Episodes
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Chris Woodruff has pioneered academic research into businesses, large and small, in low-income countries, He is also a non-executive Director of British International Investment (BII), a development finance institution and impact investor that partners with more than 1,500 businesses in emerging economies, with assets of ÂŁ8.1 billion. Chris talks to Tim Phillips about what he has learned from his association with BII into how research can inform policy and investment â and whether economists worry too much about external validity.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/firms/role-evidence-development-finance-institutions -
In the second episode of the collaboration between Yaleâs Economic Growth Center
and VoxDev, Catherine Cheney speaks to Amit Khandelwal of the Yale Jackson
School of Public Affairs, Isabela Manelici of the London School of Economics, and
Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute, As globalisation faces new headwinds,
they discuss the outlook for those countries that didnât reap the trade benefits from
the spread of globalisation, and the new challenges for LMICs. -
Episodes manquant?
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When citizens demand change and feel they are not being heard, they protest on the
streets. Thanks to social media and TV coverage, we see protests every night on the
news. But has the frequency or the character of protests changed? Who is
protesting, and what makes them take to the streets? David Yang and Noam
Yuchtman are two of the authors of a new review of the literature on protests. They
tell Tim Phillips what they discovered.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/why-do-protests-matter-exploring-their-causes-and-lasting -
In our final episode based on this yearâs BREAD-IGC virtual PhD-level course on the
economics of cities in low and middle-income countries, Matthew Kahn of USC and
Siqi Zheng of MIT focus on sustainable urbanisation. They tell Tim Phillips about how
cities can adapt in the face of climate change, both its inhabitants and its buildings.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/migration-urbanisation/how-urban-environment-can-adapt-climate-change -
If youâre applying for a job, you want to know what youâre good at, and be able to
prove it to the recruiter. If doing the recruiting, you want some evidence about who
the best candidates would be. In low- or middle-income countries, this information is
often in short supply. How does this affect who gets a job, and the hiring process? In
the latest in our collaborations with J-Pal to discuss their policy insights, Marianne
Bertrand of Chicago Booth School, also Co-Chair, Labor Markets at J-Pal, and
Stefano Caria of the University of Warwick, tell Tim Phillips about the impact of skills
signals on employment.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/labour-markets/helping-jobseekers-signal-their-skills-cost-effective-strategy-benefitting -
There are more than 1.4 million papers about cash transfers. They inspired Ugo
Gentilini, lead economist for social protection at the World Bank, to spend five years
researching the surprisingly long and rich history of these cash transfers. The
resulting book, called âTimely Cash: Lessons From 2,500 Years of Giving People
Moneyâ, shows that the political and ethical debates that cash transfers inspire are
centuries, sometimes millennia, old. In a special episode to mark the launch of his
book, Ugo explains to Tim Phillips how we can draw on history to understand the
current, sometimes heated, debates about why, when, and where cash transfers
should be used.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/history-cash-transfers -
Where does electricity come from? In developing countries, the power sector uses
long-term, rigid contracts called power purchase agreements (PPAs) between a
private generator and government-owned utilities. These PPAs are not usually
competitive, their terms â including payment guarantees by which suppliers get paid
even when there is no demand â are often secret, they can last for up to 30 years,
and they guarantee the use of fossil fuels far into the future. Sugandha Srivastav
tells Tim Phillips about how the privatisation of electricity generation has created a
way to move money âfrom the public coffers to vested interestsâ.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/why-pakistan-locked-overpriced-and-environmentally-damaging-power-sector -
Can better data analysis improve the way that a government functions. The
Government Analytics Handbook, published by the World Bank, is both a practical
how-to guide and a fascinating insight into how administrators can improve the
quality of government analytics. Daniel Rogger and Christian Schuster are the
editors. They talk to Tim Phillips about the challenges, the potential â and their work
to create a community of analysts.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/public-economics/how-government-analytics-can-improve-public-sector-implementation -
As cities grow and spread, the uses to which land is put, and the value of that land,
will also change. The challenges of urban planning, construction and renewal are
complicated. But the way we address those challenges has profound impacts for the
people who live, and will live, in that physical city. Vernon Henderson and Maisy
Wong of University of Pennsylvania explain to Tim Phillips how cities adapt, change
and grow â and how that affects the lives and prospects of the people who live in
them. -
Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, and so it has never been
more important to increase the resilience of small-scale farmers. What does
research tell us are the most effective interventions and policies to do this? In the
