VoxDev Development Economics

S7 Ep57: Skipping the factory

Name a rich country that did not move its farm workers into factories, because Michael Peters says it would be hard to find one. Many years ago, Europe and the US took th

S7 Ep56: Why democracy alone does not build effective states

Many years ago, Tim Besley (LSE) had a "crazily simplistic" idea to categorise states by their capacity, and in his early work he suggested three groups. When ten years l

Ideas in Development: Ken Opalo on the research Africa needs

This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed, where you can find every episode of Oliver Hanney’s co

S7 Ep55: Armed groups as states: Taxation, security, and civilian support

In parts of eastern Congo, the organisation that collects your taxes, settles your disputes and holds the monopoly on cigarettes is not the state. Raúl Sánchez de la Sie

S7 Ep54: Tracking Kenya's tractors

A tractor can plough an acre of Kenyan maize land in about an hour and a half. By hand, it takes a farmer nearly a week. Few smallholders can afford to buy a tractor, so

S7 Ep53: Implementation science in education: Scaling what works

Nearly every child in a low- or middle-income country now goes to school, but about 70% of 10-year-olds still cannot read or understand a simple text. Researchers have te

S7 Ep52: Is electricity a weak link in development?

In many cities in low-income countries, the grid fails often enough that businesses keep a diesel generator out the back. So an unreliable electricity grid looks like it

S7 Ep51: The critical minerals scramble

King Leopold II of Belgium told his envoy in London that he did not want to lose his slice of "this magnificent African cake". The cake was the Congo Free State. Today th

Ideas in Development: GiveDirectly's journey to scale

This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed, where you can find every episode of Oliver Hanney’s co

S7 Ep50: Evidence-based policy: Why one good trial isn't enough

Medicine has run rigorous clinical trials since the 1940s. Development economists borrowed the structure of the trials during the credibility revolution. Chris Cotton (Qu

S7 Ep49: Follow the paper trail

In Uganda, every sale between two VAT-registered firms reaches the tax authority twice. The seller reports it, and so does the buyer. But the two numbers rarely match. In

S7 Ep48: How politicians co-opt bureaucrats

How can we cut corruption in government, procurement that generates kickbacks for local politicians? We could hire officials on merit. Across the developing world, many g

Ideas in Development: How BRAC partners with governments to fight poverty

This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed, where you can find every episode of Oliver Hanney’s co

S7 Ep47: No Taxation without Administration

Research on how to collect more tax in developing countries has focused on how information, especially administrative data, can help. But in Uganda for example, buyers an

S7 Ep46: Rethinking development cooperation: The case for a 'balance sheet' approach

Many conversations about development for focus on aid: how much, from whom, and for how long. But aid has never been more than a small part of what pays for a country's d

S7 Ep45: Cape Town's day zero: How data rebuilt a city's water resilience

By 2018 the reservoirs supplying Cape Town were down to 20% of capacity. If they reached 13.5%, the city would need to shut down parts of the water network and send resid

S7 Ep44: Fifty years of Chinese growth: The gradualist reform strategy explained

In 1978, a farmer in rural China could not sell a sack of grain above the state quota, choose an employer, or move to the nearest city without a permit. In this week's V

S7 Ep43: Caste, race, and power: The barriers to political inclusion

The ballot cast by a landless labourer counts the same as the one cast by the landlord whose fields he works. In this way, democracy can give excluded or subordinate grou

S7 Ep42: Masculinity norms and their economic implications

Do economists treat what men do as normal human behaviour, and then study norms around women as a departure? If so, we need to pay more attention what we mean by masculin

S7 Ep41: How global supply chains are built

This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed, where you can find every episode of Oliver Hanney’s co