Chris Woodruff has pioneered academic research into businesses, large and small, in low-income countries, He is also a non-executive Director of British International Investment (BII), a development finance institution and impact investor that partners with more than 1,500 businesses in emerging economies, with assets of £8.1 billion.  Chris talks to Tim Phillips about what he has learned from his association with BII into how research can inform policy and investment – and whether economists worry too much about external validity.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/firms/role-evidence-development-finance-institutions

In the second episode of the collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center

and VoxDev, Catherine Cheney speaks to Amit Khandelwal of the Yale Jackson

School of Public Affairs, Isabela Manelici of the London School of Economics, and

Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute, As globalisation faces new headwinds,

they discuss the outlook for those countries that didn’t reap the trade benefits from

the spread of globalisation, and the new challenges for LMICs.

When citizens demand change and feel they are not being heard, they protest on the

streets. Thanks to social media and TV coverage, we see protests every night on the

news. But has the frequency or the character of protests changed? Who is

protesting, and what makes them take to the streets? David Yang and Noam

Yuchtman are two of the authors of a new review of the literature on protests. They

tell Tim Phillips what they discovered.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/why-do-protests-matter-exploring-their-causes-and-lasting

In our final episode based on this year’s BREAD-IGC virtual PhD-level course on the

economics of cities in low and middle-income countries, Matthew Kahn of USC and

Siqi Zheng of MIT focus on sustainable urbanisation. They tell Tim Phillips about how

cities can adapt in the face of climate change, both its inhabitants and its buildings.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/migration-urbanisation/how-urban-environment-can-adapt-climate-change

If you’re applying for a job, you want to know what you’re good at, and be able to

prove it to the recruiter. If doing the recruiting, you want some evidence about who

the best candidates would be. In low- or middle-income countries, this information is

often in short supply. How does this affect who gets a job, and the hiring process? In

the latest in our collaborations with J-Pal to discuss their policy insights, Marianne

Bertrand of Chicago Booth School, also Co-Chair, Labor Markets at J-Pal, and

Stefano Caria of the University of Warwick, tell Tim Phillips about the impact of skills

signals on employment.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/labour-markets/helping-jobseekers-signal-their-skills-cost-effective-strategy-benefitting

There are more than 1.4 million papers about cash transfers. They inspired Ugo

Gentilini, lead economist for social protection at the World Bank, to spend five years

researching the surprisingly long and rich history of these cash transfers. The

resulting book, called “Timely Cash: Lessons From 2,500 Years of Giving People

Money”, shows that the political and ethical debates that cash transfers inspire are

centuries, sometimes millennia, old. In a special episode to mark the launch of his

book, Ugo explains to Tim Phillips how we can draw on history to understand the

current, sometimes heated, debates about why, when, and where cash transfers

should be used.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/history-cash-transfers

Where does electricity come from? In developing countries, the power sector uses

long-term, rigid contracts called power purchase agreements (PPAs) between a

private generator and government-owned utilities. These PPAs are not usually

competitive, their terms – including payment guarantees by which suppliers get paid

even when there is no demand – are often secret, they can last for up to 30 years,

and they guarantee the use of fossil fuels far into the future. Sugandha Srivastav

tells Tim Phillips about how the privatisation of electricity generation has created a

way to move money “from the public coffers to vested interests”.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/why-pakistan-locked-overpriced-and-environmentally-damaging-power-sector

Can better data analysis improve the way that a government functions. The

Government Analytics Handbook, published by the World Bank, is both a practical

how-to guide and a fascinating insight into how administrators can improve the

quality of government analytics. Daniel Rogger and Christian Schuster are the

editors. They talk to Tim Phillips about the challenges, the potential – and their work

to create a community of analysts.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/public-economics/how-government-analytics-can-improve-public-sector-implementation

As cities grow and spread, the uses to which land is put, and the value of that land,

will also change. The challenges of urban planning, construction and renewal are

complicated. But the way we address those challenges has profound impacts for the

people who live, and will live, in that physical city. Vernon Henderson and Maisy

Wong of University of Pennsylvania explain to Tim Phillips how cities adapt, change

and grow – and how that affects the lives and prospects of the people who live in

them.

Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, and so it has never been

more important to increase the resilience of small-scale farmers. What does

research tell us are the most effective interventions and policies to do this? In the

latest of our special episodes to discuss J-PAL policy insights, Tavneet Suri talks to

Tim Phillips about how we can strengthen the resilience of farmers to climate

change.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/financing-climate-adaptation-what-works-what-doesnt-and-can-carbon-credits