Alle afleveringen
351 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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S2 Ep5: Supporting learning out of school
2 februari 2022 · 20 min
In developing countries, more than 90% of children go to primary school. How can we best support their learning? An experiment in India targeted both the times the kids are in school, and the times they are not. Martina Björkman Nyqvist tells Tim Phillips what works -- and what doesn't. Lees meer
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S2 Ep4: Disaster relief in Mexico
26 januari 2022 · 20 min
The Mexican government attempted to reduce the effect of extreme weather on people’s lives by establishing FONDEN, a fund to finance recovery and reconstruction. Alejandro del Valle tells Tim Phillips whether it succeeded.
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S2 Ep3: The legacy of autocracy in China
19 januari 2022 · 20 min
When state repression does its job, does it make us less charitable and less likely to speak our minds afterwards – and, if so, how long does that effect last? Melanie Meng Xue discusses the centuries-long legacy of autocratic rule in China.
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S2 Ep2: The gender pay gap in India's markets
12 januari 2022 · 16 min
In almost every job, in high and low-income countries, women earn less than men. Solène Delecourt tells Tim Phillips about a series of experiments that help explain why male vegetable sellers in Jaipur, India earn more than their female competition – and what can be done about it. Lees meer
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S2 Ep1: Are there too many farms in the world?
5 januari 2022 · 19 min
Low-income countries have many small farms, and high-income countries have far fewer large farms and much higher agricultural productivity. Tim Phillips asks Mark Rosenzweig whether developing countries would be better off with bigger farms.
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S1 Ep70: India's school assessments fail the reliability test
15 december 2021 · 26 min
In India, tests intended to evaluate overall student achievement, soon to be rolled out nationally, suffer from massive grade inflation - even though no children or teachers are rewarded or punished based on the results. Ahbijeet Singh tells Tim Phillips why this happens and how we can collect more reliable administrative data in future. Lees meer
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S1 Ep69: Stay or migrate?
8 december 2021 · 26 min
A structural transformation means workers moving to cities for good jobs, or better living conditions for their families, maybe also having smaller families. But these decisions are not made independently: new research examines the trade-off that we make between migration and fertility, and suggests that China's migration and one-child policies may not have been the boost to economic growth that policymakers wanted. Lees meer
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S1 Ep68: Do marketers matter for entrepreneurs?
1 december 2021 · 19 min
Entrepreneurs in developing countries need access to finance, education, and better institutions. But do they need more marketing? Stephen J Anderson of the University of Texas tells Tim Phillips about an experiment in Uganda that suggests that the answer is yes for both the entrepreneurs, and for economic growth. Lees meer
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S1 Ep67: The search for good jobs
24 november 2021 · 26 min
There are 420 million young people in Africa today, but 140 million are unemployed, and another 130 million are underemployed or in working poverty. What type of interventions will help them in their search for a good job? Anna Vitali and Imran Rasul tell Tim Phillips about a multi-year experiment in Uganda that reaches some surprising conclusions. Lees meer
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S1 Ep66: Information operations and civilian cooperation
17 november 2021 · 17 min
In many conflict situations, should winning hearts and minds be the priority? Information operations are an essential part of military strategy, but so far there have been few systematic evaluations of how well they actually work. Using a new source of data Austin Wright tells Tim Phillips about the success of one such operation in Afghanistan. Lees meer
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S1 Ep65: A low-cost way to raise tax revenues in Uganda
10 november 2021 · 13 min
Policy to increase tax compliance in developing countries often focuses on enforcement, and that's difficult, unpopular, and costly. Are there other ways to encourage small businesses to pay tax that may be easier and cheaper? Isabelle Cohen worked with the Uganda Revenue Authority to implement a method that raised six times what it cost. Lees meer
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S1 Ep64: Caste and occupation in India
3 november 2021 · 18 min
India's caste system traditionally determined which occupation families chose. In modern India, does caste still influence someone's choice of job? Daniel Keniston tells Tim Phillips about the surprisingly complex relationship between caste, work, and India's economic development. Lees meer
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S1 Ep63: Controlling Indonesia's forest fires
27 oktober 2021 · 11 min
Satellite data from Indonesia shows the damage that out-of-control illegal forest fires, set by farmers to clear their land, do to other people's property and to the environment. Ben Olken tells Tim Phillips how we could reduce this damage by up to 80%. Lees meer
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S1 Ep62: Buying votes
20 oktober 2021 · 13 min
Politicians can bribe their way to an election win, but in a democracy we throw them out if they perform badly afterwards. Or maybe not: Jessica Leight tells Tim Phillips that vote-buying emboldens corrupt politicians to steal more, and that voters who take the handouts are also less likely to hold them to account. Lees meer
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S1 Ep61: Incentivising Africa's businesses to pay taxes
13 oktober 2021 · 17 min
Low-income countries struggle to collect tax, hurting economic stability, raising debt levels, cutting growth, and gutting basic services. Abebe Shimeles of African Economic Research Consortium tells Tim Phillips about a successful experiment in Ethiopia that also demonstrates the problem of creating sustainable policies to increase tax revenues. Lees meer
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S1 Ep60: The value of India's rural roads
6 oktober 2021 · 15 min
Big infrastructure projects are often dismissed as expensive and problematic. But Yogita Shamdasani tells Tim Phillips how a national roadbuilding program in India has transformed the lives of villagers by making agriculture more productive.
