2025 at VoxDev

Through over 250 articles and 50+ podcasts, VoxDev featured research by 886 authors in 2025. A huge thank you to all of those who have contributed to building this public good, and make our continued success possible:

• The VoxDev website has had over 900,000 pageviews from 400,000 users in 2025 - we are very close to two millions users since starting in 2017.
• Across our social media platforms, we have about 40,000 followers, and this year had approximately four million post impressions.
• Videos on our YouTube channel were viewed 305,000 times this year.
• And on audio platforms, our weekly podcast has been listened to a further 70,000 times in 2025.
• Over 7,000 people receive our weekly newsletter.
• Overall, our VoxDevLits have been downloaded ~25,000 times from VoxDev and cited almost 400 times. In 2025, they have been viewed a further 80,000 times on our new interactive webpages.

We are particularly proud of this growing library of living literature reviews, brought together by our amazing group of Senior Editors. There are now 20 VoxDevLits available on our website, to which we added five updates and eight new topics in the past year:

• Microfinance: Issue 3 – Jing Cai, Muhammad Meki & Simon Quinn
• Foreign Direct Investment – Stefania Garetto, Nina Pavcnik & Natalia Ramondo
• International Trade: Issue 2 – David Atkin & Amit Khandelwal
• Refugees and Other Forcibly Displaced Populations – Sandra Rozo
• Informality: Issue 2 – Gabriel Ulyssea
• Electricity Infrastructure – Robyn Meeks
• Sanitation Infrastructure – Britta Augsburg, Andrew Foster & Molly Lipscomb
• Organised Crime – Santiago Tobón & Maria Micaela Sviatschi
• Deforestation – Francisco Costa & Allan Hsiao
• Female Labour Force Participation: Issue 2 – Rachel Heath
• Political Polarisation – Cesi Cruz & Horacio Larreguy
• Training Entrepreneurs: Issue 4 – David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff
• Education Technology – Abhijeet Singh

We look forward to building on this success in 2026. Here is a glimpse of what we have planned for the coming year:

• More VoxDevLits: There are over 15 new VoxDevLits underway on a wide range of topics in development economics, including International Migration, Industrial Development, Scaling Technology, Public Services, Air Pollution and more.
• A brand new podcast: We are starting a new podcast series titled 'Ideas in Development', hosted by Managing Editor Oliver Hanney, who will be joined by different co-hosts for series covering key topics in development. The first three series will cover growth, AI and cities.
• Videos: We have put together a series of explainer videos on key economic policies. This series will start in January.
• Further improvements to the website: We are building a new and improved AI search function for the website, while making some other changes to improve our homepage.

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, videos and VoxDevLits resumes on January 5th. In the meantime, if you are looking for some reading or listening, here are some highlights from 2025 at VoxDev.

Our five most-read articles released this year:

• The ‘missing intercept’ problem with going from micro to macro Benjamin Moll & Oliver Hanney
• Electronic waste is a silent killer in West Africa Stefania Lovo & Sam Rawlings
• What broad lessons have we learned from 115 studies on unconditional cash transfers? Tommaso Crosta, Dean Karlan, Finley Ong, Julius Ruschenpohler & Christopher Udry
• Best buys meet political realities: The political economy of education research Stefan Dercon
• Targeting industrial policy for economic development in the new era Tristian Reed

Managing Editor Oliver Hanney has written a number of blogs organising and synthesising the research we feature:

• Ten key insights from development economics in 2025
• AI and development economics: Early evidence and how to keep up
• What is development economics?
• How economists are using new data sources in development economics
• Examples from development economics for your introduction to econometrics course
• Important null results in development economics
• Nine examples of successful government policies

Our top five podcasts (in terms of total listens across all major podcast platforms) released in 2025:

• Rethinking evidence and refocusing on growth in development economics Lant Pritchett
• What have we learned about the informal sector? Gabriel Ulyssea & Mariaflavia Harari
• How has global poverty fallen Tom Vogl
• What have we learned about microfinance? Jing Cai, Muhammad Meki & Simon Quinn
• Development Dialogues: The future of evidence-based policymaking and international development Stefan Dercon, Trudi Makhaya & Rory Stewart

You can listen to Season 6 of VoxDevTalks on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or listen below:

We also put out six video podcasts this year – here are some highlights!

• Leonard Wantchekon on African development, democracy, and the African School of Economics.

• Ellora Derenoncourt on the Atlantic slave trade and economic development in Europe.

• David Yanagizawa-Drott on the role economists can (should) play in shaping the future of AI.

We held more events than ever before this year. A particular highlight was our webinar on the future of foreign aid with Stefan Dercon and Rachel Glennerster - over 400 people attended live, and thousands have watched this discussion since.