S6 Ep36: Culture and economic development
How does culture affect development policy, and how does development policy affect culture? If we don’t take account of cultural norms or fail to learn about how they interact with well-intentioned polices, then this gap in our knowledge may be undermining development projects. Can better measurement and collaboration with other social sciences fill these gaps? A new paper investigates what we ...
26m Sep 10, 2025
26m
S6 Ep35: Conflict and development
With record levels of armed conflict around the world in recent years, the study of conflict has gone from being a niche corner of economics into a thriving discipline that learns from, and interacts with, development economics. Rigorous empirical research on conflict is, however, relatively recent. The Reducing Conflict and Improving Performance in the Economy (ReCIPE) programme aims to provi...
38m Sep 03, 2025
38m
S6 Ep34: Food policy: Lessons and priorities for a changing world
In 2025, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is 50 years old. “Lessons and Priorities for a Changing World”, its 2025 Global Food Policy Report, runs to just under 600 pages and covers the last five decades of progress in improving the world’s food systems – but also the challenges that remain, and the need for policy to keep evolving if we are going to build sustainable, h...
30m Aug 27, 2025
30m
S6 Ep33: The development bogeyman? Understanding the role of middlemen
What happens from the moment goods are manufactured or harvested, until they are bought by consumers? As we know from experience, most of the things we consume reach us having been bought and sold, sometimes many times, by intermediaries – most of us don’t order a phone from the factory. Many interventions designed to increase the welfare of consumers in developing economies are designed to sho...
31m Aug 20, 2025
31m
S6 Ep32: Contraception without prejudice: Reducing bias in family planning
Like all of us, healthcare providers bring their biases to work. But if those biases result in a reduced level of care for their patients, how can we correct them? An innovative experiment in three very different countries attempted to reduce bias in contraceptive care for women. Zachary Wagner of USC and Manisha Shah of UC Berkeley were two of a multidisciplinary team that implemented program...
25m Aug 13, 2025
25m
S6 Ep31: Partnering with business for development economics research
In the second of our two podcasts with Francis Annan of UC Berkeley on his research on mobile money first in Ghana, then beyond, Tim Phillips discusses how he worked with commercial providers, not just to set up the RCTs designed to investigate the extent and reduce financial fraud, but to ensure that the insights could be scaled up. While contacting sceptical commercial providers can often me...
24m Jul 31, 2025
24m
S6 Ep30: Mobile money in Ghana
How can we design digital financial inclusion that minimizes fraud and maximises the benefit to the community in rural, low-trust, or cash-heavy economies? That’s the question posed by three studies of how mobile money works, or sometimes does not work, in Ghana’s villages. The author of those three studies: Francis Annan of Berkeley. In part one of a two-part VoxDev Talks special, Tim Phillip...
32m Jul 29, 2025
32m
S6 Ep29: The economics of period poverty
Stigma, shame and social norms around menstruation can prevent women and girls managing their periods with dignity and hygiene in low-income settings. So how can we provide information, influence those norms, and change behaviour to improve women’s health and well-being? Silvia Castro of LMU Munich and Kristina Czura of University of Groningen have conducted extensive field research in Banglade...
35m Jul 23, 2025
35m
S6 Ep28: Can storytelling reduce violence against women and children?
There is a long history of using “edutainment” – mass media storytelling, to pass on information about important social issues, and even to try to change behaviour. But does this work, and in what circumstances can it help? Amber Peterman of UNICEF has just published a review of what we know about edutainment’s power to reduce violence against women and children. She talks to Tim Phillips abou...
24m Jul 16, 2025
24m
S6 Ep27: Why “brain drain” is an incomplete story of migration
Many developed countries are creating immigration policies designed specifically to attract the most talented migrants. We often assume that when those skilled and educated citizens migrate from low-income countries in search of high-paying opportunities, it causes a “brain drain” in their home countries, delaying or hobbling development. A new article in the journal Science puts that assumptio...
29m Jul 09, 2025
29m
S6 Ep26: Minibuses, major gains: Rethinking urban transit
In the second of our special episodes recorded at the 5th annual STEG conference, Lucas Conwell of UCL talks to Tim Phillips about how the private minibus networks, such a distinctive feature of urban transit in developing country cities, can improve their service when there is little room for public investment or regulation. If you have ever tried them, they can seem chaotic, but would requir...
