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VoxDev Development Economics

VoxDev.org

Hear about the cutting edge of development economics from research to practice.

science social sciences

All Episodes

23:02

S1 Ep48: The false promises of agricultural trials

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2021/08/30

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.

14:46

S1 Ep47: Public disclosure as a political incentive:...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2021/02/24

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.

15:21

S1 Ep47: The unintended impacts of formal credit...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2021/02/17

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.

18:02

S1 Ep47: Learning-by-doing: Navigating financial...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2021/02/02

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.

20:19

S1 Ep47: Is faster always better? Evidence from...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2021/02/01

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.

24:43

S1 Ep46: Designing more effective interventions to...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2021/01/27

Bundling interventions that offer parents health information along with cash transfers might yield more sustainable changes in early-life health outcomes for children

24:43

S1 Ep47: Designing more effective interventions to...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2021/01/27

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.

17:51

S1 Ep46: Urban-rural gaps in the developing world:...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2021/01/20

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.

15:10

S1 Ep46: Unintended consequences: How workfare...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2021/01/13

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.

14:20

S1 Ep46: How does shame and embarrassment impact...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2021/01/06

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.

13:49

S1 Ep46: Failure of frequent assessment: Evidence...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2020/12/08

More frequent assessment of student performance fails to deliver on improved outcomes when the administrative burden on teachers is high

13:15

S1 Ep45: Should electricity be a right? Evidence from...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2020/11/25

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

13:56

S1 Ep45: Technology as a tool for governance:...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2020/11/11

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

14:10

S1 Ep45: How does funding influence sectoral and...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2020/11/04

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? In this VoxDevTalk, Thierry Verdier examines the motivations of NGO competition and its

21:42

S1 Ep45: Gender norms, rule of law, and female...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2020/10/28

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

15:03

S1 Ep45: The selection of talent: Experimental and...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2020/10/21

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

14:39

S1 Ep45: Paying outsourced labour: Evidence from...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2020/10/14

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

13:43

S1 Ep45: Incentivising behavioural change: The role...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2020/10/07

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

9:46

S1 Ep45: Do social structures affect the success of...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2020/09/23

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

16:43

S1 Ep45: Negotiating a better future: Experimental...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2020/09/02

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

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