S3 Ep29: Air pollution and infant mortality
Poor air quality is a danger to children’s health, but most of what we know about the effects are from wealthy countries or large cities. A multidisciplinary study has estimated the impact of air quality on child health for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with surprising policy conclusions. Jennifer Burney talks to Tim Phillips.
20m Aug 30, 2023
20m
S3 Ep28: Putting research into practice at the Inter-American Development Bank
The economies of Latin America and the Caribbean are facing some tough economic problems. What policies will improve prospects for people who live in the region? Eric Parrado, Chief Economist at the Inter-American Development Bank, talks to Tim Phillips about how IDB puts research into practice.
25m Aug 23, 2023
25m
S3 Ep27: Unpacking anti-poverty programmes
Multifaceted graduation programmes can permanently change the lives of desperately poor people. But which components of these programs are the most important? And would any of these single interventions work just as well if they were tried on their own? Robert Osei tells Tim Phillips whether individual facets might be sufficient to help people graduate permanently from poverty.
23m Aug 16, 2023
23m
S3 Ep26: Politics and participatory development in Ghana
Should the community have a greater say in determining how aid is spent? Participatory development aid has the goal of making sure that governments can’t misuse aid to buy approval. It’s an important idea, but Kate Baldwin tells Tim Phillips that it may be much more complicated in practice than in theory.
20m Aug 09, 2023
20m
S3 Ep25: Research into practice: DIME
The challenge of creating evidence-based policy inspired Arianna Legovini of the World Bank to create an entirely new model of impact evaluation: The Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) group generates operationally relevant data and research that has vastly expanded our knowledge of which interventions work, how they work, and how best to implement them. She tells Tim Phillips how DIME puts r...
30m Aug 02, 2023
30m
S3 Ep24: Understanding rural-urban migration in the developing world
Programs that incentivise rural workers to migrate to cities in Bangladesh for seasonal work have been successful. But why don’t more people migrate in this way, and why do some choose not to return to the city? Mushfiq Mobarak tells Tim Phillips about what the researchers discovered when they looked closely at the data, and how that should change policy to encourage migration.
24m Jul 26, 2023
24m
S3 Ep23: Globalisation and the ladder of development
Thinking about development as a ladder is a useful metaphor, but is it true? Can every country climb, or does trade push some countries up the ladder, and some countries down? David Atkin of MIT used this idea as a starting point to investigate the interaction between global trade and development, and he tell Tim Phillips what he discovered.
27m Jul 19, 2023
27m
S3 Ep22: Duflo: Development in the 21st century
In the first of a series of podcasts recorded at the PSE-CEPR Policy Forum at the Paris School of Economics, Esther Duflo talks to Tim Phillips about how development economics can respond to the challenges of the 21st century, the link between climate justice and corporate taxation, and why development economics is like cooking a ragoût.
24m Jul 12, 2023
24m
S3 Ep21: Cost-effective ways to improve global learning
In a world of limited resources, which interventions to help kids learn offer the best value for money? A new report evaluates the evidence and gives some clear policy recommendations about what is, and is not, a policy “smart buy”. Rachel Glennerster talks to Tim Phillips.
25m Jul 05, 2023
25m
S3 Ep20: Expanding higher education empowered women in Egypt
Increasing access to education, specifically higher education, can lead to better life chances, particularly for women. But how large is the benefit, and what changes? Ahmed Elsayed talks to Tim Phillips about what we can learn from Egypt’s post-revolution expansion of public university education.
21m Jun 07, 2023
21m
S3 Ep19: The rise and fall of local elections in China
When dictators introduce local elections, more democracy at the local level may mean less control for the rulers. For a time in rural China, elected village leaders implemented government policy, favouring popular policies, while pushing back against those that villagers didn’t like. Nancy Qian tells Tim Phillips how even in a dictatorship, democratic choices can sometimes shape local lives.
33m May 31, 2023
33m
S3 Ep18: Promoting national integration in Nigeria
When a country’s borders encompass several distinct ethnic groups, how does it create a national identity? A program in Nigeria assigns graduates to different ethnic regions for a year. Does this make them prouder to be Nigerian, and do they give up some of their ethnic identity if that happens? Oyebola Okunogbe talks to Tim Phillips.
24m May 24, 2023
24m
S3 Ep17: Do public works programs have sustained impacts?