21m Jul 03, 2025
21m
S6 Ep25: Gas flaring threatens agriculture and livelihoods in Nigeria
This week on VoxDev talks we have two special episodes recorded at the 5th annual STEG conference. STEG is a research initiative that aims to provide a better understanding of structural change, productivity, and growth in low- and middle-income countries. For many economies in the Global South, fossil fuel extraction has been both a blessing and a curse. Nowhere more so than Nigeria, where oi...
15m Jul 01, 2025
15m
S6 Ep24: Going for economic growth: Lessons from Indonesia
In October 2024, Prabowo Subianto became president of Indonesia. He inherits the “Golden Indonesia” vision: By the time the country celebrates 100 years of independence in 2045, it aims to be one of the five largest economies in the world. But if Indonesia remains dependent on commodity exports like palm oil, coal, natural gas, and rubber, does it risk getting stuck in the “middle income trap” ...
28m Jun 25, 2025
28m
S5 Ep6: Development Dialogues: What is the role of small farms in the future of agriculture?
In the latest episode of the collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center and VoxDev, host Catherine Cheney discusses one of Africa’s most persistent development challenges: the low productivity of smallholder farmers. Despite decades of investment, innovation, and policy reform, yields on African small farms remain significantly below those in high-income countries. While the limitation...
34m Jun 18, 2025
34m
S6 Ep23: Why we need to invest in foundational learning
It was almost business as usual at the Education World Forum in London last month. At the world’s largest annual gathering of education and skills ministers, this year’s theme was & "Building stronger, bolder, better education together." But the context was far from routine. The conference took place against a backdrop of global funding cuts to education programmes—the Institute for Economics a...
30m Jun 11, 2025
30m
S6 Ep22: Understanding Brazil’s falling income inequality
From Brazil, we bring good news for poverty reduction: Brazil’s formerly sky-high wage inequality is not quite so sky-high anymore. From 1995 to 2015 Brazil became a more equal society, a trend that contrasts with rising inequality during that time in high-income countries. A soon-to-be-published article in the Journal of Economic Literature reviews the research that estimates the reduction, di...
24m Jun 04, 2025
24m
S6 Ep21: Can economists shape the future of AI?
AI’s boosters claim that it is going to revolutionize growth in the developing world. The sceptics, many of whom are economists, point to a thin evidence base and the risk of unintended consequences. This is not an easy question to research, not least because the underlying technologies are literally changing by the day, while the pace of academic research is often measured in years. One of tho...
36m May 28, 2025
36m
S6 Ep20: How does social media influence conflict?
The Reducing Conflict and Improving Performance in the Economy (ReCIPE) programme was established in April 2024 as a CEPR research initiative to provide a better understanding of the links between conflict, economic growth, and public policies. One of its themes is the link between conflict and hate speech, social media use, media bias, and propaganda. We need to know more about how media has i...
19m May 21, 2025
19m
S6 Ep19: Lovegrass Ethiopia: Building a business from the roots up
As aid programs are cut across the developing world, the focus falls on what investors can do to help create economic growth. Someone who knows all about impact investing is Yonas Alemu, the founder of Lovegrass Ethiopia, which creates products from teff, a gluten- free grain that's native to Ethiopia and sells them across the world. Yonas abandoned a successful career in investment banking in ...
33m May 14, 2025
33m
S6 Ep18: Improving sanitation: What works and what doesn’t
Millions of people around the world have no access to sanitation. They defecate in the open, or in facilities where it’s hard to avoid human contact, unavoidably spreading disease. One of the Sustainable Development Goals that you don’t hear about so much is the call to end open defecation by 2030. What progress are we making, and what health improvements are we seeing so far? In the latest of ...
19m May 08, 2025
19m
S6 Ep17: Improving worker well-being
We often talk about providing not just jobs, but decent jobs, in developing countries. But in many parts of the world, workers still have incredibly harsh working conditions. There have been interventions at the firm level to create safer workplaces, better health, higher job satisfaction. But have they succeeded? And, if these policies succeed in raising worker well-being, is there a cost or a...
31m May 01, 2025
31m
S6 Ep16: What have we learned about the informal sector?
A large proportion of economic activity takes place in the informal sector in every country, particularly in LMICs. Informality, and the lack of rights and protection that goes with it, affects the families who live in slums, the people who take off-the-books jobs, and the firms that choose to skirt regulations. It also affects the governments who want to increase the size of the formal sector ...
