VoxDev Development Economics

Access to fast cash through digital credit may put consumers at risk for over-indebtedness and likelihood of default Read “Too fast, too furious? Digital credit delivery speed and repayment rates” by Alfredo Burlando, Michael A. Kuhn, and Silvia Prina here .

Bundling interventions that offer parents health information along with cash transfers might yield more sustainable changes in early-life health outcomes for children

Bundling interventions that offer parents health information along with cash transfers might yield more sustainable changes in early-life health outcomes for children Read “The impacts of a multifaceted pre-natal intervention on human capital accumulation in early life” by Pedro Carneiro, Lucy Kraftman, Giacomo Mason, Lucie Moore, Imran Rasul and Molly Scott here .

Policymakers might seek to address the frictions that prevent potentially beneficial migration to urban areas from taking place Read “Urban-Rural Gaps in the Developing World: Does Internal Migration Offer Opportunities?” by David Lagakos here . 

Despite evidence of increasing household wages, anti-poverty schemes in India can have an adverse effect by lowering human capital investment Read “Workfare and Human Capital Investment: Evidence from India” by Manisha Shah and Bryce Millet Steinberg here .

People are less likely to ask questions in their communities if it exposes the limits of their knowledge. Read “Signaling, shame, and silence in social learning” by Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Benjamin Golub, and He Yang here .

More frequent assessment of student performance fails to deliver on improved outcomes when the administrative burden on teachers is high

Nearly a billion people around the world are not connected to the electricity grid, and even more have unreliable access. In this VoxDevTalk, Robin Burgess discusses his paper with Michael Greenstone, Nicholas Ryan, and Anant Sudarshan in which the authors argue that a social norm that all people deserve access to electricity regardless of payment may actually be undermining the universal access c...

Incentivising agent performance is a double-edged sword: while it can encourage agents to perform better, it might also nudge them into cheating and manipulating results to their benefit. In this VoxDevTalk, Guojun He discusses his work with Michael Greenstone, Ruixue Jia, and Tong Liu on this classic principal-agent problem in the context of how Chinese local governments self-report meeting air p...

Certain kinds of NGO-led development projects attract more funding and media attention than others. Child sponsorship or microcredit schemes, for instance, tend to be 'hotter' than rehabilitation projects. To what extent does this knowledge affect the fundraising agenda of NGOs? What causes NGOs to 'cluster' around specific causes in favour of others? And what can be done to diversify NGO (and don...

Entrepreneurship across the world is highly male dominated. While the amount of subsistence entrepreneurship in developing countries leads to a slightly more equal gender balance, female entrepreneurs in these countries tend to choose sectors where other women are. In this VoxDevTalk, Nava Ashraf and Ed Glaeser discuss their work with Alexia Delfino investigating how gender norms and weak rule of...

When faced with onerous procedures to apply for a job, potential applicants can be expected to weigh the costs of applying on their time and energy against the probability of their getting the job and the eventual benefits. It is widely believed that if recruiters raise the costs of applying for a job, only the most suited and driven candidates can be expected to apply. In this VoxDevTalk, Stefano...

When workers are supplied to a company through a temp agency, they earn less than the permanent employees they end up working with. Since work place surveys usually do not capture the pay of outsourced labour, there is insufficient data on the pay differential between contract workers and full-time workers. In this VoxDevTalk, Simon Jäger of MIT discusses a new paper where he and his co-authors es...

Incentivising people to lead healthier lives by means of monetary payments is a simple and cost-effective intervention, but are there ways to tweak that basic incentive contract to make it work particularly well for people who are impatient (those who discount future benefits for immediate gain)? In this VoxDevTalk, Rebecca Dizon-Ross discusses a randomised experiment that varied the design of pay...

Relationships between groups are vital in village economies, but do these social structures affect the success of development policies? If resources are delivered by someone from the community, does the social relationship between that agent and the people who could benefit from the success of the intervention matter? In this VoxDevTalk, Oriana Bandiera discusses an experiment in Uganda that addre...

Across the developing world, many girls face difficulties in persuading their parents to enrol them in secondary education. Whilst financial incentives have often been analysed as a means to encourage female school enrollment, there has been little focus on the role of negotiation skills. In this VoxDevTalk, Kathleen McGinn discusses an innovative experiment in Zambia, which assesses the impact of...

By 2050, the world’s urban population is estimated to reach nearly seven billion, driven mainly by urbanisation in developing countries. Despite this growth, development economists have often chosen to focus on rural areas. In this VoxDevTalk, Ed Glaeser discusses a new paper that brings together research into urbanisation in the developing world. He argues that policymakers should not try to slow...

Across the world, women face invisible barriers that prevent them from taking up education and work. This is particularly the case in conservative societies such as in Punjab, Pakistan. In this VoxDev Talk, Asim Khwaja discusses an experiment in Punjab, Pakistan, that assessed the take-up rates of a vocational training programme for women. The researchers found that despite high interest, few wome...

Editors’ note: This podcast was updated on 25.08.2020   How can policymakers solve the problem of non-payment of utility bills while still maintaining access to water and sanitation services? In the developing world, urban settings often struggle to provide basic needs, including water and sanitation. Often, the challenge lies in the cost of the last mile between the main infrastructure and indivi...

Why do trade barriers remain high in developing countries despite the significant potential to drive economic growth through trade? Advanced economies have mostly removed tariffs and other barriers to trade. By contrast, in many developing countries such barriers remain in spite of the huge potential to drive economic growth through trade. In this VoxDev talk, David Atkin and Amit Khandelwal discu...

Many development economists have advocated unconditional cash transfers as a crucial tool for reducing poverty, especially during the present COVID-19 pandemic. In this VoxDev talk, Karthik Muralidharan discusses the effects of a small unconditional cash transfer for India’s development goals. He argues that an inclusive growth dividend, pegged at 1% of GDP and paid to all citizens, would have maj...

Can investments in vocational training, contrary to the existing research literature, actually improve labour market outcomes?

Why do we still see high rates of child marriage in settings such as Bangladesh, despite significant improvements in women’s economic empowerment?

How do poor mental health and poverty interact, and how can we best ensure access to mental health services?

How can we best incentivise bureaucrats in a formal manner that avoids concerns over corruption?