions in driving inflation.
• The impact of inflation on interest rates: A historical perspective.
• Exploring the role of fiscal policy in managing inflationary pressures.
• Investigating the effects of inflation on housing affordability and real estate markets.
• The relationship between inflation and income redistribution policies.
• Exploring the impact of inflation on consumer confidence and spending behavior.
• Investigating the effects of inflation on exchange rates and trade balances.
• The role of inflation forecasts in shaping investment strategies.
• Exploring the effects of inflation on capital formation and economic growth.
• Investigating the role of inflationary shocks in shaping monetary policy responses.

15. International Economics Thesis Topics

• Investigating the impact of trade liberalization on economic growth in developing countries.
• Exploring the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in promoting economic development.
• Investigating the relationship between exchange rates and international trade flows.
• The role of international trade agreements in shaping global economic policies.
• Exploring the effects of globalization on income inequality in emerging markets.
• Investigating the role of international monetary policies in managing global financial crises.
• The impact of international trade policies on developing economies: A case study analysis.
• Exploring the role of international financial institutions in promoting global economic stability.
• Investigating the effects of international trade on environmental sustainability.
• The role of international labor migration in shaping global economic trends.
• Exploring the relationship between international capital flows and economic growth.
• Investigating the effects of trade protectionism on global economic integration.
• The role of global supply chains in driving international trade patterns.
• Exploring the impact of international trade on domestic labor markets.
• Investigating the role of international remittances in promoting economic development.
• The effects of international financial markets on global economic stability.
• Exploring the relationship between international trade and economic inequality.
• Investigating the role of international trade sanctions on economic performance.
• The impact of international commodity prices on global trade flows.
• Exploring the role of international trade in promoting innovation and technological transfer.
• Investigating the effects of international trade on economic growth in low-income countries.
• The role of global value chains in shaping international trade dynamics.
• Exploring the impact of international trade liberalization on poverty reduction.
• Investigating the effects of international capital mobility on economic performance.
• The role of international trade organizations in shaping global trade policies.
• Exploring the effects of international economic integration on financial markets.
• Investigating the role of international trade in addressing global environmental challenges.
• The impact of international trade barriers on economic growth in emerging markets.
• Exploring the relationship between international investment flows and economic development.
• Investigating the effects of international trade conflicts on global economic stability.

16. International Trade Thesis Topics

• Investigating the impact of trade tariffs on global trade flows.
• Exploring the role of free trade agreements in promoting economic growth.
• The effects of protectionist trade policies on developing economies.
• Investigating the relationship between trade openness and income inequality.
• The role of trade sanctions in shaping international trade relations.
• Investigating the role of trade policy in addressing global environmental challenges.
• The effects of international trade wars on global economic stability.
• Investigating the relationship between trade balances and exchange rates.
• The role of global supply chains in shaping international trade patterns.
• Exploring the impact of trade barriers on emerging markets.
• Investigating the effects of trade liberalization on agricultural exports in developing countries.
• The role of international trade organizations in promoting global trade cooperation.
• Exploring the impact of trade policies on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
• Investigating the relationship between trade agreements and labor standards.
• The role of digital trade in reshaping global trade dynamics.
• Exploring the effects of intellectual property rights on international trade.
• Investigating the impact of trade liberalization on foreign direct investment (FDI).
• The effects of currency fluctuations on international trade competitiveness.
• Investigating the role of trade facilitation policies in promoting global trade efficiency.
• The impact of non-tariff barriers on international trade flows.
• Exploring the effects of regional trade agreements on global economic integration.
• Investigating the relationship between trade liberalization and wage inequality.
• The role of trade finance in supporting international trade activities.
• Investigating the impact of trade policies on global commodity markets.
• Exploring the effects of trade liberalization on industrialization in developing economies.
• The role of e-commerce in facilitating international trade.
• Investigating the relationship between international trade and climate change mitigation.
• The effects of trade liberalization on domestic labor markets.
• Exploring the role of trade unions in shaping international labor standards in trade agreements.

