VoxDev Development Economics

Published this week: the latest VoxDevLit covers microfinance. After many decades,
microfinance is pervasive and popular in developing countries but is often
controversial. What have we learned about what works, how it works, and who it
helps – and what is there still to understand? Authors Simon Quinn, Muhammad
Meki, and Jing Cai talk to Tim Phillips about the problems of evaluation, the
surprising uses to which microfinance has been put, and the lessons that
policymakers can learn from the story of microfinance so far.

Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/finance/what-have-we-learned-about-microfinance

Read and download the VoxDevLit from our new look website here: https://voxdev.org/voxdevlit/microfinance

In 2018, “Unorthodox policies for unorthodox times” was the title of the first in a
series of blogs published by the International Growth Centre. The authors argued
that the environment for development had changed, and so development policies
should change too. Seven years on, as delegates gather in Davos for the 2025
Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, how prescient was the analysis in
these articles, and what does this mean for future growth policy? Tim Dobermann
and Francesco Caselli talk to Tim Phillips about which “unorthodox policies” the
delegates to Davos should be discussing this week.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/macroeconomics-growth/how-can-countries-develop-their-economies-changed-world

Many development economists would argue that the most important innovation of
the last two decades has been a commitment to use only rigorous evidence for
policy, and usually what they mean is evidence generated by RCTs. But are
systematic reviews of the results a useful guide to policy? And should development
economics continue to be focusing so much on the programmes that flow from RCT-
driven research? Lant Pritchett of LSE talks to Tim Phillips about the nature of
“rigorous” evidence in development economics, and the future of the discipline itself.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/macroeconomics-growth/rethinking-evidence-and-refocusing-growth-development-economics

For more than 30 years, optimists about technology have been telling us that the
internet is transforming our economies. What is the evidence that this has happened,
or is happening, in low- or middle-income countries? And if the promise has not been
fulfilled, why not? Lin Tian is one of the authors of a new paper that examines the
evidence so far. She talks to Tim Phillips about what the research is telling us.

Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/macroeconomics-growth/how-does-internet-connectivity-impact-developing-economies

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