How effective are workfare programs at achieving their goals? Do they provide a way for participants to change their lives, or just short-term extra income? Eric Mvukiyehe and Subha Mani have analysed the outcomes of recent programs, and they tell Tim Phillips what workfare does well, and whether the programs sustain their successes.
27m May 17, 2023
27m
S3 Ep16: Public works programs in fragile economies
Public works programs – workfare – are used in many fragile and conflict-affected countries to offer a safety net to poor and vulnerable households. But how large is their impact, do men and women benefit equally, and do they have a wider social benefit? Arthur Alik-Lagrange tells Tim Phillips about the impact of one program in the Central African Republic.
31m May 10, 2023
31m
S3 Ep15: Rebel governance and development in El Salvador
El Salvador’s civil war ended a generation ago, but what is its legacy in the regions that were occupied by guerrillas? The economy can recover, but is there longer-lasting damage to institutions and trust? Mica Sviatschi talks to Tim Phillips about how El Salvador is still divided by conflict.
26m May 03, 2023
26m
S3 Ep14: How childcare empowers women
Better access to childcare may make it easier for women to get jobs outside the home, get better jobs, or make more money doing the job they have already. All desirable outcomes, but how easy are they to achieve? Selim Gulesci talks to Tim Phillips about a J-Pal Policy Insight that pulls together the research on these topics.
22m Apr 26, 2023
22m
S3 Ep13: Work, women and domestic violence
If we can provide better employment opportunities for women, in theory that could reduce domestic violence – but strong empirical evidence has been hard to find. Deniz Sanin tell Tim Phillips how government policy to boost coffee exports in Rwanda may have reduced domestic violence and why paid work has this effect.
23m Apr 19, 2023
23m
S3 Ep12: Research into practice: evidence from healthcare
Zulfiqar Bhutta of the Centre for Global Child Health is one of the global leaders in implementing large-scale public health programs in developing countries. He tells Tim Phillips about what he has learned about working with communities to improve their health, how failure can often be a positive learning experience, and what clinicians can learn from – and teach – economists. Photo credit: D...
27m Apr 12, 2023
27m
S3 Ep11: Can agricultural extensions be discontinued?
When there’s a successful agricultural extension program, how much of that success is sustained when it is discontinued? How long it takes to change behaviour, and whether change is permanent, can tell us a lot about whether the program is good value. Munshi Sulaiman tells Tim Phillips about a “reverse RCT” in Uganda that tested this question.
24m Apr 05, 2023
24m
S3 Ep10: How monitoring workers can backfire
Managers often don’t know how much effort their workers are putting into a job. Technology offers a way to solve this problem by monitoring those workers automatically. But do all workers put in more effort when they are monitored? Golvine de Rochambeau talks to Tim Phillips about what happened when Liberia’s truck drivers had GPS trackers fitted to their trucks.
21m Mar 29, 2023
21m
S3 Ep9: Mother-father differences in spending on children
Are fathers more generous to their sons than their daughters? If that investment is in the child’s education and healthcare, then gender-based differences are not just unfair, they give sons a head start in the future. Rebecca Dizon Ross tells Tim Phillips about a new experiment to measure mother-father differences in spending, and to discover why it happens. Photo credit: Brian Wolfe/flickr
20m Mar 15, 2023
20m
S3 Ep8: FDI inflows and domestic firms
How does trade policy shape foreign direct investment in exporting countries, and how might this affect their structural transformation? Nina Pavcnik tells Tim Phillips about the long-run impact of a bilateral agreement between Vietnam and the US, with some surprising insights into the relationship between trade and job creation. Photo credit: Hien Phung, stock.adobe.com.
18m Mar 08, 2023
18m
S3 Ep7: How child mortality persists across generations
The risk that a child will die is lower than it used to be, but in low-income countries it is still not unusual. But how persistent is this in families, and what does this tell us about the causes and consequences of child mortality? Tom Vogl talks to Tim Phillips.
23m Mar 01, 2023
23m
S3 Ep6: Elite control and development in Brazil
In the 1960s, Brazil’s military dictatorship set out to undermine the power of local political elites by creating local political competition. New research finds that in the regions where the elites were strongest, the policies led to better governance, and more long-run growth. Claudio Ferraz and Monica Martinez-Bravo explain how this happened to Tim Phillips. Photo: Roberto Rocco TU Delft.
