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Blog post
Reopening schools too early could spread COVID-19 even faster – especially in the developing world
Low-income countries face a very different set of circumstances to high-income countries when it comes to reopening schools after lockdown. In developing countries, adults and the elderly generally have more contact with children than those in advanced economies. A new study predicts that delaying school openings could save lives. According to the latest UNESCO...
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Blog post
Property taxes in a pandemic world
While increasing demands are being placed on cities to address the current crisis and plan for resilience in the future, key sources of city government revenues are drying up. Taxes based on the value of land and/or property offer extraordinary potential for cities in financing urban recovery, but crucial to this is raising tax morale through visible investments in...
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Blog post
Ideas Matter: What is stopping developing countries from taxing more?
Public finance – government revenue and expenditure – is crucial for redistribution and inclusive growth. The information scarce environment and a large informal sector make it difficult for developing countries to raise revenue through taxation. Virtually every country in the world taxes their populations. But, some do so more successfully than others. Most developing...
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Blog post
Rental markets for mechanisation in India: Trends and current state
Agricultural landholdings and mechanisation levels vary considerably in the developing world. Whether smaller farmers adopt lower levels of mechanisation because returns to adoption are lower, or because there are barriers to adoption that are particularly detrimental to them remains unclear. Our project aims at estimating the impact of access to equipment rental markets on...
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Blog post
Economics’ racial reckoning: A discipline that studies inequality confronts its own
Economics has been a hostile environment for minorities. It is now high time for it to address its systemic biases and pave the way for a more equitable future, within the profession and beyond. There are events in history that cause us to disrupt our lives and thinking by rightly pushing us to pause and reflect. In 2018, the economics profession was spurred into action...
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Blog post
Impact of COVID-19 on public transport
Public transport has been hit hard by COVID-19. With ridership significantly down, operators in developing cities will have to face difficult questions for their future viability. The appropriate response must plan for contingencies, but never forget the value of shared transit in the process of economic development. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, cities across...
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Blog post
Ideas Matter: Improving private sector performance
Unleashing the potential of the private sector in developing countries is critical to achieving productive job creation and inclusive growth. Productivity growth - increasing how much output is realised from a given amount of inputs - is one of the main contributors to economic development (Caselli, 2004, Hall and Jones, 1999). One reason for productivity in developing...
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Blog post
COVID-19 and the willingness to vaccinate: Evidence from India
Vaccination is one of the success stories in modern day medicine and seen by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a key element of the response to the current pandemic. While billions are poured into a vaccine’s development and tackling supply difficulties, policymakers should prepare for the next challenges: compliance and ability to pay. One of the most, if not the...
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Blog post
Why COVID-19 offers the perfect opportunity to remove fuel subsidies
April 2020 recorded the lowest oil price (USD 21/barrel of oil) in 18 years. This was driven by a lack of demand due to low economic activity worldwide. This temporary season of low oil prices presents an opportune moment for countries to remove inefficient fuel subsidies and reduce the knock-on effect to citizens. This reform also provides developing country governments...
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Blog post
Rethinking regulations: Informal settlements in the time of COVID-19
Informal settlements, given their high densities and lacking water and sanitation infrastructure, are potential hotspots for the spread of pandemics like COVID-19. To remedy this, upgrading informal settlements will be essential. However, for long term resilience, we need to tackle the regulatory challenges that keep formal housing prices unattainable for the urban...
Blog post
Power planning in fragile and conflict-affected states
Traditional methods of energy planning are likely to provide results that may be inappropriate in fragile and conflict-affected countries. The risks of violence and damage, significant delays and cancellations in infrastructure projects, or projects coming in at very high cost, are rife in these states. Security issues can significantly hamper, or make infeasible, the...