Development and History
Development and Economic History
Members of the Development and Economic History Research Group combine archival data, lab-in-the-field experiments, randomized controlled trials, text analysis, survey and secondary data along with theoretical tools to study issues in development and economic history. Faculty and students work in the field in South Asia, China and Africa as well as doing archival work in libraries across Europe and Asia.
Almost all faculty are members of CAGE in the economics department and some are also members of Warwick Interdisciplinary Centre for International Development (WICID). There is a regular weekly external seminar, two weekly internal workshops, and high quality research students. We also organise international conferences on campus, or in Venice.
Our activities
Development and Economic History Research Group Workshop/Seminar
Monday: 1.00-2.00pm
For faculty and PhD students at Warwick and other top-level academic institutions across the world. For a detailed scheduled of speakers please follow the link below.
Organisers: Bishnupriya Gupta and Claudia Rei
People
Academics
Academics associated with the Development and Economic History Research Group are:
Research Students
Events
CWIP (CAGE Work in Progress) - Adam Di Lizia (PGR)
Title: Brainrot? The Effect of Short-Form Content on Long-Form Attention
Abstract: Has the rise of short-form content worsened our attention spans? I assess this question by studying slice-by-slice attention to news videos on YouTube, the leading global source of video content. Leveraging the staggered rollout of YouTube Shorts across markets and channels, I find that the introduction of short-form content significantly worsens user attention to their usual videos. Skipping to any given section of a video increases by approximately 30%, with across video comparisons showing that longer videos are worst affected. The effect is fast-acting and permanent. On the supply side I find no evidence that channels modify the content of their videos, but instead increasingly produce their own short-form content. Disaggregating this skipping within videos, I find a uniform increase to all slices except for the final 5% of a video. I rationalise these results with a model in which videos are not discrete units but a collection of interdependent slices. Skipping allows users to trade off context for additional video content, with shorts exposure lowering the value of context and leading to content-seeking behaviour. Structural estimation reveals that viewers value context 15% less relative to content in response. Mechanism tests suggest these results are driven by a worsening attention span, rather than substitution or user composition. Overall, short-form content has large impacts on user behaviour.