latest of our special episodes to discuss J-PAL policy insights, Tavneet Suri talks to
Tim Phillips about how we can strengthen the resilience of farmers to climate
change.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/financing-climate-adaptation-what-works-what-doesnt-and-can-carbon-credits -
In the first episode of a regular collaboration between Yale's Economic Growth
Center and VoxDev, host Catherine Cheney speaks to Catherine Wolfram and
Namrata Kala of the MIT Sloan School, and Rohini Pande of Yale, about how to
finance climate adaptation. They discuss what works and what doesn't, what role
carbon markets play, and also discuss the upcoming United Nations Climate
Change Summit, COP 29.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/financing-climate-adaptation-what-works-what-doesnt-and-can-carbon-credits -
If you go to the IGC web site, you will discover the BREAD-IGC virtual PhD-level
course in economics. The topic for 2024 is urbanisation and the economics of cities
in low and middle-income countries. Ed Glaeser and Diego Puga gave the first talk,
about the dynamic city. They talk to Tim Phillips about what attracts people to cities,
how those cities constantly change and adapt to the needs of those new arrivals,
and the urgent need for research into how cities grow and change outside high-
income countries.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/migration-urbanisation/role-cities-economic-development -
Institutions help to determine economic growth. But studying how they do this using
the rigorous experimental techniques popularised in the credibility revolution is
difficult. A new review highlights an exciting new wave of empirical research into the
consequences of institutional change. Michael Callen and Jonathan Weigel talk to
Tim Phillips about how we can do experiments about institutions.
Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/can-we-use-experiments-understand-institutions -
A new open access textbook called Food Economics analyses the connections
between agriculture and resource use, commodity trade, food businesses, and retail
markets. It covers how food is produced, brought to market, and sold. But it also
looks at consumption: why many have too little food, and the problems caused by
malnutrition. Will Masters and Amelia Finaret, the authors, tell Tim Phillips who is it
for, and what they can learn.
Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/agriculture/what-can-we-learn-food-economics -
Small businesses in LMICs provide most of the employment. But they could provide
many more jobs if the best of them could unlock their potential to grow. In the latest
of our series of VoxDev Talks based on J-PAL special reports, Tim Phillips talks to
David Atkin about how we can do a better job of connecting firms and entrepreneurs
to markets.
Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/firms/how-connecting-firms-markets-can-promote-economic-development -
More children than ever in LMICs go to school â but they still donât learn as much as
we would want, and the difference between the educational haves and the have-nots
is widening. Noam Angrist joins Tim Phillips to talk about the size of the gap between
education policy and practice, why it exists, why economic development alone isnât
closing it, and how we can improve policy implementation in future.
Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/education/gap-between-education-policy-and-practice -
Since 2020, governments everywhere have had to grapple with the impacts of first
Covid-19 and then a series of global shocks, not least the Russian invasion of
Ukraine. The challenges have been particularly acute in Africa. Christopher Adam
has seen the impacts of these shocks at first hand â and has also advised some of
the people who have been making policy in Africa to mitigate their effects. He talks to
Tim Phillips about how global shocks constrain Africaâs policymakers and how the
after-effects of this âpolycrisisâ will be felt in future. -
Dev Patel of Harvard describes Bangladesh as âground zero for the harmful effects
of climate changeâ. Extreme weather events, particularly floods, are already affecting
the lives of millions of people who live there and are making life more difficult for the
countryâs farmers. He tells Tim Phillips how he harnessed machine learning to create
for the first time reliable global data on flooding â and also used his methods to find a
way to give Bangladeshâs beleaguered farmers better data on what crops to grow.
Check out the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/how-do-floods-impact-economic-development -
In a meritocracy more people can do jobs that match their skills, making them more productive. Itâs not just good for them, itâs good for the economy too. So how effective are the policies that try to make countries more meritocratic? Oriana Bandiera and Ilse Lindenlaub tell Tim Phillips how much productivity countries are sacrificing because the wrong people are in the wrong jobs, which countries are most meritocratic, and how we can best help the others to catch up.
Check out the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/macroeconomics-growth/how-meritocracy-varies-across-world -
More people die from contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation than from
water-related disasters. What are the consequences if we donât provide safe drinking
water, especially for children, and what technologies and policies can accelerate that
change? In the first of a series of VoxDev Talks based on J-PAL Policy Insights,
Pascaline Dupas of Princeton, also Scientific Director for J-PAL Africa, explains the
importance of clean water to Tim Phillips.
Check out the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/health/improving-access-and-usage-clean-water - Montre plus
