VoxDev Development Economics
by VoxDev.org
Latest episode
S7 Ep58: Who enters politics?
S7 Ep58: Who enters politics?
About this podcast
Hear about the cutting edge of development economics from research to practice.
Episodes
The newest 50 of 352 episodes
- S7 Ep58: Who enters politics? · 25 min · Season 7 Episode 58Three in four people in Africa say elections are the best way to choose their leaders. Only 37% are satisfied with how their democracy works. In the US, 16% of people trust the…
- S7 Ep57: Skipping the factory · 28 min · Season 7 Episode 57Name 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 that road…
- S7 Ep56: Why democracy alone does not build effective states · 39 min · Season 7 Episode 56Many 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 later, he…
- Ideas in Development: Ken Opalo on the research Africa needs · 46 minThis 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…
- S7 Ep55: Armed groups as states: Taxation, security, and civilian support · 42 min · Season 7 Episode 55In 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 Sierra (LSE)…
- S7 Ep54: Tracking Kenya's tractors · 13 min · Season 7 Episode 54A 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 they…
- S7 Ep53: Implementation science in education: Scaling what works · 26 min · Season 7 Episode 53Nearly 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 tested…
- S7 Ep52: Is electricity a weak link in development? · 23 min · Season 7 Episode 52In 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 is…
- S7 Ep51: The critical minerals scramble · 26 min · Season 7 Episode 51King 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 the…
- Ideas in Development: GiveDirectly's journey to scale · 55 minThis 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…
- S7 Ep50: Evidence-based policy: Why one good trial isn't enough · 34 min · Season 7 Episode 50Medicine has run rigorous clinical trials since the 1940s. Development economists borrowed the structure of the trials during the credibility revolution. Chris Cotton (Queen's…
- S7 Ep49: Follow the paper trail · 21 min · Season 7 Episode 49In 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 · 27 min · Season 7 Episode 48How can we cut corruption in government, procurement that generates kickbacks for local politicians? We could hire officials on merit. Across the developing world, many…
- Ideas in Development: How BRAC partners with governments to fight poverty · 50 minThis 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…
- S7 Ep47: No Taxation without Administration · 40 min · Season 7 Episode 47Research 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 and…
- S7 Ep46: Rethinking development cooperation: The case for a 'balance sheet' approach · 42 min · Season 7 Episode 46Many 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…
- S7 Ep45: Cape Town's day zero: How data rebuilt a city's water resilience · 38 min · Season 7 Episode 45By 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 residents to…
- S7 Ep44: Fifty years of Chinese growth: The gradualist reform strategy explained · 34 min · Season 7 Episode 44In 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 VoxDev…
- S7 Ep43: Caste, race, and power: The barriers to political inclusion · 35 min · Season 7 Episode 43The 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 groups…
- S7 Ep42: Masculinity norms and their economic implications · 27 min · Season 7 Episode 42Do 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 masculinity…
- S7 Ep41: How global supply chains are built · 1 h 3 min · Season 7 Episode 41This 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…
- S7 Ep40: Using mobile phones to support teachers, parents, and students · 26 min · Season 7 Episode 40More households in low-income countries own a mobile phone than have electricity or clean water. So why is education one of the last places it has been put to work? Jenny Aker…
- S7 Ep39: Ideas in Development: Moving billions to evidence · 51 min · Season 7 Episode 39This 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…
- S7 Ep38: How AI can put 20 years of development evidence to work · 30 min · Season 7 Episode 38A farmer in rural Ghana can use her phone to take a picture of a blighted leaf, upload it, and within seconds she gets a diagnosis that takes account of the soil, the weather…
- S7 Ep37: Why businesses stay small in emerging markets · 34 min · Season 7 Episode 37If you walk down a street in a low-income country, count the businesses you can see, you will miss many entirely. Someone who cooks at home and sells at the roadside never…
- S7 Ep36: Climate Change Politics in Developing Countries · 30 min · Season 7 Episode 36A river dries up. The soil turns salty. A harvest fails. Farmers across the developing world feel climate change constantly and personally, they rarely blame their government, or…
- S7 Ep35: Ideas in Development: Has development economics lost its way? · 53 min · Season 7 Episode 35This 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…
- S7 Ep34: Why farmers struggle to adopt new agricultural technology · 23 min · Season 7 Episode 34How many maize seeds should farmers plant in each hole? Ask the farmers and they say two or three. Agronomists can show them more reliable seeds, where they only need one. But…