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S1 Ep59: Rewarding voters in Ghana
29 september 2021 · 11 min
Will a government target spending in places where it thinks it can pick up support in the next election, or target funding to regions that supported it? A new paper analyses election results and local government spending in Ghana. Samuel Obeng tells Tim Phillips whether a political system created in part to defeat cronyism has worked as intended. Lees meer
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S1 Ep58: Families as social institutions
22 september 2021 · 31 min
When economists talk about the "household", they usually mean a family. But Natalie Bau and Raquel Fernandez tell Tim Phillips that there are many types of family, with many cultural traditions and habits, and these differences can have a big impact on whether well-meaning attempts to improve their lives will succeed or fail. Lees meer
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S1 Ep57: Education technology: Ready for prime time?
20 september 2021 · 19 min
For half a century Mexico's rural middle-schoolers have attended "telesecundaria" schools, in which they watch their lessons on TV. It saves money and makes sure that kids have qualified teachers. But, Raissa Fabregas tells Tim Phillips, we don't really know if they provide a good education. Until now. Lees meer
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S1 Ep55: Learning from our urban past
17 september 2021 · 21 min
Cities in developing economies can still learn a lot from our urban past, Ed Glaeser tells Tim Phillips. For thousands of years ancient cities have been coping with migration, transport, disease, new technology and land rights -- precisely the challenges that face fast-expanding new cities today. Lees meer
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S1 Ep56: Hidden unemployment in India
15 september 2021 · 18 min
In rural areas, about half of people who are available for work are not in full-time employment. Most are self-employed. Are they really entrepreneurs, or would they prefer a job and are they just trying to survive? Supreet Kaur tells Tim Phillips about an experiment that suggests unemployment may be higher than we assume. Lees meer
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S1 Ep54: Is financial literacy necessary?
13 september 2021 · 14 min
We often try to improve incomes and financial decision-making of working people by teaching financial literacy. But in Uganda an intervention tested whether learning by saving in a bank account might also be an effective route to knowledge. If this works, Dean Karlan tells Tim Phillips, it might be a low-cost route to financial inclusion. Lees meer
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S1 Ep53: Slippery fish
10 september 2021 · 23 min
When the government in Chile attempts to limit which fish can be caught and sold to protect stocks, market traders always find a way around the restrictions. Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak tells Tim Phillips the story of an experiment in how to enforce regulation -- with a surprise finding that could change how compliance works in other industries too. Lees meer
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S1 Ep52: Using role models in Somali schools
8 september 2021 · 13 min
How can Somalia's schools inspire kids to finish their education and learn about gender equality? A low-cost intervention uses role models with surprising success, says Munshi Sulaiman of BRAC.
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S1 Ep51: The effects of crime on jobs in Mexico
6 september 2021 · 18 min
When drug-related violence exploded in Mexico, its effects were felt by everyone. Andrea Velásquez tells Tim Phillips how rising violence in Mexico City affected the willingness of people - especially women - to go to work.
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S1 Ep50: Reshaping gender attitudes in India
3 september 2021 · 15 min
Children decide what's normal for girls and boys early in their development. Seema Jayachandran tells Tim Phillips how a program of discussions about gender equality at school can successfully change damaging attitudes to women's rights.
