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VoxDev Development Economics

VoxDev.org

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

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15:02

S6 Ep25: Gas flaring threatens agriculture and...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/07/01

This week on VoxDev talks we have two special episodes recorded at the 5th annual STEG conference. STEG is a research initiative that aims to provide a better understanding of structural change, productivity, and growth in low- and middle-income countries. For many economies in the Global South, fossil fuel extraction has been both a blessing and a curse. Nowhere more so than Nigeria, where oil production generates huge revenues, but also creates an environmental and social burden for the people

28:02

S6 Ep24: Going for economic growth: Lessons from...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/06/25

In October 2024, Prabowo Subianto became president of Indonesia. He inherits the “Golden Indonesia” vision: By the time the country celebrates 100 years of independence in 2045, it aims to be one of the five largest economies in the world. But if Indonesia remains dependent on commodity exports like palm oil, coal, natural gas, and rubber, does it risk getting stuck in the “middle income trap” – too wealthy to compete with low-wage nations, but without the human capital or technology to become a

33:59

S5 Ep6: Development Dialogues: What is the role of...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/06/18

In the latest episode of the collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center and VoxDev, host Catherine Cheney discusses one of Africa’s most persistent development challenges: the low productivity of smallholder farmers. Despite decades of investment, innovation, and policy reform, yields on African small farms remain significantly below those in high-income countries. While the limitations of smallholder models, that doesn’t mean that the problem is easy to solve, not least because the way

30:15

S6 Ep23: Why we need to invest in foundational learning

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/06/11

It was almost business as usual at the Education World Forum in London last month. At the world’s largest annual gathering of education and skills ministers, this year’s theme was & "Building stronger, bolder, better education together." But the context was far from routine. The conference took place against a backdrop of global funding cuts to education programmes—the Institute for Economics and Peace estimates that more than 35 million children around the world depend on foreign aid for their

23:59

S6 Ep22: Understanding Brazil’s falling income...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/06/04

From Brazil, we bring good news for poverty reduction: Brazil’s formerly sky-high wageinequality is not quite so sky-high anymore. From 1995 to 2015 Brazil became a more equal society, a trend that contrasts with rising inequality during that time in high-income countries. A soon-to-be-published article in the Journal of Economic Literature reviews the research that estimates the reduction, discovers the factors that have contributed to it and the mechanisms that have driven it. Alysson Portella of

35:51

S6 Ep21: Can economists shape the future of AI?

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/05/28

AI’s boosters claim that it is going to revolutionize growth in the developing world. Thesceptics, many of whom are economists, point to a thin evidence base and the risk of unintended consequences. This is not an easy question to research, not least because the underlying technologies are literally changing by the day, while the pace of academic research is often measured in years. One of those researchers is David Yanagizawa-Drott of the University of Zurich. We spoke to him about his hopes and

18:36

S6 Ep20: How does social media influence conflict?

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/05/21

The Reducing Conflict and Improving Performance in the Economy (ReCIPE) programmewas established in April 2024 as a CEPR research initiative to provide a better understanding of the links between conflict, economic growth, and public policies. One of its themes is the link between conflict and hate speech, social media use, media bias, and propaganda. We need to know more about how media has influenced violence, xenophobia, and recruitment for armed groups. Also, how we can use media sentiment to

32:49

S6 Ep19: Lovegrass Ethiopia: Building a business from...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/05/14

As aid programs are cut across the developing world, the focus falls on what investors can do to help create economic growth. Someone who knows all about impact investing is Yonas Alemu, the founder of Lovegrass Ethiopia, which creates products from teff, a gluten- free grain that's native to Ethiopia and sells them across the world. Yonas abandoned a successful career in investment banking in London to create a business in the country of his birth. He spoke to Tim Phillips about how

18:41

S6 Ep18: Improving sanitation: What works and what...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/05/08

Millions of people around the world have no access to sanitation. They defecate in the open, or in facilities where it’s hard to avoid human contact, unavoidably spreading disease. One of the Sustainable Development Goals that you don’t hear about so much is the call to end open defecation by 2030. What progress are we making, and what health improvements are we seeing so far? In the latest of our episodes based on J-PAL’s policy insights, Karen Macours of the Paris School of Economics, also

30:36

S6 Ep17: Improving worker well-being

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/05/01

We often talk about providing not just jobs, but decent jobs, in developing countries. But in many parts of the world, workers still have incredibly harsh working conditions.There have been interventions at the firm level to create safer workplaces, better health, higher job satisfaction. But have they succeeded? And, if these policies succeed in raising worker well-being, is there a cost or a benefit for the employer? In the latest in our collaborations with J-Pal to discuss their policy

36:10

S6 Ep16: What have we learned about the informal sector?