36m Apr 24, 2025
36m
S6 Ep15: How poverty fell
In 1981, 44% of the world’s population were living in extreme poverty. By 2019, that number had fallen to 9%. This seems like a good news story, but how did it happen? Tom Vogl of UC San Diego is one of the authors of a paper called simply, “How Poverty Fell”. In it, they use surveys to track the progress out of poverty of individuals and generations, to discover whether this progress has been...
22m Apr 17, 2025
22m
S5 Ep5: Development Dialogues: Who will pay for the global energy transition?
In the latest episode of the collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center and VoxDev, host Catherine Cheney is asking one of the most complex questions in global development: how can the clean energy transition move forward quickly and equitably, particularly for low- and middle-income countries still grappling with poverty? There is a balance between emissions reductions and economic gr...
39m Apr 15, 2025
39m
S6 Ep14: Graduation programmes: BRAC’s approach to targeting the ultra-poor
The Graduation approach to helping people to escape from poverty was pioneered in 2002 by BRAC in Bangladesh. Today the approach is used around the world. In more than 20 years, what have we learned about how it works, when it works best, and how to implement it at scale? Shameran Abed, the Executive Director of BRAC International talks to Tim Phillips about how the Graduation approach reaches ...
34m Apr 09, 2025
34m
S6 Ep13: Profit shifting hits developing countries hardest
Multinational enterprises in every industry are shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions. These corporate tax havens reduce tax revenues everywhere, but that hits hardest in developing countries where corporate taxes are a larger part of the overall tax take. The International Growth Centre has published a policy toolkit report into corporate tax havens. Ludvig Wier, the author, explains to Ti...
24m Apr 02, 2025
24m
S5 Ep4: Development Dialogues: Are vocational training programmes effective?
Vocational training is often seen as a silver bullet for unemployment and poverty, but does the evidence support that view? Why do so many training programs fail to lead to real job opportunities, and are we asking too much of these programs – or maybe the wrong questions entirely? In the latest episode of the collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center and VoxDev, host Catherine Cheney...
38m Apr 01, 2025
38m
S6 Ep12: Can safe transport unlock women’s labour force participation?
A fundamental part of women’s economic empowerment is helping women who want to work outside the home to find and keep a job. A major part of that decision is ensuring that they can travel to work without fear of stigma, harassment or violence on public transport. In Pakistan, a study set out to discover whether an offer of safe commuter transport would tempt women who are currently not looking...
24m Mar 27, 2025
24m
S6 Ep11: Is debt leading to the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources?
How does rising external debt in low-income countries affect the natural capital that sustains our livelihoods? A new paper focuses on three river basins that are vital to the livelihoods and biodiversity of the countries that surround them, suggesting ways that we can both measure and conserve that natural capital in the face of the economic forces that threaten it. Pushpam Kumar of UN Environ...
30m Mar 19, 2025
30m
S6 Ep10: Simon Johnson on geopolitics, AI, and the future of global development
Geopolitical alliances are changing rapidly. Technological innovation is reshaping our economies. These trends offer a cocktail of risk and reward for countries in the global south. They are also both topics that are familiar to Simon Johnson of MIT. Simon speaks to Tim Phillips about how policy in developing countries should respond to President Trump’s deglobalization agenda, how artificial ...
33m Mar 12, 2025
33m
S6 Ep9: Rebuilding Sudan’s digital infrastructure amidst conflict
Civil war – the latest in a long series of armed conflicts – broke out in Sudan in April 2023. Today, more than half of the population needs humanitarian aid, and almost 15 million people have been displaced. The war has also devastated the digital infrastructure in Sudan, deepening the crisis. African Renaissance Ventures is a VC firm that backs entrepreneurs who use technology to solve major ...
26m Mar 05, 2025
26m
S6 Ep8: Bangladesh’s path forward: Leveraging evidence-based policy
Bangladesh's development story in the 21st century is often regarded as a model of resilience and progress. But on 5 August 2024, student-led protests and public unrest caused Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister, to resign and flee to India. An interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, took over. Six months on, Bangladesh’s political and economic future is unclear. Imran Matin, Executiv...
23m Feb 26, 2025
23m
S5 Ep3: Development dialogues: The future of evidence-based policy-making
With populist politicians taking power around the world, policymakers are relying less on research and expertise, as their political narratives prioritise emotion and identity over facts. This may have long-term consequences for global development: not least in the US, where the Agency for International Development has been dismantled, with thousands of staff laid off. Critical development prog...
