Bruce Wydick

Excited to present the introduction to my book released this month, #ShrewdSamaritan, posted on my blog site. Intended for ordinary people who wish to engage global poverty in ways that are both meaningful and effective. acrosstwoworlds.net/?author=1

Looking to change a life on @GivingTuesday? The $500 @hopewalksorg intervention to free children in LMICs from clubfoot is truly life-changing: nearly 1sd increase in human flourishing. See our August 2025 article in Health Economics & give generously: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/he…

New article in @vox_dev based on our research investigating increases in infant mortality from the introduction of Nestlé infant formula into low- and middle income countries. We estimate 10.9 million infant deaths between 1960 and 2015. voxdev.org/topic/health-e… @CEGA_UC @USFCA

What many people don't know: recent decades have seen incredible reductions in poverty. The poverty rate has *never before* been this low in human history. What new data is now revealing: after the setback from Covid, poverty reduction now continues! blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/pover…

@deandulay @cps_journal Yes, Peter, really interesting piece of research--very much along the lines of some of Nathan Nunn's work.

My recent paper on colonial Catholic missions in the Philippines is now forthcoming at @cps_journal! I argue that these Catholic missions were political institutions that engaged in state-building, substituting for the colonial state in most of the country; the mission-as-state.

Compelling new article "Why do People Stay Poor?" accepted at the @QJEHarvard by Balboni, @orianabandiera, Burgess, @maitreesh, and Heil finds evidence for poverty traps and threshold asset accumulation for escape from poverty. academic.oup.com/qje/advance-ar…

My two cents FWIW: Having a field called "development economics" makes no sense. It is essentially all fields of economics related to the 84% of people in the world who don't live in high-income countries. It is good to see it gradually absorbed into the other fields of econ.

My USF colleague Alessandra Cassar's research on women's competitiveness is attracting lots of attention this week. Bottom line: women can be just as competitive as men when they are competing for their kids or sharing the winnings: @Cassar_Ale @CEGA_UC dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ar…

Super cool new paper by Blair et al. finds that messages by religious leaders promoting forgiveness in Nigeria increased reintegration of ex-Boko Haram fighters in Nigeria. @poverty_action @CEGA_UC @IDEC_usfca poverty-action.org/study/improvin…

A short piece I wrote for the lay person on why the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics is so important: acrosstwoworlds.net/why-the-2021-n…

This graphic in the NYT today is striking, but what is even more so is that it is the counties in the northwest corner of the scatterplot that voted to remove Gov. Newsom in the #CaliforniaRecallElection yesterday because of his strong COVID masking and vaccine policies.

More evidence new in the @QJEHarvard that the minimum wage does not seem to increase unemployment a la Econ 101. academic.oup.com/qje/advance-ar…

Este estudio está muy en línea con la gran mayoría de la literatura sobre el tema: la llegada de refugados de Siria de hecho tenía un efecto NEGATIVO sobre el crimen en Turquía. Importante para Colombia en este momento, cuando la xenofobia parece ser la salida fácil.

Why I Cannot (Fully) Embrace Effective Altruism. (And discussing the Human Dignity perspective as an alternative.) New post on AcrossTwoWorlds.net: acrosstwoworlds.net/why-i-cannot-f…

What a cool sight in the western sky tonight! (Could even see it pretty clearly with binoculars.)

- @jhaushofer and Fehr (2014) "On the psychology of poverty" science.sciencemag.org/content/344/61… - @TravisLybbert & @BruceWydick (2018) on "Poverty, aspirations and the economics of hope" journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.108… (2/3)

On being a #ShrewdSamaritan during the pandemic: Some reflections on responses and meaningful impacts. acrosstwoworlds.net/on-becoming-sh…

Love this study by @PJakiela et al (Especially since we have an older sister in our house!)

Fighting the pandemic with our hearts and our smarts: What it means to be a #ShrewdSamaritan during COVID. Piece @kentannan and I wrote for @CTmagazine appearing online today. christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/octobe…

Preorder my Mixtape — it’s cheaper than some of the alternatives, including Mostly Harmless Econometrics ($35 vs $40). If it does well enough, Yale may do a comic book. You thought Frank Miller’s run into Daredevil was great — just wait.

how is Universal Basic Income affecting lives during the pandemic? some early results. w Abhijit Banerjee, @MichaelLFaye, Alan Krueger, and @SuriTavneet econweb.ucsd.edu/~pniehaus/pape…