Many of us can recall when we first discovered there were more than a billion people in the world who lived on “a dollar a day”. This extreme poverty line been effective at raising awareness of the goals of development. But, if we want to eradicate poverty rather than describe it, is it a useful tool – and what could improve on it? Charles Kenny discusses how the line is drawn, and how it could be improved, with Tim Phillips.
Jun 26, 2024•24 min•Season 4Ep. 25
In developing countries, we know comparatively little about how well the elderly cope with problems like depression and loneliness. There are few policies to support sufferers, partly because of this lack of data. Maddie McKelway and Garima Sharma tell Tim Phillips about some of the surprising revelations of a new cross-country study and suggest ways in which policy can improve the mental health of seniors.
Jun 19, 2024•23 min•Season 4Ep. 24
“There’s only so much adapting you can do with so few resources.” That’s a warning from Asif Saleh, the executive director of BRAC, about the impact of the climate crisis in Bangladesh. Changes in the climate are causing severe problems already for millions of the world’s poorest people. A combination of ingenuity and hard work is staving off disaster for now – but for how long?
Jun 12, 2024•29 min•Season 4Ep. 23
How does new evidence influence the beliefs of policymakers, and when do hidden biases of beliefs lead to bad policy decisions? There is more rigorous empirical evidence on which interventions work than ever. But that doesn’t translate into better policy unless a policymaker acts on it. Eva Vivalt and Tim Phillips offer advice to researchers on how to present their insights.
Jun 05, 2024•17 min•Season 4Ep. 22
In both high- and low-income countries, taxes are the main source of government revenue. They fund roads, schools, and social programmes. But the average tax-to- GDP ratio in a developing country is less than half of the ratio in the global north. Oyebola Okunogbe tells Tim Phillips about the innovative ways that many LMICs are using to collect the taxes that will finance their growth.
May 29, 2024•30 min•Season 4Ep. 21
Inequality is high in many LMICs, and progressive taxation is a policy tool that would reduce it. But would a personal income tax or a consumption tax redistribute in the same way as in a high-income country? Lucie Gadenne of Queen Mary University of London and the IFS tells Tim Phillips that one of these taxes may be less progressive, and one may be more progressive, than we expect.
May 22, 2024•20 min•Season 4Ep. 20
In a world of economic nationalism rather than integration, the export-led pathway to development that transformed China, Vietnam and other countries might no longer be effective. Instead, Penny Goldberg tells Tim Phillips, policies for poverty reduction now also need to answer the question of where demand will come from, and that may require more emphasis on creating a domestic middle class.
May 15, 2024•23 min•Season 4Ep. 19
Agriculture makes up a large share of employment and GDP in Africa, but crop yields remain stubbornly low. VoxDev has published Issue 2 of Agricultural Technology in Africa, which reviews what the published literature can – and cannot – explain about this stagnation. Chris Udry, one of the editors, tells Tim Phillips about the impact of this stagnation on living standards in Africa, and insights from recent research that can potentially make a difference. Read the VoxDevLit: https://voxdev.org/v...
May 08, 2024•18 min•Season 4Ep. 18
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.
May 01, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 17
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.
Apr 24, 2024•21 min•Season 4Ep. 16
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”.
Apr 17, 2024•30 min•Season 4Ep. 15
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.
Apr 10, 2024•30 min•Season 4Ep. 14
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.
Apr 03, 2024•29 min•Season 4Ep. 13
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.
Mar 20, 2024•19 min•Season 4Ep. 12
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
Mar 13, 2024•16 min•Season 4Ep. 11
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.
Mar 06, 2024•25 min•Season 4Ep. 10
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.
Feb 27, 2024•21 min•Season 4Ep. 9
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. Pho...
Feb 21, 2024•29 min•Season 4Ep. 8
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.
Feb 14, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 7
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.
Feb 07, 2024•20 min•Season 4Ep. 6
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.
Jan 31, 2024•18 min•Season 4Ep. 5
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.
Jan 24, 2024•21 min•Season 4Ep. 4
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.
Jan 17, 2024•21 min•Season 4Ep. 3
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.
Jan 10, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 2
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.
Jan 03, 2024•31 min•Season 4Ep. 1
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’.”
Dec 19, 2023•32 min•Season 3Ep. 45
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.
Dec 14, 2023•21 min•Season 3Ep. 44
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.
Dec 12, 2023•21 min•Season 3Ep. 43
Macroeconomic development policies can be effective to combat poverty. But a lot of research uses smaller-scale RCTs and experiments. Can macro theory and micro empirical research complement one another? Francisco Buera and Joseph Kaboski tell Tim Phillips how this can work in practice, and how it can lead to better policy.
Dec 06, 2023•19 min•Season 3Ep. 42
The rapid spread of GVCs has revolutionised the manufacture and supply of … everything. We can point to trade statistics to show that. But what aspects of the relationship between producers and buyers aren’t captured in these statistics? Long-time observers of GVCs Julia Cajal Grossi and Rocco Macchiavello explain to Tim Phillips how supply chains really work.
Nov 29, 2023•46 min•Season 3Ep. 41
