The Africa Urban Lab Podcast

Our guest is Stefan Dercon — Professor of Economic Policy at Oxford and former Chief Economist at the UK’s Department for International Development (now FCDO). We discuss what it takes for cities and countries to kickstart economic growth, exploring in particular Stefan’s recent work operationalizing elite bargains in the real world. It’s a grounded conversation on why growth and development depen...

Our guest is Astrid Haas — urban economist and one of the leading voices on municipal finance in African cities, whose advisory work spans mayors and finance ministers from across the continent. We dig into the central question facing African cities: how should they pay for themselves? The conversation covers why property taxes remain so underused despite their potential, how cities can move beyon...

Our first guest is Joe Studwell — development scholar and author of the landmark How Asia Works — who has just published his long-awaited follow-up book, How Africa Works . We dig into the book's central arguments: why dense cities are essential to building functional markets, how urbanization can actually boost agricultural productivity, and why population density is the key to affordable in...