2024 at VoxDev

2024 has added new challenges for economic development, including escalating conflicts, further erosions of democratic and human rights, shrinking aid budgets, and the intensifying climate crisis. In light of these growing obstacles, we believe that making rigorous, policy-relevant research accessible is more critical than ever—a sentiment reinforced by data on our expanding readership.

VoxDev has now had almost 1.5 million users since starting in 2017. Over the past year, we have covered more research than ever before, and saw a significant jump in the number of users visiting our website. We are closing in on nearly half a million users in 2024.

Figure 1: Annual VoxDev users

This year, VoxDev featured research by 669 authors, through over 200 articles and over 50 podcasts. We have now covered work in over 80 countries around the world.

Figure 2: Geographic spread of research on VoxDev

This is all possible because of our new funding under the Growth Research Platform (a new initiative led by the Centre for Economic Policy Research and funded by the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office), our new Deputy Managing Editor Paola Davila, and all of the readers and contributors who help make VoxDev a success. We are thankful for your continued support and engagement, and will work to continue to improve VoxDev in the year ahead. 

We are particularly proud of our growing library of VoxDevLits (living literature reviews), which we have expanded to include:

• Taxation - Anders Jensen
• Agricultural Technology in Africa: Issue 2 – Tavneet Suri & Chris Udry
• Female Labour Force Participation – Rachel Heath
• Barriers to Search and Hiring in Urban Labour Markets – Stefano Caria and Kate Orkin

Our VoxDevLits have now been downloaded over 17,500 times. To accompany each release we have continued hosting launch events which have attracted a broad range of attendees from research and policy organisations around the world. Our goal is to provide a starting point for policymakers and researchers looking to understand key topics related to economic development. 

We look forward to building on this success in 2025. Here is a glimpse of what VoxDev has planned for the coming year:

• An improved website: We are upgrading how we host VoxDevLits. Alongside being able to download the pdfs, you will be able to explore our library of living reviews interactively on the website.
• Lots more VoxDevLits: Alongside keeping the 12 we have available on our website up to date, we plan to release at least 12 new VoxDevLits in 2025, on topics including FDI, Public Service Delivery, State Fragillity, Refugees, Educational Technology, Electricity Infrastructure, Air Pollution, Migration and more!
• Educational resources: VoxDev is already used widely by teachers and students of development economics, and this will become even easier in 2025. We are working to develop a broader set of resources to enable teachers to use VoxDev content. 
• Events: We plan to host more frequent webinars aimed at policymakers and academics highlighting policy relevant evidence.

We want VoxDev to be the global hub for development economics research and policy ideas. As always, we welcome your thoughts on how we might improve VoxDev to help us achieve this ambitious goal. Please do send any comments or suggestions to [email protected].

Over the Christmas period, we will be taking a break from posting new content. Our packed schedule of articles, podcasts and VoxDevLits resumes on January 6th. In the meantime, if you are looking for some reading or listening, here are some highlights from 2024 at VoxDev.

Our five most-read articles released this year:

• Implementing industrial policy effectively: Lessons from shipbuilding in China Panle Jia Barwick, Myrto Kalouptsidi & Nahim Bin Zahur
• Who migrates from developing countries? Michael Clemens & Mariapia Mendola
• Brain drain vs brain gain: Does international migration deplete poor countries of skilled workers? Paola Abarcar & Caroline Theoharides
• Boosting policy impact in development economics: Key insights from a decade of research Alix Bonargent
• Industrial policy for micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises Dani Rodrik & Rohan Sandhu

Our weekly podcast has been listened to almost 60,000 times in total. Our top five podcasts released this year:

• Industrial policy for economic development Dani Rodrik
• Place-based policies and development Gordon Hanson
• The psychology of poverty Johannes Haushofer & Daniel Salicath
• The past, present and future of development economics Pranab Bardhan
• Macroeconomic development: An emerging agenda Paula Bustos & Douglas Gollin