The March issue of the IMF publication Finance and Development (F&D) contains this essay by Michael Kremer.
ECONOMICS AND INNOVATION by MICHAEL KREMER, MARCH 2024
Here are his concluding paragraphs:
"Economists as innovators
"In addition to shedding light on the design of policies and institutions for innovation, economists can also participate directly in the innovation process. For example, economic theorists have used market design principles to design kidney transplant matching systems, and development economists are using experimental methods not just to test innovations, but also to help develop them. An analysis of Development Innovation Ventures (DIV)—the US Agency for International Development’s tiered evidence-based social innovation fund—found that 36 percent of awards went to innovations developed by teams including development economists, scaled to reach over 1 million users, compared with just 6 percent of awards to innovations without such involvement.
"Furthermore, 63 percent of DIV-supported innovations that had previously been tested in randomized controlled trials reached more than 1 million people, compared with only 12 percent of those without such trials. For example, economists helped develop a credit-scoring approach using psychometrics (psychological testing) to assess default risk for potential borrowers without credit histories, which scaled through adoption by commercial lenders.
"Just as biochemists and computer scientists often develop practical innovations in their fields, economists are increasingly developing social innovations in ours."
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The March issue also includes
NEW LESSONS FROM BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS, by ULRIKE MALMENDIER and CLINT HAMILTON
and
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