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Blog post
How transport reforms have impacted urban connectivity in Kenya
For this third blog in our series on Chinese and African urbanisation, we explore how transport reforms have affected the delivery of urban connectivity infrastructure in Kenya, and how this compares with the different growth experiences of Chinese cities. Early investment in transportation has been a fundamental feature of China’s relatively successful urban and...
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Blog post
The compliance challenge: Raising property tax revenues in Kampala
Property taxes are an important potential source of revenue for cities. Faced with limited municipal revenues and rapidly growing populations, taxes on the value of land and property can offer a significant source of funding for cities to provide local services and to tap into financing for larger investments. Recent improvements to the tax administration system in Kampala...
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Blog post
Tax reforms to support an equitable and pro-poor recovery in developing countries
The COVID-19 pandemic has strained government finances. To address these fiscal challenges and support growth, policymakers will need to mobilise revenue in a way that encourages an inclusive recovery. Tax policy will therefore need to be innovative, efficient and equitable. Across the globe, pandemic containment efforts and disbursal of economic and health support...
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Blog post
A delicate balance: How to harness regional integration and industrial policy for economic transformation in Africa
Two powerful drivers of economic transformation, industrial policy and regional integration, can be friends or foes. Africa’s economic prospects will be profoundly shaped by their relationship. One of the key factors shaping industrialisation in Africa this decade (and beyond) will be the relationship between regional integration and industrial policy. Both are...
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Blog post
Collective action for environmental health: Evidence from sanitation in rural India
Access to and sustained use of improved household latrines have long been both a challenge as well as a policy priority in India, particularly in rural areas. Recognising the importance of social mechanisms that underlie household sanitation choices, this study utilises experimental games conducted in rural Bihar and Odisha, to examine how social factors, such as gender,...
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Blog post
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ စိုက်ပျိုးရေးတန်ဖိုးကွင်းဆက်အတွက် ငွေကြေးဖြည့်ဆည်းပံ့ပိုးမှု တိုးတက် ကောင်းမွန်စေရေး မူဝါဒများ
ငွေရေးကြေးရေးဝန်ဆောင်မှုများသည် စိုက်ပျိုးရေးကဏ္ဍရှိ ကုန်ထုတ်စွမ်းအားနှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုး တက်မှုတို့ကို တွန်းအားပေးနိုင်သော...
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Blog post
Agricultural value chain finance can help drive Myanmar’s agricultural growth
Surrounded by some of the largest consumer markets in the world, at the nexus of important trade routes, and with its own growing consumer markets, Myanmar has tremendous potential as an agricultural producer. Yet one persistent obstacle is the agricultural sector’s lack of access to financial services, which can drive productivity and growth. Myanmar’s financial...
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Blog post
The conundrum around India’s new agricultural reforms: Where do farmers stand?
While the recent agricultural reforms in India have been hailed by some experts as a much-needed move towards privatisation and liberalisation of the sector, there is also a concern amongst some that the opening up of the agricultural market may also lead to corporate cartelisation. Additionally, critics have pointed out the procedural inadequacy of the reforms and how many...
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Blog post
Housing in Hawassa: How to accommodate migrant labour in industrialising cities
Lessons from China might inform urbanisation and industrialisation in Ethiopia, including labour rights and housing policies within an expanding manufacturing market. As we discuss in the first blog of this China-Africa series, urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa has so far not been accompanied by a process of industrialisation, contrasting with the development...
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Blog post
What a rapidly urbanising Africa can learn from China’s experience
The parallels between Africa and China’s urbanisation trajectories could offer policymakers potential policy design lessons to learn from. For example, some of China’s recent successes in managing urbanisation, if adequately adapted to the unique and diverse African context, could potentially help the continent’s burgeoning city growth become more sustainable and...
Blog post
Diversifying economics: Resources for Black and other underrepresented minorities
This post has been updated recently on 14 October, 2021. Over 2011-2017, the top 20 economic departments in the US awarded PhDs to only 15 Black students. In 2017, only 0.6% of the doctorates in economics and 2% of the undergraduate degrees in economics awarded in the US went to Black women. The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently found that Black economists in the UK...