42m Feb 24, 2025
42m
S6 Ep7: How do cash transfers impact prices?
What are the price impacts of cash transfer programs? Do they raise prices as well as incomes? And what is the impact on people in the community who don’t receive the transfer? Eeshani Kandpal of the Center for Global Development is one of the researchers who has investigated this topic. She talks to Tim Phillips about the conclusions of her own research, the insights of other economists, and t...
25m Feb 19, 2025
25m
S6 Ep6: The economics of ecosystems
How does a healthy ecosystem benefit humanity? How does the normal functioning of the economy impact natural habitats and animal populations? And what are the costs and benefits of conservation? Eyal Frank of the University of Chicago works at the intersection of economics and conservation. He speaks to Tim Phillips about how economic growth often has a hidden environmental cost. Read the full...
36m Feb 12, 2025
36m
S6 Ep5: Peacemaking, peacebuilding and post-war reconstruction
The Reducing Conflict and Improving Performance in the Economy (ReCIPE) programme, established in April 2024, aims to provide a better understanding of the links between conflict, economic growth, and public policies. One of its many themes is on what happens post-conflict: peacemaking, peacebuilding, and reconstruction. Salma Mousa and Lisa Hultman, theme leaders, talk to Tim Phillips about wh...
31m Feb 05, 2025
31m
S6 Ep4: What have we learned about microfinance?
Published this week: the latest VoxDevLit covers microfinance. After many decades, microfinance is pervasive and popular in developing countries but is often controversial. What have we learned about what works, how it works, and who it helps – and what is there still to understand? Authors Simon Quinn, Muhammad Meki, and Jing Cai talk to Tim Phillips about the problems of evaluation, the surpr...
31m Jan 30, 2025
31m
S6 Ep3: How can countries develop their economies in a changed world?
In 2018, “Unorthodox policies for unorthodox times” was the title of the first in a series of blogs published by the International Growth Centre. The authors argued that the environment for development had changed, and so development policies should change too. Seven years on, as delegates gather in Davos for the 2025 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, how prescient was the analysis in...
29m Jan 22, 2025
29m
S6 Ep2: Rethinking evidence in development economics
Many development economists would argue that the most important innovation of the last two decades has been a commitment to use only rigorous evidence for policy, and usually what they mean is evidence generated by RCTs. But are systematic reviews of the results a useful guide to policy? And should development economics continue to be focusing so much on the programmes that flow from RCT- drive...
29m Jan 15, 2025
29m
S6 Ep1: How does internet connectivity impact developing economies?
For more than 30 years, optimists about technology have been telling us that the internet is transforming our economies. What is the evidence that this has happened, or is happening, in low- or middle-income countries? And if the promise has not been fulfilled, why not? Lin Tian is one of the authors of a new paper that examines the evidence so far. She talks to Tim Phillips about what the rese...
23m Jan 08, 2025
23m
S4 Ep53: The role of evidence at development finance institutions
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 £8.1 billion.  Chris talks to Tim Phillips about what he has learned from ...
30m Dec 19, 2024
30m
S5 Ep2: Development Dialogues: How can emerging economies break free from the sidelines of global trade?
In the second episode of the collaboration between Yale’s 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 didn’t reap the trade ben...
36m Dec 17, 2024
36m
S4 Ep52: Why do protests matter?
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 ...
33m Dec 12, 2024
33m
S4 Ep51: How the urban environment can adapt to climate change
In our final episode based on this year’s 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/top...
24m Dec 10, 2024
24m
S4 Ep50: Helping jobseekers signal their skills
If you’re applying for a job, you want to know what you’re 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 t...
18m Dec 05, 2024
18m
S4 Ep49: The history of cash transfers
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 “Timely Cash: Lessons From 2,500 Years of Giving People Money”, shows that the political and ethical debates that cash transfers...
38m Dec 03, 2024
38m
S4 Ep48: The high price of Pakistan’s polluting power contracts
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 – including payment guarantees by which suppliers get paid even when there is no demand – are often secret, they can last for up to 30 ye...
30m Nov 27, 2024
30m
S4 Ep47: How government analytics can improve public sector implementation
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 – and their wor...
46m Nov 20, 2024
46m
S4 Ep46: Designing cities in developing countries
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 cit...
32m Nov 13, 2024
32m
S4 Ep45: Strengthening climate resilience in agriculture
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 cl...
23m Nov 07, 2024
23m