- S7 Ep33: Interpersonal violence costs the world more than war · 30 min · Season 7 Episode 33Wars get the headlines. A civil war can wreck a country's economy and dominate its news for a decade. But if you assume war is the most costly form of violence a society faces…
- S7 Ep32: Courts in the Global South · 21 min · Season 7 Episode 32How do courts work when they work well? You would expect them to be impartial, neutral, and consistent. In much of the Global South that is a tall order. So when courts fall…
- S7 Ep31: Nonelite Women's Participation in Politics · 32 min · Season 7 Episode 31The usual way to measure women's power in politics is to count the seats they hold in parliament. But most women who take part in politics never stand for office. They vote…
- S7 Ep30: The end of aid dependency · 23 min · Season 7 Episode 30This episode follows a wide-ranging panel convened at Stanford's King Center on Global Development, featuring Gyude Moore, as well as Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman, former…
- S7 Ep29: What the $1-a-day global poverty line gets wrong · 29 min · Season 7 Episode 29It's 1990. A young staff economist walks into a director's office at the World Bank and says the number he's about to publish is "crazy". The director tells him not to worry…
- S7 Ep28: Why civil service reform fails (and what actually works) · 37 min · Season 7 Episode 28Every civil service reform plan opens with the same list of complaints: poor performance, low motivation, weak accountability. Across six African countries and three decades…
- S7 Ep27: The World Bank's East Asian Miracle · 27 min · Season 7 Episode 27In 1993, the World Bank published a report on a remarkable development story. East Asia's post-war growth — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and their neighbours — had…
- S7 Ep26: Ed Glaeser on the perfect city and the demons of density · 37 min · Season 7 Episode 26This 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 and Kurtis…
- S7 Ep25: Roshaneh Zafar on 30 years of microfinance and mindset change in Pakistan · 30 min · Season 7 Episode 25Wherever Roshaneh Zafar went in Pakistan in the early 1990s, documenting World Bank social development projects, women told her the same thing: the water and sanitation are fine…
- S7 Ep24: Leonard Wantchekon on youth and governance in African cities · 55 min · Season 7 Episode 24This 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 and Kurtis…
- S7 Ep23: How killing sparrows contributed to the Great Chinese Famine · 16 min · Season 7 Episode 23Between 1959 and 1961, between thirty and forty million people starved to death in China. The Great Famine had many causes, and one of them was a campaign to eradicate sparrows…
- S7 Ep22: Chris Blattman on how organised crime takes over cities · 50 min · Season 7 Episode 22This 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 and Kurtis…
- S7 Ep21: Boosting farmers' profits · 30 min · Season 7 Episode 21Decades of agricultural development policy have chased yield. Bigger harvests, better seeds, more fertiliser. But how can we make farming more profitable? Craig McIntosh of UC…
- S7 Ep20: Argentina’s 2017 tax reform · 41 min · Season 7 Episode 20In 2017, Argentina had the highest corporate income tax rate in Latin America. Reducing it was politically popular and economically desirable. Getting it through a Congress where…
- S7 Ep19: Can digital credit unlock investment in smallholder farms? · 23 min · Season 7 Episode 19At the start of every planting season, smallholder farmers needs seeds and fertiliser, but the income from the harvest that would pay for them is many months away. With no credit…
- S7 Ep18: The complex link between poverty and health · 27 min · Season 7 Episode 18Rich people live longer than poor people in every country that researchers have studied. In the United States today, the gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest 1%…
- S7 Ep17: The long shadow of British rule: India's colonial legacy · 28 min · Season 7 Episode 17Eighty years after Indian independence, the economic fingerprint of British colonial rule is still visible at the district level. Two institutions in particular left scars…
- S7 Ep14: Ideas in Development: Raghuram Rajan on AI, India, and service-led growth · 46 min · Season 7 Episode 14This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed, where you can find the entire AI series. Apple Podcasts…
- S7 Ep16: The rise and fall of China's overseas lending · 24 min · Season 7 Episode 16China became the world's largest bilateral creditor to developing countries over two decades, and for most of that time the scale of what it was doing was effectively a state…
- S7 Ep15: The rise of digital payments in Latin America · 30 min · Season 7 Episode 15Between 2019 and 2023, the number of electronic transactions tripled in six Latin American economies. The share of adults using digital wallets, mobile money, and mobile bank…
- S7 Ep13: Ideas in Development: Josh Lerner on the diffusion of technology · 40 min · Season 7 Episode 13This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed, where you can find the entire AI series. Apple Podcasts…
- S7 Ep12: Can contact between groups reduce prejudice? · 23 min · Season 7 Episode 12For 70 years, a simple idea has shaped efforts to reduce prejudice: put people from different groups together under the right conditions, and contact reduces prejudice. Gordon…
