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Blog post
From transport to growth corridor: Do communities benefit from the Central Railway Transit Corridor in Tanzania?
The government of Tanzania has embarked on a journey to revive the railways, through its investment in the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) on the central corridor. The 2,561 km Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) line will connect the port of Dar es Salaam to Tanzania's land-locked neighbours (Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and Eastern DR Congo). The project is estimated to cost $14.2...
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Blog post
Is the rule of law good for women? Evidence from micro-entrepreneurs in Lusaka, Zambia
The rapidly growing cities of the developing world can be an engine for private sector growth (Krugman, 1991; Glaeser, 2011). However, the positive externalities of living in urban areas become lost opportunities when people cannot safely trade with each other. This can happen either because of lack of mutual confidence or weakness in the rule of law. Across countries,...
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Blog post
IGC Quick Clicks: Where are all the female economists?
“In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders,” once said Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook. Hopefully, yes. But today, this is not true in most fields and definitely not in economics. Why is this and how can we change it? Over the last few years, we have witnessed an uproar in many parts of the world. Women have...
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Blog post
Why reliability matters in expanding access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa
It is almost a cliché to state that electricity supply is a critical infrastructure. Without it, the quest for sustained and inclusive growth is sure to falter. Yet, across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), access to this critical piece of infrastructure is limited. Currently, two in five Sub-Saharan Africans lack access to electricity (IEA, 2018) While policymakers across the...
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Blog post
Improving land security through community-based organisations
Researchers and policymakers agree that secure land rights constitute a vital pillar for sustained livelihood improvements among marginalized populations, but existing solutions have been primarily top-down in orientation. Can community-based organisations help to improve land security from the ground up? Bihar state law guarantees each rural household the right to hold...
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Blog post
Wage returns for work experience: Development and urbanisation
Globally, on average, people spend ten years in school but work for 40 years. People learn valuable skills in school and at work. Students who advance on to employment have the opportunity to continue to accumulate human capital and wage increases in relation to their work experience. In developing economies, students face obstacles in accruing such employment...
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Blog post
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...
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Blog post
Tracking constraints to micro-enterprise growth in Kenya and Uganda
Existing surveys that aim to measure and track barriers to business growth often under-represent micro-enterprises and small informal firms. Our pilot, which targeted a sample of small scale entrepreneurs in Kenya and Uganda in a survey conducted by phone, suggests that such enterprises may face a very different set of constraints to growth. This exposes a potential...
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Blog post
Management in Pakistan: Performance and conflict
Research on Pakistan offers a fascinating insight into the impact of terrorist events on the deterioration of managerial practices. The causes and consequences of the vast dispersion in productivity within and across countries has been the subject of research for decades. Recently, researchers have woken up to the important role of management practices in firms to...
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Blog post
Rethinking VAT: Making sense of Zambia’s policy U-turn on VAT
On 28 September 2018, the Zambian Minister of Finance, Margaret Mwanakatwe, in her maiden budget address to Parliament, announced a major policy change set to turn the Zambian tax system on its head. Effective April 2019, Zambia will abolish Value Added Tax (VAT) and replace it with a non-refundable sales tax. This move re-opened a policy debate: Which consumption tax is...
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What will aid and development look like under UK Prime Minister Johnson?
As the Conservative Party leadership contest draws to a close, Britain has finally seen a new Prime Minister enter the famous black door of 10 Downing Street. It’s a surprise to few that Boris Johnson has won the race to succeed Theresa May, opening a new chapter in the nation’s Brexit saga. What lies ahead for the development sector? In the 2016 referendum, Johnson...