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Are we living in unorthodox times?
How different is today’s environment for developing countries compared to a few decades ago? The second blog in this series examines four trends that will shape how countries grow and develop in the future. The most admired development strategies of the last few decades were deployed at a time of historically unprecedented global integration. Driven by both increasingly...
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Blog post
Non-price energy conservation and household energy consumption: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh
Research in Bangladesh shows that non-price energy conservation programmes can help support achieving energy efficiency especially regarding residential electricity usage. Household electricity consumption accounts for 40% of global energy related CO2 emissions and this is expected to grow globally by 58% by 2030 if no measures are introduced (Rasul & Hollywood 2012). ...
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Op-ed: Unorthodox policies for unorthodox times
From protectionism to automation to climate change, today’s global context is changing. What does this mean for the development strategies countries choose to pursue? This blog, the first in a series of five, looks at how today’s context should influence our thinking. New political forces, embracing economic ideologies that had been dormant for decades, are on the...
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Data, incentives, and relationship building for improved tax enforcement
Tax authorities in developing countries often lack the information and enforcement capacity necessary to collect adequate tax revenue. Both innovative and practical research, performed in collaboration with tax authorities, can address these constraints. The International Growth Centre (IGC) works closely with its partner governments to promote effective tax policies and...
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Fighting poverty with big data: A conversation with Joshua Blumenstock
Joshua Blumenstock is an Assistant Professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information, where he directs the Data-Intensive Development Lab, and a member of the Blum Center’s Development Engineering faculty. His research lies at the intersection of machine learning and development economics, and focuses on using novel data and methods to better understand the causes and...
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Motivating teachers in rural Zambia using a monetary incentive
As is the case in many developing countries, the achievement gap between rural and urban areas in Zambia remains substantial. For example, the share of students scoring well on the primary school leaving examinations (the Grade 7 examinations) in rural areas is about half what it is in urban areas, according to data from the Examinations Council of Zambia (ECZ). The reasons...
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Overcoming the middle-income trap: Policy priorities for Latin America
Boosting innovation, infrastructure and education policies, while improving institutions and finances can help the region reach the high-income range. During more than half a century, most Latin American countries have been unable to significantly reduce the income gap with advanced economies and breakout from the middle-income range. Since the 1970s, this gap has been...
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Evidence-based tax policy: A policymaker’s perspective
Collaborative research can play an important role in addressing the challenges that tax authorities in Africa face. IGC’s regional tax conference in Lusaka brought together tax authorities from several African countries to share their experiences and insights on using evidence in tax policy design and enforcement. Tax collection agencies across the world are facing...
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“None of the above”: Protest voting, voter turnout and electoral outcomes in India
Indian voters can vote for “none of the above” in national and state elections. This option has raised voter turnout and provides insight into the behaviour of protest voters in elections that do not have an explicit protest option. In 2013, the Indian Supreme Court set out to increase political participation with an unusual policy: it mandated the introduction of a...
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Blog post
The economic impacts of investing in rural electrification in Ghana
Ending energy poverty is recognised by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7. In Ghana, significant progress in extending electricity access across the country has been made, particularly in rural areas where access levels rose from 1% to 63% of the population between 1991 and 2014. However, evidence on the economic benefits of rural electrification projects remains...
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Is GDP an adequate measure of development?
An increasing GDP is often seen as a measure of welfare and economic success. However, it fails to account for the multi-dimensional nature of development or the inherent short-comings of capitalism, which tends to concentrate income and, thus, power. In this blog post, André Castro and Manish Prasad, make a case for using alternate measures of development such as the...