Nice work Ryan! This is really interesting. I would agree that exposing IDEV professors to EA would be a net positive. I’m wondering what are the best ways to do this. My cynical take (from my time in the academy) is that it’s hard to get econ profs to take seriously knowledge generated in non-Econ circles. So maybe the way forward is to try to get an article on EA (or that would at least ex-post expose profs to EA) in QJE, or at least JDE. I’m not sure the right angle. But maybe you should come up with an idea and pitch it to EA Funds again!
I’m wondering where you think a paper on this topic will land. Probably not JDE, right?
Thanks. I basically agree with what you say, I’d just note that lots of IDEV profs aren’t economists. I’m writing something I’ll aim at World Development (then JDS, then JID, etc) based on the survey data, for exactly the reasons you describe.
What is the background of most IDEV professors? I’d also be curious more generally on an overview of the field and how it compares to e.g. developmental economics (I know very little about it!)
This is the breakdown of “discipline of PhD” in my sample.
Academic discipline
Canada
United States
United Kingdom
Anthropology
4
13
6
Economics
11
47
16
Geography
7
8
14
History
2
2
2
Linguistics and languages
0
1
0
Philosophy
1
0
1
Political science
24
59
17
Psychology
0
1
1
Public Policy or Public Administration
0
3
0
Sociology
3
12
2
Other
10
21
25
International Development Studies
10
4
23
Nothing selected
0
0
1
Development economics is a subfield of economics, international development is an interdisciplinary research area. The two are related but not the same. I think most international development people would see development economists are part of their enterprise, but the inverse would typically not be true.
Nice work Ryan! This is really interesting. I would agree that exposing IDEV professors to EA would be a net positive. I’m wondering what are the best ways to do this. My cynical take (from my time in the academy) is that it’s hard to get econ profs to take seriously knowledge generated in non-Econ circles. So maybe the way forward is to try to get an article on EA (or that would at least ex-post expose profs to EA) in QJE, or at least JDE. I’m not sure the right angle. But maybe you should come up with an idea and pitch it to EA Funds again!
I’m wondering where you think a paper on this topic will land. Probably not JDE, right?
Thanks. I basically agree with what you say, I’d just note that lots of IDEV profs aren’t economists. I’m writing something I’ll aim at World Development (then JDS, then JID, etc) based on the survey data, for exactly the reasons you describe.
What is the background of most IDEV professors? I’d also be curious more generally on an overview of the field and how it compares to e.g. developmental economics (I know very little about it!)
This is the breakdown of “discipline of PhD” in my sample.
Development economics is a subfield of economics, international development is an interdisciplinary research area. The two are related but not the same. I think most international development people would see development economists are part of their enterprise, but the inverse would typically not be true.