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Blog post
Land reform, redistribution, and risk: Towards an inclusive South Africa
At the end of February 2018, a motion was put forward by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a far-left opposition party, to revisit South Africa’s Constitution and amend it to allow for land expropriation without compensation. This motion was successfully passed, and subsequent public hearings across the country confirmed that there was resounding support from the...
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IGC Quick Clicks: How will technology impact the future of work?
Did you know that once upon a time in the UK there was a designated person, often a night watchman or ‘knock upper’, to wake people up every morning? Then came alarms and two centuries later, mobile phones – with them the job of ‘knock upper’ died. These and many other ‘machines’ have slowly made previously staple jobs redundant. Technology has been changing...
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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...
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Blog post
From roads to regulation: Realistic transport reform in Greater Kampala
Across developing cities, transportation is struggling to keep up with rapid population growth. Transport systems that are supposed to connect individuals to jobs, services, and markets have limited reach and low capacity. Land allocated to roads in sub-Saharan African cities, for example, is around a third of that in cities in other parts of the world (Collier and Venables...
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Who are William Nordhaus and Paul Romer? And why did they win the Nobel prize in economics?
The latest on the Nobel prize in economics. The basics: Who are they? William Nordhaus of Yale University is a pioneer in the economics of climate change. He won for his work on integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic models. Paul Romer of NYU Stern won for his work on the endogenous growth model and his emphasis on the integration of technological...
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World’s first development impact bond
About three years ago, an experiment in the financing and delivery of a programme aimed at increasing girls’ school enrollment and achievement began in Rajasthan, India. In this rural area, where agriculture is the main form of subsistence, one in 10 girls aged 11-14 are kept out of school, for reasons such as contributing to the family income or caring for siblings. A...
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Revisiting the balance of payments and the fiscal deficit
Countries left-and-right are battling fiscal crises. Have we been too stringent, or not enough? This last blog in a series thinks about how fiscal policy might look different in unorthodox times. A prudent fiscal stance and a healthy balance of payments have been standard prescriptions for emerging economies. Manageable debts and a slim deficit keep macroeconomic crises...
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IGC Quick Click: On trade wars and the aftermath of the financial crisis
With so many interesting and important economic events happening in the world, we, at the IGC, thought we would have a go at summarising the debate on key interesting (yes, they exist) and topical economic issues. We aim to put together links to enlightening blogs and papers from a diversity of sources that will explain the various aspects of a topic/event or the different...
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Incentivising school attendance in Mozambique: Reports or cash transfers?
An enormous effort has been made by governments the world over to incentivise parents to ensure that their children attend school regularly. In developing countries, in particular, arguably the most significant innovation in social policy in the past few decades has been the introduction of conditional cash transfers made to parents to incentivise a number of prescribed...
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Rethinking traditional structural transformation
How much will the old patterns of economic growth explain the experience of tomorrow’s growing economies? While the evolution of an economy into different sectors is a natural process of development, the fourth blog in this series examines how the composition of growth could look very different in the future. The shift of labour from the countryside into higher...
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AfCFTA: Africa is moving too slowly towards economic integration
Africa’s quest for a single market dates back to the establishment of the Organisation of African Union (OAU) in 1963. The OAU, which brought together Africa’s newly independent nations, had at its heart intra-Africa economic integration. In fact, it aimed to emulate Europe by creating an African Economic Community, encompassing a single market and a customs union. In...