17. Labor Economics Thesis Topics

• Investigating the impact of minimum wage policies on employment levels.
• Exploring the relationship between labor market regulations and economic productivity.
• The role of labor unions in shaping wage structures and working conditions.
• Investigating the effects of immigration on domestic labor markets.
• The impact of automation and technology on labor demand and job displacement.
• Exploring the relationship between education and labor market outcomes.
• Investigating the effects of gender wage gaps on labor market participation.
• The role of government policies in reducing youth unemployment.
• Exploring the effects of labor market flexibility on economic growth.
• Investigating the relationship between labor market discrimination and economic inequality.
• The impact of labor force participation on economic growth in emerging markets.
• Exploring the role of vocational training programs in improving labor market outcomes.
• Investigating the effects of labor market institutions on income inequality.
• The role of social safety nets in mitigating the impact of unemployment.
• Exploring the effects of workplace diversity on labor productivity.
• Investigating the relationship between remote work and labor market dynamics.
• The role of labor market policies in addressing long-term unemployment.
• Exploring the effects of minimum wage increases on small business profitability.
• Investigating the impact of labor market rigidities on economic growth.
• The role of education reforms in improving labor market outcomes in developing countries.
• Exploring the relationship between part-time employment and job satisfaction.
• Investigating the effects of trade unions on labor market negotiations.
• The role of flexible working arrangements in promoting labor market participation.
• Exploring the impact of parental leave policies on labor market outcomes.
• Investigating the relationship between technological advancements and wage inequality.
• The role of labor migration in addressing skill shortages in developed economies.
• Exploring the effects of gig economy platforms on labor market flexibility.
• Investigating the relationship between aging populations and labor force participation.
• The role of government interventions in promoting labor market inclusivity for disabled individuals.
• Investigating the effects of global labor mobility on economic growth.

18. Macroeconomics Thesis Topics

• Investigating the relationship between fiscal policy and economic growth.
• The effects of monetary policy on inflation and employment levels.
• Exploring the role of central banks in managing economic recessions.
• Investigating the impact of public debt on long-term economic stability.
• The role of quantitative easing in promoting economic recovery.
• Exploring the relationship between interest rates and investment levels.
• Investigating the effects of government spending on economic growth in developing countries.
• The impact of exchange rate policies on international trade.
• Exploring the role of macroeconomic stability in attracting foreign direct investment.
• Investigating the effects of tax reforms on income distribution and economic growth.
• The role of inflation targeting in promoting economic stability.
• Exploring the relationship between government budget deficits and economic performance.
• Investigating the impact of macroeconomic policies on housing markets.
• The role of central bank independence in shaping monetary policy outcomes.
• Exploring the effects of macroeconomic shocks on unemployment rates.
• Investigating the relationship between trade imbalances and macroeconomic stability.
• The role of financial markets in promoting macroeconomic growth.
• Exploring the impact of global economic integration on macroeconomic policies.
• Investigating the effects of macroeconomic stabilization programs on emerging economies.
• The role of government borrowing in promoting short-term economic growth.
• Exploring the effects of macroeconomic uncertainty on business investment decisions.
• Investigating the impact of globalization on macroeconomic policy coordination.
• The role of macroeconomic policies in addressing climate change challenges.
• Exploring the relationship between income inequality and macroeconomic performance.
• Investigating the effects of austerity measures on economic recovery in the European Union.
• The role of macroeconomic policies in promoting sustainable economic growth.
• Exploring the impact of capital controls on macroeconomic stability.
• Investigating the role of fiscal stimulus in mitigating the effects of economic downturns.
• The relationship between exchange rate fluctuations and macroeconomic stability in developing economies.
• Exploring the role of macroeconomic forecasting in shaping government policy decisions.