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S1 Ep49: Letting managers manage
1 september 2021 · 15 min
If you want to succeed as a boss, business books tell you, you have to delegate. But we know less than you think about the impact of delegation on productivity and profitability. Namrata Kala of MIT tells Tim Phillips how some Indian SOEs decided to let managers manage, giving us a new insight into the impact of managerial autonomy. Lees meer
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S1 Ep48: The false promises of agricultural trials
30 augustus 2021 · 23 min
Often we hear exciting news of crop yields from experimental trials, but then the gains don't show up in the real world. Rachid Laajaj tells Tim Phillips how a group of researchers solved this puzzle, and what this means for how we conduct trials in future. Lees meer
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S1 Ep47: Public disclosure as a political incentive: Evidence from municipal elections in India
24 februari 2021 · 15 min
Councilors who thought performance reports would be published before an election invested more in infrastructure, with positive impacts on re-election
Read “Public Information is an Incentive for Politicians: Experimental Evidence from Delhi Elections” by Abhijit Banerjee, Nils Enevoldsen, Rohini Pande, and Michael Walton here. Lees meer -
S1 Ep47: The unintended impacts of formal credit programmes on social networks: Evidence from India
17 februari 2021 · 15 min
The introduction of financial institutions in communities may generate long-lasting externalities, including losses in informal social linkages
Read “Changes in social network structure in response to exposure to formal credit markets” by Abhijit Banerjee, Emily Breza, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, Matthew O. Jackson, and Cynthia Kinnan here. Lees meer -
S1 Ep47: Learning-by-doing: Navigating financial technologies among Bangladeshi factory workers
2 februari 2021 · 18 min
How automatic payments can help individuals save more and better protect themselves against consumer risks
Read “Learning to navigate a new financial technology: Evidence from payroll accounts” by Emily Breza, Martin Kanz, and Leora F. Klapper here. -
S1 Ep47: Is faster always better? Evidence from Mexico’s digital credit market
1 februari 2021 · 20 min
Access to fast cash through digital credit may put consumers at risk for over-indebtedness and likelihood of default
Read “Too fast, too furious? Digital credit delivery speed and repayment rates” by Alfredo Burlando, Michael A. Kuhn, and Silvia Prina here. Lees meer -
S1 Ep46: Designing more effective interventions to prevent childhood stunting: Evidence from Nigeria
27 januari 2021 · 25 min
Bundling interventions that offer parents health information along with cash transfers might yield more sustainable changes in early-life health outcomes for children
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S1 Ep47: Designing more effective interventions to prevent childhood stunting: Evidence from Nigeria
27 januari 2021 · 25 min
Bundling interventions that offer parents health information along with cash transfers might yield more sustainable changes in early-life health outcomes for children
Read “The impacts of a multifaceted pre-natal intervention on human capital accumulation in early life” by Pedro Carneiro, Lucy Kraftman, Giacomo Mason, Lucie Moore, Imran Rasul and Molly Scott here. Lees meer -
S1 Ep46: Urban-rural gaps in the developing world: Does internal migration offer opportunities?
20 januari 2021 · 18 min
Policymakers might seek to address the frictions that prevent potentially beneficial migration to urban areas from taking place
Read “Urban-Rural Gaps in the Developing World: Does Internal Migration Offer Opportunities?” by David Lagakos here. -
S1 Ep46: Unintended consequences: How workfare programmes may fuel school dropouts in India
13 januari 2021 · 15 min
Despite evidence of increasing household wages, anti-poverty schemes in India can have an adverse effect by lowering human capital investment
Read “Workfare and Human Capital Investment: Evidence from India” by Manisha Shah and Bryce Millet Steinberg here. Lees meer -
S1 Ep46: How does shame and embarrassment impact social learning? Evidence from India
6 januari 2021 · 14 min
People are less likely to ask questions in their communities if it exposes the limits of their knowledge.
