weekly link roundup (May 11, 2026)

I’m in DC this week, annoying a variety of people who probably have better things to do than talk to me; if you are also in DC and would like to get coffee, let me know.

• This week in In Development Magazine,¹ Charles Kenny writes on emigration - and how it can be used to support growth in sending countries.

  • I wasn’t going to cover migration in the first issue of In Development Magazine, so it didn’t become just Lauren’s Pet Topics, but Charles Kenny is one of my development heroes, so of course I published this.

• There’s a new website that autotranslates Chinese preprints into English, to increase Chinese-Western scientific collaboration.

• The population of Africans living in refugee camps has tripled in the last 15 years.

• Works in Progress has a list of pieces they’d like to commission.

• Niko McCarty is serializing his new book on biology. Self-recommending.

• Chloe East and Elizabeth Cox find that ICE activities this year have… hurt US-born workers.

• GiveWell is hiring a senior livelihoods researcher.

• Oliver Kim reminds us of the variation in incomes in developing countries. It would take Malawi 21 years of 7% growth to reach the GDP/capita of Kenya.

• The war in Iran has caused a Diet Coke shortage in India. I know of several people that would simply Cease To Function without Diet Coke; thoughts and prayers to their Indian equivalents.

1. Speaking of In Development Magazine: Dwarkesh Patel is running a blog prize where you can choose to answer “what should countries which are not currently in the AI production chain (semis, energy, frontier models, robotics) do in order to not get totally sidestepped by transformative AI?” But he only gives you 1,000 words to respond. If you have thoughts on this but would like more than 1,000 words, please email your pitch to submissions@indevelopmentmag.com.