19. Public Economics Thesis Topics

• Investigating the impact of tax policies on income distribution and inequality.
• Exploring the role of government spending on public goods in promoting economic growth.
• The effects of public debt on long-term economic sustainability.
• Investigating the relationship between public investment and infrastructure development.
• The role of public-private partnerships in financing public infrastructure projects.
• Exploring the effects of public healthcare spending on economic productivity.
• Investigating the role of social welfare programs in reducing poverty.
• The impact of public education spending on long-term economic growth.
• Exploring the role of public policies in addressing environmental externalities.
• Investigating the effects of government subsidies on market competition.
• The role of public economics in shaping healthcare policies.
• Exploring the relationship between public goods provision and social welfare.
• Investigating the impact of government fiscal policies on economic inequality.
• The role of public policies in promoting economic resilience during recessions.
• Exploring the effects of public sector employment on economic growth.
• Investigating the relationship between public taxation and economic efficiency.
• The role of public economics in addressing housing affordability challenges.
• Exploring the impact of government expenditure on public transportation infrastructure.
• Investigating the relationship between public spending and inflationary pressures.
• The role of public economics in addressing demographic challenges in aging populations.
• Exploring the effects of public investment in renewable energy on economic growth.
• Investigating the relationship between public policies and labor market outcomes.
• The role of government debt in financing social welfare programs.
• Exploring the effects of public policies on income redistribution.
• Investigating the role of public finance in shaping education outcomes.
• The impact of public sector reforms on economic efficiency and productivity.
• Exploring the effects of public healthcare systems on economic inequality.
• Investigating the relationship between government spending and macroeconomic stability.
• The role of public economics in promoting long-term fiscal sustainability.
• Exploring the impact of government intervention on market failures in public goods provision.

20. Rural Development Thesis Topics

• Investigating the role of agricultural policies in promoting rural development.
• Exploring the impact of rural infrastructure development on economic growth.
• The effects of land tenure systems on rural economic development.
• Investigating the role of microfinance in promoting rural entrepreneurship.
• The impact of rural electrification on household welfare and productivity.
• Exploring the relationship between rural development and poverty reduction.
• Investigating the role of education in promoting rural economic growth.
• The effects of rural migration on economic development and labor markets.
• Exploring the impact of agricultural modernization on rural economies.
• Investigating the role of government policies in promoting rural industrialization.
• The impact of rural tourism on economic diversification and development.
• Exploring the effects of climate change on rural agricultural production.
• Investigating the role of technology adoption in promoting rural development.
• The effects of public investment in rural infrastructure on poverty reduction.
• Exploring the relationship between food security and rural economic development.
• Investigating the impact of rural health programs on economic productivity.
• The role of women in promoting rural economic development.
• Exploring the effects of agricultural cooperatives on rural economic growth.
• Investigating the role of rural credit systems in supporting small-scale farmers.
• The impact of government subsidies on rural economic development.
• Exploring the role of rural education programs in promoting sustainable development.
• Investigating the effects of rural-urban migration on household welfare in rural areas.
• The role of sustainable farming practices in promoting rural development.
• Exploring the impact of land reform policies on rural poverty reduction.
• Investigating the relationship between rural entrepreneurship and economic diversification.
• The role of infrastructure development in promoting rural healthcare access.
• Exploring the effects of government policies on rural housing development.
• Investigating the impact of agricultural extension services on rural economic growth.
• The role of public-private partnerships in promoting rural economic development.
• Exploring the effects of rural renewable energy projects on economic growth and sustainability.

This comprehensive list of 600 economics thesis topics showcases the vast scope and diversity of the field. From agricultural economics to circular economies and behavioral economics to international trade, these topics reflect the dynamic challenges and opportunities in the world of economics. Whether you’re looking to explore current economic policies, recent technological advancements, or the future of global trade, these topics will guide you toward a meaningful and impactful thesis. Choose a topic that aligns with your interests and career goals to make a lasting contribution to the field of economics.

The Range of Economics Thesis Topics

Economics is a vast field that examines how individuals, businesses, governments, and nations allocate resources and respond to incentives. From understanding consumer behavior and market dynamics to crafting fiscal policies and addressing income inequality, economics plays a critical role in shaping societal outcomes. Choosing an economics thesis topic offers students the chance to delve deep into pressing issues, emerging trends, and future economic directions. In this article, we will explore a range of thesis topics across various economics fields, focusing on current issues, recent trends, and future opportunities within the discipline.

Current Issues in Economics

Economics is increasingly intertwined with real-world challenges, requiring innovative solutions to pressing global issues. Several key areas stand out as highly relevant for thesis research.

