Three important development economics conferences are held around this time of year.
The first is PacDev 2012, which was held at UC Davis on March 17. The second is the annual conference of the Center for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), which was held at the University of Oxford from March 18 to 20. The third is the Midwest International Economic Development Conference (MIEDC), which will be held at the University of Minnesota on April 20 and 21.
If you would like to take a look at what’s being done at the frontier of research in development economics, the papers presented at PacDev can be downloaded here, and the papers presented at the CSAE conference can be downloaded here. The papers that will be presented at MIEDC can be downloaded here.
Update: More generally, the NEP-DEV list (which you can sign up to receive via email or follow via RSS), which is updated weekly, is a good way to keep abreast of new working papers in development economics, but do note that there is no selection criterion regarding what goes on the NEP-DEV list. For conferences such as PacDev, CSAE, and MIEDC, the organizers select the best papers among all papers submitted for considersation.