Yasuyuki Sawada, ADB’s Chief Economist, provides insight into Asia’s development and overcoming the middle-income trap.

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Rodger Voorhies, Executive Director of Global Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,  shares a first-hand account of the importance of empirical analysis for development practitioners

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Development aid by its very nature is provided in messy environments, is often very political and has inherent negative incentives. In such situations, often exacerbated by limited data and imminent deadlines, can we improve how we provide aid? In this interview, Stefan Dercon, discusses the various aspects of aid effectives; the importance of cost-benefit analyses, feedback loops, prioritising the engines of inclusive growth, theories of change, and planning for humanitarian aid.

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In this interview, Robin Burgess discusses three ideas to foster socioeconomic development. First, he discusses how important the quality of civil servants is to development, and his work studying the Indian civil service to identify the key motivators that lead to effective policy implementation. Second, he delves into the causes of poverty. His research in India has shown that contrary to a common school of thought, it is not inherent unproductivity but lack of opportunity that traps people in poverty. Finally, he discusses the idea of electricity being a public good rather than an entitlement, and how this is panning out in Bihar, India.

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Rachel Glennerster discusses her role at DFID, her work on promoting electoral debates in Sierra Leone, the importance of strengthening local institutions, and the challenges of measuring the success of aid programmes. She emphasises the need for aid to involve local partners and focus on addressing pressing needs, rather than being paternalistic.

We lose about 5% of global GDP due to hunger related diseases, and the situation is getting worse with the number of people living in food insecurity increasing. Yet one-third of all food produced is wasted. Arif Husain, Chief Economist at the World Food Programme, discusses a plethora of issues relating to food insecurity; ranging from the main causes - climate shocks and conflict, to the problem of food wastage, to potential policy solutions. He stresses the importance of sustained political will, multi-stakeholder coordination, women’s empowerment, child nutrition and rural-urban connectivity. Finally, he discusses the politics of humanitarian aid and the difficult trade-off decisions that need to be made in its allocation. 

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The sustainable development goals have ushered in a new development paradigm. In this interview, Elliott Harris discusses the vision behind the creation of the SDGs and how it differs from that of the MDGs. He stresses the need for sustainable and green development, and engagement with the private sector, which has already begun taking sustainability seriously. He further discusses the challenges of translating goals into policy, financing the goals, measuring progress, dealing with the impact of rising nationalism, and moving away from the traditional top-down approach, as well as progress made thus far.

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The idea that worker utility is affected by co-worker wages has potentially broad labour market implications. In a month-long experiment with Indian manufacturing workers, in her work with Emily Breza and Yogita Shamdasani (Breza et al. 2017) Supreet Kaur establishes the effects of pay inequality on co-workers within production units. They find that pay inequality reduces output, as well as attendance by 10%. Pay disparity also lowers co-workers' ability to cooperate. However, when workers can clearly observe productivity differences, pay inequality has no discernible effect on output, attendance, or group cohesion.

Chris Woodruff discusses the role management practices play in firm growth. Further, he explores different mechanisms for improving firm management in varying contexts across developing countries.

This VoxDev Talk is taken from a video that first appeared on the IGC's website.