VoxDev Development Economics

In the first of a series of episodes that investigates policy for environmental economics in development, Kelsey Jack and Robin Burgess introduce the topic to Tim Phillips, and its implications for adaptation, natural capital conservation, and innovation. 

The study of institutions and political power is a strand of development research that in recent years has taught us a lot about – in the name of the famous book – Why Nations Fail, but also what improves their chances of success. James Robinson talks to Tim Phillips about what he and his fellow researchers have discovered, and which directions for future research are the most exciting.

Photo credit: Jeremy Weate

In the last 30 years many governments have attempted to shift service delivery away from a central bureaucracy to local administrations. How well has it worked, and what do we know about the right and wrong way to decentralise? Dilip Mookherjee talks to Tim Phillips. Photo credit: Julien Harneis

Most policies are one-size-fits-all. But in some cases, we can do better. How can we design an intervention that incentivises people to manage their diabetes and hypertension, and does it deliver better results for both the patient and the policymaker? Ariel Zucker of UC Santa Cruz tells Tim Phillips about an experiment to deliver personalised healthcare in India.

Poor air quality is a danger to children’s health, but most of what we know about the effects are from wealthy countries or large cities. A multidisciplinary study has estimated the impact of air quality on child health for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with surprising policy conclusions. Jennifer Burney talks to Tim Phillips.

The economies of Latin America and the Caribbean are facing some tough economic problems. What policies will improve prospects for people who live in the region? Eric Parrado, Chief Economist at the Inter-American Development Bank, talks to Tim Phillips about how IDB puts research into practice.

Multifaceted graduation programmes can permanently change the lives of desperately poor people. But which components of these programs are the most important? And would any of these single interventions work just as well if they were tried on their own? Robert Osei tells Tim Phillips whether individual facets might be sufficient to help people graduate permanently from poverty.

Should the community have a greater say in determining how aid is spent? Participatory development aid has the goal of making sure that governments can’t misuse aid to buy approval. It’s an important idea, but Kate Baldwin tells Tim Phillips that it may be much more complicated in practice than in theory. 

The challenge of creating evidence-based policy inspired Arianna Legovini of the World Bank to create an entirely new model of impact evaluation: The Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) group generates operationally relevant data and research that has vastly expanded our knowledge of which interventions work, how they work, and how best to implement them. She tells Tim Phillips how DIME puts research into practice. 

Programs that incentivise rural workers to migrate to cities in Bangladesh for seasonal work have been successful. But why don’t more people migrate in this way, and why do some choose not to return to the city? Mushfiq Mobarak tells Tim Phillips about what the researchers discovered when they looked closely at the data, and how that should change policy to encourage migration.