VoxDev Development Economics

How can we take what we learn in educational RCTs and apply it at scale to many schools, maybe in many countries? Adrienne Lucas talks to Tim Phillips about the project she was part of to improve learning in Ghana, the difference between small- and large-scale trials, and the challenge of implementing policies results without perfect compliance or daily monitoring.

In high-income countries, we take a reliable electricity supply for granted. But in parts of the world where that reliable electricity supply isn’t available, what is the effect of frequent power outages on employment? Justice Tei Mensah of The World Bank tells Tim Phillips about how power cuts translate to job cuts.

In September 2022 António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, convened the Transforming Education Summit by telling education stakeholders from around the world that education is “beset by inequalities and struggling to adjust to the needs of the 21st century”. Their task: to tackle the global learning crisis by transforming their education systems. Robert Jenkins of UNICEF talks to Tim Phillips about the progress that has been made to solve what he calls “the global learning crisis”.

What determines how a war is fought, and who chooses to fight it? Eleonora Guarnieri of the University of Exeter talks to Tim Phillips about how cultural distance influences whether, and how, sexual violence is used as a weapon of war – and its role in civil conflict in Africa.

If you go to college in a low- or middle-income country (LMIC), how does it help you, and what do you get from it? Two questions that would seem to have obvious answers – but these questions may be more complicated for policymakers to answer than they seem. Jishnu Das tells Tim Phillips that “the demographic dividend seems to be turning into a demographic nightmare” – and what researchers and policymakers can do about it.

Does being rich make us happy, or is it being richer than other people that matters? Will interventions that alleviate poverty also improve someone’s well-being? If we can improve a person’s mental health, does this have an economic effect too? Johannes Haushofer and Daniel Salicath tell Tim Phillips what we know so far about these questions, and how future research can help us understand the psychology of poverty.

Who should select political candidates, the people or the party? Abou Bakarr Kamara and Niccoló Meriggi talk to Tim Phillips about an experiment in Sierra Leone that convinced two major political parties to adopt a primary system for candidate selection. Did that mean that different candidates stood in the election, and that different MPs were chosen? Photo: Carol Sahley/USAID

Universal basic income – UBI – has always been more an economic thought experiment than serious policy idea. It’s now being taken seriously, but any large-scale implementation would need solid empirical evidence to justify the cost. Tavneet Suri tells Tim Phillips about the surprising insights from the early stages of a decade-long test of UBI in Kenya, and what we expect to learn as the experiment progresses.

The process that economists call labour market dynamics lets workers improve their lives by switching jobs. But do our assumptions about it apply in LMICs? Because if the dynamics are different, then maybe the policies should be different as well. Kevin Donovan and Todd Schoellman tell Tim Phillips about the surprising evidence they discovered about labour market flows, and why it might lead us to rethink job creation policy in LMICs.

The need for humanitarian relief is at record highs, while support from the international community is dwindling. Should we divert funding from development policies designed to deliver growth to focus on the most efficient ways to provide humanitarian assistance instead? And, if we did, what would those policies be? Arif Husain of the UN WFP tells Tim Phillips about the growing funding gap for aid, the urgent need to improve global food security, and the consequences if we choose not to act. Photo credit: doganmesut - stock.adobe.com

How useful is generative AI in helping entrepreneurs become more successful? Rem Koning is one of a team of researchers who created an AI mentor for entrepreneurs in Kenya. He tells Tim Phillips about which questions the mentor was asked, and which businesses profited from its AI-driven advice.

Mobile money has created many opportunities for users. But its fees can be expensive. One solution: create competition between mobile money providers in Africa through interoperability. But if we reduce the profitability of providers, might it also reduce network coverage, and therefore financial inclusion too? Nicola Limodio tells Tim Phillips about the upside and downside of competition in Africa’s mobile money market.

Recorded at CEPR Paris Symposium 2023: How can macroeconomics (and macroeconomists) contribute to what we know about development policy? The availability of better data has given fresh impetus to the use of macroeconomic models to explain the development process in LICs. Doug Gollin and Paula Bustos talk to Tim Phillips about this emerging agenda, what questions it is helping to answer, and the challenges of the next generation of research.

What is the role of state capacity in economic development? Nicola Mastrorocco spent five years digitalising civil service records from a century of economic development in the US, showing how a century of bureaucracy changed the US, and what this tells us about how a state bureaucracy evolves.

Research shows that policymakers have consistently endorsed the use of industrial policy. And now economists are increasingly talking about – and researching – the benefits of it too. Dani Rodrik talks to Tim Phillips about what we know about its effectiveness, and the evolving policy agenda that it represents.

How does place-based policy work, and what can it deliver? Gordon Hanson has spent many years studying the economic importance of where people live, and what policy can do to improve those places. He talks to Tim Phillips and what has historically succeeded and failed in US cities, and how that knowledge can be applied elsewhere.

What is the fairest and most efficient way to improve not just access to education, but outcomes too? Should policymakers focus on a broader markets and systems approach to education reform? Emiliana Vegas and Asim Khwaja tell Tim Phillips about what a markets and systems approach to delivering education reform is, and what it has already achieved in Pakistan and Chile.

Researchers want to maximise the development impact of their advice. Stefan Dercon tells Tim Phillips, that to do this, they need to consider the local political constraints and opportunities, and not be “The sort of technocrat that says ‘’nothing to do with me, it’s someone else’s problem’.”

While the news agenda is grabbed by droughts, hurricanes and wildfires, the inexorable rise in sea level is less easy to see. But it will affect billions of people living in coastal regions in our lifetimes. What are the possibilities for, and costs of, adaptation? Allan Hsiao discusses how low-lying cities like Jakarta will cope.

What is the social cost of carbon? What can it tell us about the effects of, and the feasibility of policies to cope with, climate change? Michael Greenstone tells Tim Phillips about how the process of assigning a value to the cost of emissions, and how that can help us to think clearly about the choices we make.