• Income Inequality and Economic Growth One of the most significant issues today is income inequality, which has widened in many countries, posing risks to social stability and economic growth. Research in this area could explore the causes and consequences of income inequality, how fiscal policies such as taxation and redistribution programs can mitigate it, or its impact on consumer spending and saving behaviors. The relationship between income inequality and economic mobility is also an important topic, offering a rich field of study for students interested in development and public economics.
• Inflation and Monetary Policy Global inflation rates have surged in recent years due to a variety of factors, including supply chain disruptions and fiscal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding how inflation impacts economies, especially in developing regions, offers many research opportunities. Students can explore the effectiveness of inflation-targeting policies, the role of central banks in stabilizing inflation, or the impact of inflation on income distribution. Thesis topics could also investigate the long-term implications of quantitative easing and other unconventional monetary policies.
• Trade Wars and Global Supply Chains Trade tensions, notably between major global players like the United States and China, have reshaped international trade dynamics. The ongoing trade wars, along with supply chain disruptions, have affected industries worldwide. Thesis research could explore the economic consequences of tariffs and trade barriers, the impact on global supply chains, or how trade disputes influence foreign direct investment (FDI). Students interested in international trade might also examine the economic effects of protectionist policies or the role of trade agreements in mitigating these issues.

Recent Trends in Economics

The rapid evolution of technology, societal shifts, and environmental concerns have given rise to new trends in economics that are shaping modern research.

• Digital Economies and E-commerce The digital transformation of economies has revolutionized how businesses and consumers interact. E-commerce has expanded significantly, particularly during the pandemic, and research can focus on the economic impact of this shift. Students may explore topics such as the economic benefits and challenges of digital platforms, the role of cryptocurrencies in financial markets, or how digital economies are changing labor markets. With the rise of online marketplaces and remote work, the economic implications of technology adoption provide rich research areas.
• Behavioral Economics and Consumer Decision-Making Behavioral economics has gained prominence by challenging traditional economic assumptions about rational decision-making. This field investigates how cognitive biases and psychological factors influence economic behavior. Research could focus on how individuals make savings, investment, or consumption decisions under uncertainty, or how “nudges” can be used to promote sustainable behaviors or healthier lifestyles. Examining how behavioral economics can inform public policy is another compelling thesis topic, particularly in areas like tax compliance or retirement planning.
• Circular Economy and Sustainability With increasing awareness of environmental challenges, the circular economy model—focused on minimizing waste and reusing resources—has emerged as a key trend. Thesis topics in this area might explore the economic benefits of transitioning to a circular economy, the role of government policies in supporting green business practices, or the relationship between sustainability and economic growth. Research could also examine specific industries, such as how the circular economy is impacting the fashion, manufacturing, or energy sectors.

Future Directions in Economics

As technology and global challenges continue to evolve, future research in economics will need to address emerging issues that have the potential to transform economies and societies.

• Automation, AI, and the Future of Work Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping industries, raising important questions about the future of work. Many economists are concerned about how AI and automation will affect labor markets, particularly in terms of job displacement, wage inequality, and skills requirements. Thesis topics might explore the impact of automation on different sectors, how education systems can adapt to future labor market needs, or how governments can implement policies to support workers in transitioning to new roles. This area of research is particularly timely as automation continues to expand its reach across industries.
• Climate Change and Environmental Economics The economic impact of climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time. Future research can focus on how economies can transition to low-carbon systems, the costs of climate adaptation, or the role of economic policies in mitigating environmental degradation. Students interested in environmental economics could investigate the economic feasibility of carbon taxes, the costs and benefits of renewable energy transitions, or how environmental regulations affect industry competitiveness. With global efforts to address climate change intensifying, the intersection of economics and environmental sustainability offers fertile ground for research.
• Global Health Economics and Pandemics The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the economic vulnerabilities of health systems worldwide. Future research can focus on the long-term economic impacts of pandemics, the role of healthcare infrastructure in promoting economic resilience, or how governments can design policies to improve public health outcomes while maintaining economic stability. Students could also examine how health economics intersects with labor markets, exploring topics such as the economic impact of telemedicine, the effects of healthcare spending on GDP growth, or the role of global cooperation in managing pandemics.

Economics offers a wide range of topics that are not only academically stimulating but also deeply relevant to the challenges the world faces today. From the traditional focus on fiscal and monetary policies to emerging fields like digital economies and environmental economics, the discipline provides a rich platform for research that can make a real-world impact. Choosing a thesis topic that reflects current trends, addresses pressing global issues, and anticipates future economic challenges will not only contribute to academic development but also position students to be thought leaders in their fields.

