Ideas in Development: GiveDirectly's journey to scale
This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed , where you can find ever...
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Hear about the cutting edge of development economics from research to practice. Each week Tim Phillips interviews experts who provide insightful commentary, analysis, and evidence on a wide...
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S7 Ep50: Evidence-based policy: Why one good trial isn't enough
Medicine has run rigorous clinical trials since the 1940s. Development economists borrowed the structure of the trials during the credibilit...
S7 Ep49: Follow the paper trail
In Uganda, every sale between two VAT-registered firms reaches the tax authority twice. The seller reports it, and so does the buyer. But th...
S7 Ep48: How politicians co-opt bureaucrats
How can we cut corruption in government, procurement that generates kickbacks for local politicians? We could hire officials on merit. Acros...
Ideas in Development: How BRAC partners with governments to fight poverty
This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed , where you can find ever...
S7 Ep47: No Taxation without Administration
Research on how to collect more tax in developing countries has focused on how information, especially administrative data, can help. But in...
S7 Ep46: Rethinking development cooperation: The case for a 'balance sheet' approach
Many conversations about development for focus on aid: how much, from whom, and for how long. But aid has never been more than a small part...
S7 Ep45: Cape Town's day zero: How data rebuilt a city's water resilience
By 2018 the reservoirs supplying Cape Town were down to 20% of capacity. If they reached 13.5%, the city would need to shut down parts of th...
S7 Ep44: Fifty years of Chinese growth: The gradualist reform strategy explained
In 1978, a farmer in rural China could not sell a sack of grain above the state quota, choose an employer, or move to the nearest city witho...
S7 Ep43: Caste, race, and power: The barriers to political inclusion
The ballot cast by a landless labourer counts the same as the one cast by the landlord whose fields he works. In this way, democracy can giv...
S7 Ep42: Masculinity norms and their economic implications
Do economists treat what men do as normal human behaviour, and then study norms around women as a departure? If so, we need to pay more atte...
S7 Ep41: How global supply chains are built
This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed , where you can find ever...
S7 Ep40: Using mobile phones to support teachers, parents, and students
More households in low-income countries own a mobile phone than have electricity or clean water. So why is education one of the last places...
S7 Ep39: Ideas in Development: Moving billions to evidence
This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed , where you can find ever...
S7 Ep38: How AI can put 20 years of development evidence to work
A farmer in rural Ghana can use her phone to take a picture of a blighted leaf, upload it, and within seconds she gets a diagnosis that take...
S7 Ep37: Why businesses stay small in emerging markets
If you walk down a street in a low-income country, count the businesses you can see, you will miss many entirely. Someone who cooks at home...
S7 Ep36: Climate Change Politics in Developing Countries
A river dries up. The soil turns salty. A harvest fails. Farmers across the developing world feel climate change constantly and personally,...
S7 Ep35: Ideas in Development: Has development economics lost its way?
This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed , where you can find ever...
S7 Ep34: Why farmers struggle to adopt new agricultural technology
How many maize seeds should farmers plant in each hole? Ask the farmers and they say two or three. Agronomists can show them more reliable s...
S7 Ep33: Interpersonal violence costs the world more than war
Wars get the headlines. A civil war can wreck a country's economy and dominate its news for a decade. But if you assume war is the most cost...