AS ONE OF THE NEW CSAE DEPUTY DIRECTORS, it was my pleasure to be involved in the organisation

conference that the CSAE has ever hosted, with more than 200 papers presented and over 460 delegates attending. The research presented at the conference covered a wide variety of topics in development economics, Spring Edition grouped into themes such as risk and insurance; the microeconomics of conflict; agriculture; and health. Individual papers addressed diverse topics including the indirect effects of subsidized health insurance in rural Ghana; the motorcycle-taxi market in Togo and Benin; and the economic costs of Somali piracy. We had the privilege of having Berkeley’s Edward Miguel deliver our keynote address. Speaking on ‘Conflict, climate and economic development in Africa, ’ he discussed new work synthesizing the literature on the relationship between temperature and violence. Re-estimating the results of several studies, he and his co-authors find that greater temperatures have predicted not only war in recent decades, but conflict over much of human history and aggression in micro-level psychological studies. These results underscore the importance of Africa’s ability to respond to climate change. This spring newsletter reflects some of the diversity of current research in development economics which was demonstrated at the CSAE Conference. Will Seitz discusses regulations in the diamond industry; Matt Collin investigates property rights and land titling in Tanzania; and new research from the iiG looks at the interaction of incentives and social distance in a public service information programme. There is an in depth interview with me, and with my fellow Deputy Director Simon Quinn as we take up our new roles; and news from the Africa