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Top Ten Global Economic Challenges: An Assessment of Global Risks and Priorities

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February 1, 2007

To learn more about the critical issues and challenges facing the world today, explore  11 Global Debates , a collections of essays celebrating 10 years of research by the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings.

The beginning of 2007 offers a conflicting picture of the global economy for those trying to discern trends, challenges and opportunities. Concerns about energy security and climate sustainability are converging-finally bringing consensus in sight on the need for action in the United States, but prospects for breaking the global stalemate are still years away. While some developing countries are succeeding in bringing hundreds of millions out of poverty, too many are still mired in a doom spiral of conflict, poverty, and disease- despite the entry of new philanthropists, advocates and global corporations into the field of development. China’s projected 9.6 percent growth rate is sending ripples to the farthest reaches of the planet-creating opportunities but also significant risks. The United States remains in the “goldilocks” zone, but this is premised on continued borrowing from abroad at historically unprecedented rates while many Americans fret about widening inequality and narrowing opportunity. While the United States concentrates on civil war in the Middle East, most leaders in the region are preoccupied with putting an outsized cohort of young people to work and on the road to becoming productive citizens.

What are the most important challenges we face and what are the potential solutions? In Washington, D.C., where short-term political wrangling too often crowds out the harder and more important long-term challenges, this inaugural publication of Brookings Global Economy and Development seeks to put the spotlight squarely back on the most consequential issues demanding action. It seeks to size these issues, offering policymakers and leaders a concise and clear view of the critical challenges as viewed by leading experts in the field. From economic exclusion of youth in the Middle East to a pragmatic approach to energy and environmental security, this “top 10” is intended to mark core issues and shed light on opportunities and challenges with a broader and longer-term perspective.

When we gather a year from now, we would expect many of these challenges to remain front and central, but we would hope this publication would elevate their visibility and help sustain a dialogue on their resolution.

1. Energy and Environmental Security Warwick McKibbin and Peter Wilcoxen

Energy and environmental security has emerged as the primary issue on the global agenda for 2007. Consensus has recently been forged on the potential for long-term economic, national security and societal damage from insecure energy supplies and environmental catastrophe, as well as the intense need for technological advances that can provide low-polluting and secure energy sources. Yet despite growing global momentum, there is still little agreement on the best set of actions required to reduce global dependency on fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions. Confounding the international policy challenge is the disproportionate impact of high oil prices and global warming across nations, insulating some countries from immediate concern while forcing others to press for more rapid change.

2. Conflict and Poverty

Lael Brainard, Derek Chollet, Jane Nelson, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Susan Rice

In a world where boundaries and borders have blurred, and where seemingly distant threats can metastasize into immediate problems, the fight against global poverty has become a fight for global security. American policymakers, who traditionally have viewed security threats as involving bullets and bombs, are increasingly focused on the link between poverty and conflict: the Pentagon’s 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review focuses on fighting the “long war,” declaring that the U.S. military has a humanitarian role in “alleviating suffering, ? [helping] prevent disorder from spiraling into wider conflict or crisis.”

3. Competing in a New Era of Globalization

Lael Brainard, Robert Litan, and Wing Thye Woo

Is the new episode of globalization just another wave or a seismic shift? While individual elements feel familiar, the combined contours are unprecedented in scale, speed, and scope.

4. Global Imbalances

Barry Bosworth, Lael Brainard, Peter Blair Henry, Warwick McKibbin, Kenneth Rogoff, And Wing Thye Woo

Today’s interconnected world is in uncharted territory: the world’s sole hegemonic power, the United States, nurses an addiction to foreign capital, while up-and-coming powers such as China and oil exporters sustain surpluses of increasing magnitudes. Some worry that the world is at a tipping point, where only a dramatic shift in economic policy can alter the looming trajectory. Others see underlying structural factors perpetuating gross imbalances for a sustained period.