31m Feb 22, 2023
31m
S3 Ep5: The impact of public childcare in Brazil
How does providing daycare affect infants, their parents, and even their grandparents during the seven years that follow? When Rio de Janeiro held a lottery for thousands of places, David Evans and Lycia Lima were two of a group of researchers who made the most of the opportunity to discover new evidence for the benefits of childcare, and they tell Tim Phillips what they found out.
21m Feb 15, 2023
21m
S3 Ep4: Grandmothers and the Mexican labour market
If women want or need to work outside the home, someone needs to look after their kids. In Mexico, that person has traditionally been the grandmother. But what happens when she’s suddenly not around? Miguel Angel Talamas Marcos talks to Tim Phillips about his research that shows how important grandmothers are to female participation in the labour market.
18m Feb 08, 2023
18m
S3 Ep3: Did joint ventures help China’s auto business?
When FDI mandates joint ventures foreign firms get market access, and their local partners get access to knowledge and technology in return. Does the policy benefit the host economy and its consumers more than other forms of FDI would have done? Jie Bai of Harvard Kennedy School talks to Tim Phillips.
28m Feb 01, 2023
28m
S3 Ep2: Promotion, pay, and productivity
Do healthcare workers in Sierra Leone work harder when they know that promotion is based on performance, rather than friendships or connections? And if they discover that promotion isn’t only unfair but has a big bump in pay, what effect does that have on productivity? Erika Deserranno tells Tim Phillips about an experiment with good news and some warnings for public sector employers.
24m Jan 25, 2023
24m
S3 Ep1: Democracy and infrastructure investment in Indonesia
When Indonesia’s dictatorship became a democracy in 1999, did it affect the investment in healthcare? And was that spending allocated where it was most needed, or where it would win the most votes? Allan Hsiao talks to Tim Phillips about whether, in this case, democracy was a force for good? Photo: Ikhlasul Amal.
19m Jan 18, 2023
19m
S2 Ep42: Corruption in Customs
In Madagascar, the taxes and duties collected by customs are half of the government’s tax revenue: so the potential cost of corruption is huge. Ana Fernandes and Bob Rijkers are two of a team that developed a new methodology to detect that corruption. They tell Tim Phillips what they found – and what the government did about it.
20m Nov 30, 2022
20m
S2 Ep41: The benefits of road maintenance in Indonesia
We naturally assume that maintaining highways helps developing economies to grow and people to thrive. But there’s surprisingly little hard evidence on what the return on this investment could be – until now. Alex Rothenberg tells Tim Phillips whether repairing Indonesia’s roads has been a good investment.
16m Nov 23, 2022
16m
S2 Ep40: The impact of privatisation
When governments want to raise revenue, they often look for state-owned assets to privatise. What is the effect on the people who work in these firms? David Arnold talks to Tim Phillips about the impact of privatisation in Brazil.
20m Nov 09, 2022
20m
S2 Ep39: Improving the welfare of migrant workers
Millions of Sri Lankans have migrated to the Gulf region to work, but almost one in 10 makes a formal complaint to the consulate about abuse or employer malpractice. Is there a better way to protect them? Nilesh Fernando tells Tim Phillips about a successful policy to regulate the agencies that match workers and employers.
21m Nov 02, 2022
21m
S2 Ep38: The challenges of improving public sector management
Imagine an intervention that combined funding, best practice delivered at scale, and near-universal compliance. Should this guarantee it will succeed? Not necessarily, according to a study of a program to improve quality in Indian schools. Abhijeet Singh talks to Tim Phillips.
29m Oct 12, 2022
29m
S2 Ep37: Better bureaucrats in a crisis
What role do bureaucrats play in a crisis? We might think that the best bureaucracy would be made up of people who are very good at doing exactly what they are told. But research into the impact of the 1918 flu pandemic in India suggests that other factors may be important too. Guo Xu talks to Tim Phillips.
14m Oct 05, 2022
14m
S2 Ep36: How corporate debarment affects workers in Brazil
What are the consequences for workers if they are employed by a firm that is sanctioned for corruption? We’re back in Brazil: Christiane Szerman tells Tim Phillips that the quest to do the right thing is catching guilty companies – but with devastating consequences for thousands of employees.