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/04/24

A large proportion of economic activity takes place in the informal sector in every country, particularly in LMICs. Informality, and the lack of rights and protection that goes with it, affects the families who live in slums, the people who take off-the-books jobs, and the firms that choose to skirt regulations. It also affects the governments who want to increase the size of the formal sector – and the revenue they can collect from it.Gabriel Ulyssea of UCL and Mariaflavia Harari of the

22:14

S6 Ep15: How poverty fell

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/04/17

In 1981, 44% of the world’s population were living in extreme poverty. By 2019, that number had fallen to 9%. This seems like a good news story, but how did it happen?Tom Vogl of UC San Diego is one of the authors of a paper called simply, “How Poverty Fell”. In it, they use surveys to track the progress out of poverty of individuals and generations, to discover whether this progress has been driven by individuals and families becoming less poor over their lives or by successive generations who

39:28

S5 Ep5: Development Dialogues: Who will pay for the...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/04/15

In the latest episode of the collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center and VoxDev, host Catherine Cheney is asking one of the most complex questions in global development: how can the clean energy transition move forward quickly and equitably, particularly for low- and middle-income countries still grappling with poverty? There is a balance between emissions reductions and economic growth. While wealthy nations historically contributed the most to climate change, LMICs are now under

34:17

S6 Ep14: Graduation programmes: BRAC’s approach to...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/04/09

The Graduation approach to helping people to escape from poverty was pioneered in 2002 by BRAC in Bangladesh. Today the approach is used around the world. In more than 20 years, what have we learned about how it works, when it works best, and how to implement it at scale? Shameran Abed, the Executive Director of BRAC International talks to Tim Phillips about how the Graduation approach reaches people that other programmes miss, why it works, and how it can be scaled up to meet needs around the

24:26

S6 Ep13: Profit shifting hits developing countries...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/04/02

Multinational enterprises in every industry are shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions. These corporate tax havens reduce tax revenues everywhere, but that hits hardest in developing countries where corporate taxes are a larger part of the overall tax take. The International Growth Centre has published a policy toolkit report into corporate tax havens. Ludvig Wier, the author, explains to Tim Phillips how profit shifting works, how a global initiative is reducing the allure of tax havens, and how

37:40

S5 Ep4: Development Dialogues: Are vocational...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/04/01

Vocational training is often seen as a silver bullet for unemployment and poverty, but does the evidence support that view? Why do so many training programs fail to lead to real job opportunities, and are we asking too much of these programs – or maybe the wrong questions entirely? In the latest episode of the collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center and VoxDev, host Catherine Cheney is joined by Oriana Bandiera, professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, Stefano Caria,

23:38

S6 Ep12: Can safe transport unlock women’s labour...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/03/27

A fundamental part of women’s economic empowerment is helping women who want to work outside the home to find and keep a job. A major part of that decision is ensuring that they can travel to work without fear of stigma, harassment or violence on public transport. In Pakistan, a study set out to discover whether an offer of safe commuter transport would tempt women who are currently not looking for a job.Kate Vyborny of the World Bank spoke to Tim Phillips from Lahore, where the study took place,

29:45

S6 Ep11: Is debt leading to the unsustainable...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/03/19

How does rising external debt in low-income countries affect the natural capital thatsustains our livelihoods? A new paper focuses on three river basins that are vital to the livelihoods and biodiversity of the countries that surround them, suggesting ways that we can both measure and conserve that natural capital in the face of the economic forces that threaten it. Pushpam Kumar of UN Environment Programme talks to Tim Phillips about the alarming rise in the ratio of debt to natural capital for

32:49

S6 Ep10: Simon Johnson on geopolitics, AI, and the...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/03/12

Geopolitical alliances are changing rapidly. Technological innovation is reshaping our economies. These trends offer a cocktail of risk and reward for countries in the global south. They are also both topics that are familiar to Simon Johnson of MIT.Simon speaks to Tim Phillips about how policy in developing countries should respond to President Trump’s deglobalization agenda, how artificial intelligence changes the future for all countries, and where growth and jobs will come from in the

26:20

S6 Ep9: Rebuilding Sudan’s digital infrastructure...

VoxDev Development Economics ·

2025/03/05

Civil war – the latest in a long series of armed conflicts – broke out in Sudan in April2023. Today, more than half of the population needs humanitarian aid, and almost 15 million people have been displaced. The war has also devastated the digital infrastructure in Sudan, deepening the crisis. African Renaissance Ventures is a VC firm that backs entrepreneurs who use technology to solve major development challenges. Magdi Amin tells Tim Phillips about how its infrastructure might be restored, and

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