5. Rise of New Powers

Chong-En Bai, Erik Berglöf, Barry Bosworth, David de Ferranti, Clifford Gaddy, Xiao Geng, Homi Kharas, Santiago Levy, Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, Urjit Patel, Shang-Jin Wei, Wing Thye Woo

The rise of “emerging powers”-a group that usually includes the so-called BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), but which sometimes is applied more broadly to include South Africa, Mexico and others-is reshaping the global economy and, more gradually, international politics. Growing much faster than the rest of the world, these economies are changing the structure of international production and trade, the nature and direction of capital flows, and the patterns of natural resource consumption. At the same time, the growth of these countries is beginning to shift the global distribution of power forcing the great powers to come to terms with the reality that they will need to share management of international rules and systems in the coming decades.

6. Economic Exclusion in the Middle East

Navtej Dhillon, Caroline Moser, and Tarik Yousef

The Middle East has before it what could be one of the greatest demographic gifts in modern history-a potential economic windfall arising from a young and economically active workforce. Today, young people aged 15- to 24- years old account for 22 percent of the region’s total population, the highest regional average worldwide. With the right mix of policies, this demographic opportunity could be tapped to spur economic growth and promote stability.

7. Global Corporations, Global Impact

David Caprara and Jane Nelson

The private sector is becoming a significant player-indeed some might say the dominant player-in shaping the global economic and development agenda. Multinational corporations with operations that span the globe, and in some cases capacities and networks that match those of governments, have a particularly important role to play in helping to spread the opportunities and mitigating some of the risks of globalization.

8. Global Health Crises

Maria-Luisa Escobar, David de Ferranti, Jacques Van Der Gaag, Amanda Glassman, Charles Griffin, and Michael Kremer

From responding to the threat of pandemic flu to efforts to control the spread of HIV/AIDS, the world has begun to realize that global health issues are relevant for any citizen, regardless of nationality, residence or status. Despite improvements in the world’s collective ability to battle disease with advances in medicine and technology, global health needs remain unmet, making the entire world vulnerable to health crises. In particular, the poor continue to suffer disproportionately from inadequate health services, exacerbating their struggle out of poverty.

9.  Global Governance Stalemate

Colin Bradford, Ralph Bryant, and Johannes Linn

Today’s global challenges-nuclear proliferation, the deadlock of global trade negotiations, the threat of pandemic flu, and the fight against global poverty-cannot be solved by yesterday’s international institutions. To resolve the world’s most pressing problems, which touch all corners of the globe, we must adapt our global governance approaches to be more representative and thus more effective by encouraging and enabling the key affected countries to take an active role in generating solutions.

10. Global Poverty: New Actors, New Approaches

Lael Brainard, Raj Desai, David de Ferranti, Carol Graham, Homi Kharas, Santiago Levy, Caroline Moser, Joe O’Keefe

The challenge of global poverty is more urgent than ever: over half the world’s population-nearly 3 billion people-lives on less than $2 per day; nearly 30,000 children die each day-about 11 million per year -because they’re too poor to survive. With such a toll, addressing poverty in new and more effective ways must be a priority for the global policy agenda. Fortunately, a variety of new actors are bringing new perspectives, new approaches and new energy to the challenge.

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Evaluating Policy Counterfactuals: A VAR-Plus Approach

In a rich family of linearized structural macroeconomic models, the counterfactual evolution of the macro-economy under alternative policy rules is pinned down by just two objects: first, reduced-form projections with respect to a large information set; and second, the dynamic causal effects of policy shocks. In particular, no assumptions about the structural shocks affecting the economy are needed. We propose to recover these two sufficient statistics using a ``VAR-Plus'' approach, and apply it to evaluate several monetary policy counterfactuals.

We received helpful comments from Marios Angeletos, Régis Barnichon, Marco Bassetto, Anmol Bhandari, Francesco Bianchi, Ricardo Caballero, Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, Martin Eichenbaum, Simon Gilchrist, Cosmin Ilut, Giuseppe Moscarini, Mikkel Plagborg-Møller, Giorgio Primiceri, Valerie Ramey, Matt Rognlie, Ben Schumann, Ludwig Straub, Iván Werning, and seminar participants at various venues. We also thank Seungki Hong, Klodiana Istrefi, and Diego Känzig for valuable discussions, and Valeria Morales Vasquez for superb research assistance. Wolf acknowledges that this material is based upon work supported by the NSF under Grant #2314736. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, or the Federal Reserve System. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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