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 insights, Achyuta

Adhvaryu, UC San Diego about their review of the research into worker well-being, the

policies that encourage firms to improve it, and the outcomes for employees and employers alike.

You can find the review here https://www.povertyactionlab.org/

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 University of Pennsylvania are two of the editors of new VoxDevLit that examines what we know about the size of the informal sector and how it operates. They talk to Tim Phillips about the grey areas between formal and informal, and the limitations of policies that try to increase the size of the formal economy.

Read the VoxDevLit here: https://voxdev.org/voxdevlit/informality

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 are less likely to be born into poverty. Has the progress been driven by women in the workplace, by government support, or by the move out of agriculture? And, significantly, do those who move out of poverty stay in that position or, is it, as Tom tells Tim Phillips, “Like climbing a slippery slope”?

Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/methods-measurement/how-has-global-poverty-fallen

Read the paper: https://econweb.ucsd.edu/~pniehaus/papers/how_poverty_fell.pdf

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 pressure to take costly action to avoid it.

Catherine is joined by Max Bearak of the New York Times, Jessica Seddon of Yale Jackson School and the Dietz Family Initiative on Environment and Global Affairs, and Anant Sudarshan of the University of Warwick and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.

Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/climate-capital-and-conscience-who-will-pay-global-energy-transition

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 world.

Read the full show notes

The BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative

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 AI might level the playing field for overstretched developing country tax offices.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/public-economics/profit-shifting-global-challenge-hitting-developing-countries-hardest

IGC Policy Toolkit: Corporate tax havens and their impact on development

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, professor of economics at the University of Warwick, and Munshi Sulaiman, Director of Research at the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development and a professor in the Master of Development Studies program at BRAC University, to ask what it takes to make job skills programs work.

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, about the challenges women face in commuting to work and about how safe transport can change career opportunities for millions of women.

Photo credit: ADB

Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/infrastructure/how-safe-transport-could-unlock-womens-labour-force-participation-pakistan

How does rising external debt in low-income countries affect the natural capital that

sustains 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 the 21 countries whose wealth relies on the river basins that they border, and how debt-for-nature swaps may be our best hope of avoiding both an economic and ecological disaster.

Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/debt-leading-unsustainable-exploitation-natural-resources

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 future.

And of course, what it was like to win the Nobel Prize.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/macroeconomics-growth/geopolitics-ai-future-global-development-conversation-simon-johnson

Sahel and West Africa Club: https://www.oecd.org/en/about/directorates/sahel-and-west-africa-club.html

Power and progress: https://shapingwork.mit.edu/power-and-progress/