DECEMBER 2025 Newsletter Featured Research Visual Insights from our 2025 Research The Growth Lab's multidisciplinary research team works across the world, offering ideas, methods, and tools to help policymakers, scholars, investors, and others find ways to accelerate economic growth and expand opportunity. Our research in 2025 spanned nine countries in five continents and investigated economic crises in Bolivia and Malawi, clean energy industrial transition strategies, oil diversification and new engines for growth, depopulation and workforce challenges, and much more. In this feature, we showcase some of our most insightful visualizations. Explore our research portfolio >> Why Some U.S. Cities Thrive While Others Decline A new study, in collaboration with the Complexity Science Hub, reveals that despite nearly two centuries of technological revolutions, U.S. cities follow a stable pattern that shapes their ability to diversify and reinvent themselves. The research, authored by Simone Daniotti, Matte Hartog, and Frank Neffke, and recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that cities evolve and diversify while maintaining a constant level of “coherence”—a measure of how well their economic activities fit together. The findings raise questions about urban transformation and suggest limitations for how policy can steer diversification of urban economies. Read the media release >> Catalyzing Economic Growth Through Powershoring In a new report for the Climate Club, Ketan Ahuja and Ricardo Hausmann explain how places can drive growth through investments in green-heavy industry. As economies electrify and renewable power becomes cheaper but harder to transport, energy-intensive industries will increasingly locate where renewable energy is abundant, a trend known as powershoring. The authors state that policymakers must understand not only their regions’ clean energy endowments but also their industrial capabilities, and design strategies that match both, building industries they have capabilities for, while remaining within their envelope of energy resources. Explore all of our green growth research >> Additional Research Bridging the short-term and long-term dynamics of economic structural change Nature Communications J. McNerney, Y. Li, A. Gomez-Lievano, and F. Neffke Economic Prosperity With Environmental Preservation Book Chapter / Cities in Amazonia: People and Nature in Harmony T. Cheston Women at Work: A Systematic Diagnostic of Female Saudi Employment Gains in Saudi Arabia Working Paper F. Kaddah Tackling Discrepancies in Trade Data: The Harvard Growth Lab International Trade Datasets Working Paper S. Bustos, E. Jackson, D. Torun, B. Leonard, N. Tuzcu, P. Lukaszuk, A. White, R. Hausmann, and M.A. Yildirim Raising the Bar: A Poverty Line for Global Inclusion Working Paper L. Pritchett and M. Viarengo Lessons from Andalusia: How Can Policymakers Promote Economic Growth? Economics Observatory J. Tapia and L. Venturi Lagging Regions: What Can Policymakers Learn from Wyoming? Economics Observatory E. Protzer In the News • Trump Picked This Fight With Maduro. He Can’t Back Down. Ricardo Hausmann, The New York Times • Deeper into the Public Procurement Goldmine Ricardo Hausmann, Project Syndicate • Wyoming’s Housing Market Is Starting To Look A Lot Like California’s E. Protzer, Cowboy State Daily • Will AI Democratize Access to Equity Financing? R. Hausmann, Project Syndicate • Energy Transition: Who are the African Champions? Greenplexity, Forbes Afrique • Azerbaijan, Harvard launch upgraded Green Growth Portal Greenplexity, Caliber • The Czech Republic is conquering the green industry Greenplexity, Hrot24 Events The Growth Lab hosted more than 35 events and 1,600 attendees in 2025. You can view many of our event recordings on our YouTube channel. Thomas Wolf, co-founder of Hugging Face, discusses how AI is influencing dynamics in economic development, and explores the key challenges facing policymakers and researchers as they work to understand and guide these transformations.   Osmel Manzano, Adjunct Professor at Georgetown, discusses the key challenges and opportunities for effective natural resource management in Latin America and its implications for economic development. GREENPLEXITY LAUNCH Watch Profs. Dan Schrag and Ricardo Hausmann, along with the Growth Lab's Annie White and Ketan Ahuja demo Greenplexity.   STUDENT ENGAGEMENT 2025 We hosted 85 student research assistants and summer interns in 2025, with each contributing to active projects. Explore our blog to learn more about their experiences. Congratulations to Ricardo Hausmann on 25 years at Harvard Kennedy School! Students celebrated Ricardo on the last day of classes this semester. Visit our photo gallery for more pictures!