S1 Ep46: The political economy of donor funding: Insights from USAID
USAID is one of the world’s leading donors with an annual budget of US $27 billion. In this interview, Louise Fox, Chief Economist at USAID, discusses how aid priorities are set, the political economy of US donor funding and, the importance and shortcomings of research in informing spending decisions. Drawing from various pieces of evidence she emphasises the role of the private sector in creat...
15m Sep 12, 2018
15m
S1 Ep14: Is aid effective?
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...
26m Sep 08, 2018
26m
S1 Ep13: Ideas for development
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 c...
14m Sep 08, 2018
14m
S1 Ep12: Achieving meaningful impact through aid
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.
14m Sep 08, 2018
14m
S1 Ep11: Tackling food insecurity
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 prob...
19m Sep 08, 2018
19m
S1 Ep9: Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals
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 challeng...
22m Sep 08, 2018
22m
S1 Ep8: The effects of pay inequality
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 (https://academic.oup.com/qje/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/qje/qjx041/4430649?redirectedFrom=fulltext) ) Supreet Kaur establishes the effects of pa...
4m Sep 08, 2018
4m
S1 Ep7: What is holding firms back?
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 (https://voxdev.org/topic/firms-trade/what-holding-firms-back-0) is taken from a video that first appeared on the IGC's (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6bzeRAvKYo) website.
3m Sep 08, 2018
3m
S1 Ep6: Globalisation and development
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 an...
2m Sep 08, 2018
2m
S1 Ep5: Childcare and development
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 (https://voxdev.org/topic/public-economics/childcare-and-development-0)
3m Sep 08, 2018
3m
S1 Ep4: If she builds it, they won’t come: The gender profit gap
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 d...
3m Sep 08, 2018
3m
S1 Ep3: Productivity and energy-saving technology
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...
3m Sep 08, 2018
3m
S1 Ep2: Building a functional state in difficult places
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 (https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/building-functional-state-difficult-places-0) is taken from a video that was previously publi...
4m Sep 08, 2018
4m
S1 Ep1: Building effective and functioning cities
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 (https://voxdev.org/topic/infrastructure-urbanisation/building-effective-and-functioning-cities-0) is taken from a video that was previously published on the IGC's website (https://www.theigc.org/multimedia/ed-glaeser-building-e...
5m Sep 08, 2018
5m
S1 Ep1: Harnessing FDI in Africa
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) discus...
5m Sep 08, 2018
5m
S1 Ep2: The backlash against globalisation
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 ...
2m Sep 08, 2018
2m
S1 Ep1: Paving a path to financial well-being
Tavneet Suri tells Tim Phillips about the rise of digital credit in Kenya. Who receives digital loans? What the loans are used for? How do they affects the lives of Kenyan people? Read more about digital credit on VoxDev (https://voxdev.org/topic/finance/measuring-equilibrium-impacts-credit-evidence-indian-microfinance-crisis) .
13m Aug 27, 2018
13m