Read “Signaling, shame, and silence in social learning” by Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Benjamin Golub, and He Yang here. -
S1 Ep46: Failure of frequent assessment: Evidence from India’s continuous and comprehensive evaluation programme
8 december 2020 · 14 min
More frequent assessment of student performance fails to deliver on improved outcomes when the administrative burden on teachers is high
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S1 Ep45: Should electricity be a right? Evidence from India
25 november 2020 · 13 min
Nearly a billion people around the world are not connected to the electricity grid, and even more have unreliable access. In this VoxDevTalk, Robin Burgess discusses his paper with Michael Greenstone, Nicholas Ryan, and Anant Sudarshan in which the authors argue that a social norm that all people deserve access to electricity regardless of payment may actually be undermining the universal access called for in Sustainable Development Goal 7. When people feel no compulsion to pay for the electricity they use, whether or not they are able to, government-owned distribution companies need to ration supply to limit their losses, either by enforcing blackouts or restricting access. This tends to affect those living in the poorer areas of countries more, and research on the relationship between electricity consumption and GDP suggests that it also has a macro impact on economic growth. One possible way to move from this low-payment, low-access equilibrium to a high-payment, high-access one is for governments to provide targeted subsidies towards getting connected to the grid, and for people to then pay for the electricity they use. Lees meer
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S1 Ep45: Technology as a tool for governance: Evidence from China
11 november 2020 · 14 min
Incentivising agent performance is a double-edged sword: while it can encourage agents to perform better, it might also nudge them into cheating and manipulating results to their benefit. In this VoxDevTalk, Guojun He discusses his work with Michael Greenstone, Ruixue Jia, and Tong Liu on this classic principal-agent problem in the context of how Chinese local governments self-report meeting air pollution-reduction targets imposed (and incentivised) by the central government. An analysis of these reports reveals evidence of significant under-reporting by local governments before the central government installed automated real-time pollution monitoring devices across the country. Under-reporting was larger in areas with higher levels of actual pollution, ostensibly since these local governments face greater challenges in meeting pollution-reduction targets. How accurately local governments report pollution figures also has impacts on public welfare, with people exposed to pollution information more likely to search for information on face masks and air filters. Biased information thus prevented people from optimally protecting themselves prior to the introduction of automation. Lees meer
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S1 Ep45: How does funding influence sectoral and geographic spread of NGOs?
4 november 2020 · 14 min
Certain kinds of NGO-led development projects attract more funding and media attention than others. Child sponsorship or microcredit schemes, for instance, tend to be 'hotter' than rehabilitation projects. To what extent does this knowledge affect the fundraising agenda of NGOs? What causes NGOs to 'cluster' around specific causes in favour of others? And what can be done to diversify NGO (and donor) attention? Lees meer
In this VoxDevTalk, Thierry Verdier examines the motivations of NGO competition and its impact on the development sector, of which NGOs are a significant part. Competition for funding routinely induces NGOs to systemically undercover 'Cinderella projects', which remain chronically underfunded. Is the solution to this problem better coordination on fundraising activities between NGOs or is it government intervention? In a new research paper, he and his co-authors Gani Aldashev and Marco Marini look at aid data to analyse NGO clustering around certain sectors and geographic regions and propose possible mechanisms that influence such behaviour.
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S1 Ep45: Gender norms, rule of law, and female entrepreneurship in developing countries
28 oktober 2020 · 22 min
Entrepreneurship across the world is highly male dominated. While the amount of subsistence entrepreneurship in developing countries leads to a slightly more equal gender balance, female entrepreneurs in these countries tend to choose sectors where other women are. In this VoxDevTalk, Nava Ashraf and Ed Glaeser discuss their work with Alexia Delfino investigating how gender norms and weak rule of law put female entrepreneurs at a disadvantage. Fear of expropriation by men leads them to work in less profitable industries, such as tailoring or food production, where they can collaborate with other women rather than with men. A survey of the manufacturing sector in Zambia, for example, revealed that almost all of the gap in earnings between male and female entrepreneurs could be explained by female entrepreneurs entering low-paid industries. Relatively equal gender norms that increase women’s bargaining power and decent rule of law for contract enforcement can encourage more women to become entrepreneurs and to branch out to more profitable industries. Lees meer
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S1 Ep45: The selection of talent: Experimental and structural evidence from Ethiopia
21 oktober 2020 · 15 min
When faced with onerous procedures to apply for a job, potential applicants can be expected to weigh the costs of applying on their time and energy against the probability of their getting the job and the eventual benefits. It is widely believed that if recruiters raise the costs of applying for a job, only the most suited and driven candidates can be expected to apply. In this VoxDevTalk, Stefano Caria shares insights from his paper with Girum Abebe and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, in which the authors start from the assumption that the cost of applying for a job may be higher for the best applicants. Through their field experiment in Ethiopia, they find that employers find better applicants when they reimburse the applicants for submitting their application and appearing for the selection test. Moreover, they are also able to find high-quality candidates from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds who would have been otherwise deterred by the costs of applying. Lees meer
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S1 Ep45: Paying outsourced labour: Evidence from Argentina
14 oktober 2020 · 15 min
When workers are supplied to a company through a temp agency, they earn less than the permanent employees they end up working with. Since work place surveys usually do not capture the pay of outsourced labour, there is insufficient data on the pay differential between contract workers and full-time workers. In this VoxDevTalk, Simon Jäger of MIT discusses a new paper where he and his co-authors estimate how much firms differentiate pay premia between regular and outsourced workers. They overcome the above measurement challenge by using a unique, Argentinian administrative dataset, featuring links between user firms (the workplaces where temp workers perform their labour) and temp agencies (their formal employers). They estimate that temp agency workers receive 49% of the workplace-specific pay premia earned by regular workers in user firms: the midpoint between the benchmark for insiders and the competitive spot-labour market benchmark. Lees meer
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S1 Ep45: Incentivising behavioural change: The role of time preferences
7 oktober 2020 · 14 min
Incentivising people to lead healthier lives by means of monetary payments is a simple and cost-effective intervention, but are there ways to tweak that basic incentive contract to make it work particularly well for people who are impatient (those who discount future benefits for immediate gain)? In this VoxDevTalk, Rebecca Dizon-Ross discusses a randomised experiment that varied the design of payment incentives: bundling payments over time meaningfully increased effort among the impatient relative to the patient; in contrast, increasing payment frequency had limited efficacy, which suggests limited impatience over payments. Lees meer
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S1 Ep45: Do social structures affect the success of development policies?
