VoxDev Development Economics

Abhijit Banerjee, Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics, MIT, talks to Tim Phillips about the run-up to 2011 elections in Delhi, India, where residents in a random sample of slums received newspapers containing report cards on politicians. The information was obtained under India’s disclosure laws. The cards presented information on the performance of the incumbent and the qualifica...

Evidence shows that when more women are elected, it changes broader development outcomes due to their differing priorities. Yet women are almost unrepresented in parliaments around the world. In this interview, Lakshmi Iyer reveals to Tim Phillips that in India the challenge is that a woman winning a Parliamentary candidacy election does not see an increase in female candidates in the following el...

Who wins and losses in the technology trade war? John van Reenen (MIT) explains to Tim Phillips why technology transfer in a globalised world isn’t a zero sum game. Resistance to technology transfer has escalated as the competitive power of China has increased. That being said, China’s growth has benefited the West: It offers a huge market for goods and services, while competition has spurred inno...

Karthik Muralidharan and Paul Niehaus of University of California, San Diego, argue that when we test things at a small scale, they might not be predictive of how they perform at a larger scale. Find out more at VoxDev.org

How do we get more women in senior positions? Chris Woodruff shares insights from the Bangladeshi garment industry. Find out more at VoxDev.org

VoxDev's own Editor-in-Chief, Tavneet Suri, drawing insights from her work at J-PAL and VoxDev, emphasises the importance of researchers deeply engaging with, as well effectively communicating the findings of the vast body of existing research to, policymakers. Find out more at VoxDev.org

Using the example of healthcare in India, Nick O’Donohoe, Chief Executive Officer, CDC, discusses how data plays a crucial role in making sure investments are put to their best use. Find out more at VoxDev.org

Yasuyuki Sawada, ADB’s Chief Economist, provides insight into Asia’s development and overcoming the middle-income trap. Find out more at VoxDev.org

Rodger Voorhies, Executive Director of Global Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,  shares a first-hand account of the importance of empirical analysis for development practitioners Find out more at VoxDev.org

How does USAID decide how and where to channel its efforts?

Development aid by its very nature is provided in messy environments, is often very political and has inherent negative incentives. In such situations, often exacerbated by limited data and imminent deadlines, can we improve how we provide aid? In this interview, Stefan Dercon , discusses the various aspects of aid effectives; the importance of cost-benefit analyses, feedback loops, prioritising t...

In this interview, Robin Burgess discusses three ideas to foster socioeconomic development. First, he discusses how important the quality of civil servants is to development, and his work studying the Indian civil service to identify the key motivators that lead to effective policy implementation. Second, he delves into the causes of poverty. His research in India has shown that contrary to a comm...

Rachel Glennerster discusses her role at DFID, her work on promoting electoral debates in Sierra Leone, the importance of strengthening local institutions, and the challenges of measuring the success of aid programmes. She emphasises the need for aid to involve local partners and focus on addressing pressing needs, rather than being paternalistic.

We lose about 5% of global GDP due to hunger related diseases, and the situation is getting worse with the number of people living in food insecurity increasing. Yet one-third of all food produced is wasted. Arif Husain , Chief Economist at the World Food Programme, discusses a plethora of issues relating to food insecurity; ranging from the main causes - climate shocks and conflict, to the proble...

The sustainable development goals have ushered in a new development paradigm. In this interview, Elliott Harris discusses the vision behind the creation of the SDGs and how it differs from that of the MDGs. He stresses the need for sustainable and green development, and engagement with the private sector, which has already begun taking sustainability seriously. He further discusses the challenges...

The idea that worker utility is affected by co-worker wages has potentially broad labour market implications. In a month-long experiment with Indian manufacturing workers, in her work with Emily Breza and Yogita Shamdasani ( Breza et al. 2017 ) Supreet Kaur establishes the effects of pay inequality on co-workers within production units. They find that pay inequality reduces output, as well as atte...

Chris Woodruff discusses the role management practices play in firm growth. Further, he explores different mechanisms for improving firm management in varying contexts across developing countries. This VoxDev Talk is taken from a video that first appeared on the IGC's website.

David Atkin explains why he thinks that globalisation has brought huge benefit to developing countries in terms of expanding their manufacturing sectors and introducing them to new technologies. Retreat from globalisation can have some skill-gain benefit, as young people may stay in education longer if there are fewer low-paid manufacturing jobs on offer to them, but this is a long-term gain and i...

Drawing on lessons from Colombia and India, Orazio Attanasio of UCL discusses the roles, pre-existing welfare programmes' infrastructure, and parental behaviour play in effective delivery of early childhood development interventions. Find out more at VoxDev

Male-owned firms earn nearly twice as much profit as female-owned firms. This difference is driven by a variance in the quantity of garments sold, rather than prices charged or costs incurred. Using a firm census and a market research survey, Morgan Hardy and Gisella Kagy (Hardy and Kagy 2017) uncover gender segregation in demand and a gender gap in the market size to firm ratio, suggesting a dema...

How can we increase output per worker in countries like India and China where it is particularly low? Anant Nyshadham discusses one way to do so: by improving the physical work environment. When garment manufacturing firms in India changed their lighting system to a more energy-efficient one, the ambient temperature on the factory floor reduced by 2.5oC. This decrease resulted in an improvement in...

Building state functionality is difficult, and particularly so in fragile environments marred by weak institutions and political instability. Eliana La Ferrara discusses four methods to overcome the challenges of fragile states. This VoxDev Talk is taken from a video that was previously published on the IGC's website.

Ed Glaeser explains why cities are the best pathway to prosperity and outlines three lessons from over 30 years of economics research on urbanisation. This VoxDev Talk is taken from a video that was previously published on the IGC's website .

The narrative around Africa has changed over the last decade with it now being heralded as the economic powerhouse of the future. Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have laid a solid foundation to their economic growth. However, the next decade will prove crucial in sustaining this growth. To do so, job creation and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows are crucial. John Sutton (LSE) discusses...

John Van Reenen, Professor at MIT Department of Economics and Sloan School of Management, gives a brief explanation of the ways that the current backlash against globalisation emerging in Western countries is likely to affect developing countries, and what measures governments in these countries can take to protect their economies. On the flip side he points out that disruption of global value cha...