14m Sep 28, 2022
14m
S2 Ep35: The unequal effects of pollution
Every year, ambient air pollution kills 3 million people, and causes respiratory problems for hundreds of millions more. Can low-paid workers avoid the harmful effects of air pollution without losing income? Bridget Hoffmann and Juan Pablo Rud talk to Tim Phillips about what data from Mexico City reveals.
13m Sep 21, 2022
13m
S2 Ep34: Job loss and crime in Brazil
When workers become unemployed, do some turn to crime instead – and does unemployment insurance make a difference? Diogo Britto and Paolo Pinotti tell Tim Phillips about how disaggregated data gives a powerful new insight on the relationship between job loss and crime.
16m Sep 15, 2022
16m
S2 Ep33: Politics at work
Does who you vote for influence the chances that you are hired, fired, and promoted? Edoardo Teso tells Tim Phillips about Brazil’s politically polarised labour market.
15m Sep 07, 2022
15m
S2 Ep32: Expanding access to clean water
Almost 2 billion people don’t have access to clean water, which means increased risk of disease, especially for young children. Pascaline Dupas tells Tim Phillips how an experiment in Malawi that provided access to the chemicals to treat dirty water may save lives in many other countries too.
16m Aug 10, 2022
16m
S2 Ep31: Enhancing women’s economic empowerment
Do policies to provide women with financial resources or financial services give them more economic independence? Less often than we would like, Mikaela Rabb tells Tim Phillips.
13m Aug 03, 2022
13m
S2 Ep30: Criminal governance in Colombia
If weak states fail to provide order and security, sometimes criminal gangs step in. Can this problem be fixed by targeting resources to the places most in need of help, and what happens when we do? Ben Lessing tells Tim Phillips about a project to do this in Colombia’s second largest city.
23m Jul 27, 2022
23m
S2 Ep29: How workfare cut conflict
By 2030, half the world’s poor will be living in conflict-affected areas. Could some of the resources dedicated to helping them be spent to prevent those conflicts? Thiemo Fetzer of the University of Warwick tells Tim Phillips how providing workfare in India reduced community violence.
26m Jul 20, 2022
26m
S2 Ep28: Surviving the hungry season
For small farmers the most difficult months of the years are the “hungry season” before the harvest. What would be the effect of a small loan at this time? A program in Zambia tweaked the rules of microfinance. Günther Fink and Kelsey Jack tell Tim Phillips about what happened.
18m Jul 13, 2022
18m
S2 Ep27: Respond or anticipate?
In the monsoon season of 2020, 5.5 million people in Bangladesh were affected by severe floods. But the UN was able to help thousands of households by sending them cash before the floods hit. Ashley Pople and Ruth Hill tell Tim Phillips about the situations in which anticipatory transfers might work better than conventional disaster response.
16m Jul 06, 2022
16m
S2 Ep26: Poverty and resilience
When households escape poverty, how likely is it they will fall back in the future? Loki Phadera of the World Bank and Hope Michelson of the University of Illinois explain to Tim Phillips why measuring resilience can give us a new perspective on how well anti-poverty programs are working – if only we can agree how to do it.
26m Jun 29, 2022
26m
S2 Ep25: Cash transfers and child health
Children in low-income countries are 12 times more likely to die before their fifth birthday than those in high-income countries. Cash transfers to households may increase money spent on the health of children – but how large are the outcomes, and should the transfers specifically target child health? Anupama Dathan talks to Tim Phillips.
13m Jun 22, 2022
13m
S2 Ep24: How Airbel Lab creates cost-effective impact
Which interventions work best, and how can we tweak them to work better? How well could they work in other places, and what changes should we make? Airbel Impact Lab, part of the International Rescue Committee, designs, tests, and scales life-changing solutions for people affected by conflict and disaster. Tim Phillips talks to Jeannie Annan and Caitlin Tulloch about their work.
30m Jun 15, 2022
30m
S2 Ep23: Resolving disputes in Liberia
When there is conflict, can outsiders help by creating informal ways for communities to resolve their disputes? Chris Blattman tells Tim Phillips about the long-term impact of a project to do exactly this in Liberia.
17m Jun 08, 2022
17m
S2 Ep22: Seed dealers can be change agents
How do we encourage small farmers to adopt new types of seeds in LICs? Government agents can help spread the word – but Kyle Emerick of Tufts University tells Tim Phillips that the dealers who sell the seeds might be an under-used resource.
16m Jun 01, 2022
16m