23 september 2020 · 10 min
Relationships between groups are vital in village economies, but do these social structures affect the success of development policies? If resources are delivered by someone from the community, does the social relationship between that agent and the people who could benefit from the success of the intervention matter? In this VoxDevTalk, Oriana Bandiera discusses an experiment in Uganda that addresses these questions. Randomly selecting one of two viable candidates to deliver an agricultural extension programme in rural Ugandan villages, she and her co-authors find that delivery agents favour their own social ties over ex-ante identical farmers connected to the other (unselected) candidate and that this is inconsistent with output maximisation or targeting the poorest. Favouritism disappears when both potential delivery agents belong to the same social group. Using the randomised allocation of the programme across villages, they show how unobserved social structures explain the variation in in delivery rates and programme effectiveness that they often observe in the data. Lees meer
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S1 Ep45: Negotiating a better future: Experimental evidence from Zambia
2 september 2020 · 17 min
Across the developing world, many girls face difficulties in persuading their parents to enrol them in secondary education. Whilst financial incentives have often been analysed as a means to encourage female school enrollment, there has been little focus on the role of negotiation skills. In this VoxDevTalk, Kathleen McGinn discusses an innovative experiment in Zambia, which assesses the impact of negotiation skills on female educational outcomes. Fascinatingly, the researchers find that teaching negotiation skills significantly increased female educational outcomes, particularly for high-ability girls. Lees meer
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S1 Ep45: Cities in the developing world
26 augustus 2020 · 21 min
By 2050, the world’s urban population is estimated to reach nearly seven billion, driven mainly by urbanisation in developing countries. Despite this growth, development economists have often chosen to focus on rural areas. In this VoxDevTalk, Ed Glaeser discusses a new paper that brings together research into urbanisation in the developing world. He argues that policymakers should not try to slow migration into cities, given the benefits of urbanisation that existing research has shown. These benefits include higher productivity and wages over the long-term. Lees meer
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S1 Ep45: Breaking down access constraints faced by women: Experimental evidence from Pakistan
12 augustus 2020 · 22 min
Across the world, women face invisible barriers that prevent them from taking up education and work. This is particularly the case in conservative societies such as in Punjab, Pakistan. In this VoxDev Talk, Asim Khwaja discusses an experiment in Punjab, Pakistan, that assessed the take-up rates of a vocational training programme for women. The researchers found that despite high interest, few women actually took up the programme. This low take-up rate was largely explained by social barriers that prevented women travelling to neighbouring villages (where the trainings were held). However, if group transport could be secured through a male from the village, then take-up increased dramatically. Lees meer
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S1 Ep44: Pipe dreams: Enforcing payment for water and sanitation services in Kenya
5 augustus 2020 · 18 min
Editors’ note: This podcast was updated on 25.08.2020
How can policymakers solve the problem of non-payment of utility bills while still maintaining access to water and sanitation services?
In the developing world, urban settings often struggle to provide basic needs, including water and sanitation. Often, the challenge lies in the cost of the last mile between the main infrastructure and individual households. In this VoxDev talk, Paul Gertler discusses an innovative experiment targeted at improving payment of utility bills in slums in Nairobi, Kenya. The researchers find that shaming landlords who failed to pay their bills did not subsequently increase payments. However, a credible threat of cutting water services was enough to ensure that landlords made their utility payments. Lees meerRead "Pipe dreams: Enforcing payment for water and sanitation services in Nairobi’s slums" by Aidan Coville, Sebastian Galiani, Paul Gertler, and Susumu Yoshida here.