David Lagakos
David Lagakos is a Lead Academic for IGC Ghana.
David Lagakos is an Associate Professor of Economics at Boston University. He received his Ph.D in economics from UCLA. He has previously held positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis as well as UC San Diego and Arizona State University, and is currently a research associate with the Economic Fluctuations and Growth Group at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research focuses on macroeconomic and growth theory. Much of his recent work examines productivity, particularly as it relates to agriculture and developing economies, as well as human capital.
Content by David Lagakos
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Blog post
The promise and pitfall of technology: Evidence from tax collection in Ghana
Information technology (IT) systems are potentially transformative tools to increase local tax capacities. However, they must be carefully designed not only to increase tax collection but to minimise unintended outcomes. From a field experiment in Ghana, we find that technology improves local tax collection by expanding the effective tax base and improving compliance....
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Publication - Policy Brief
Real-time economic impacts of COVID-19 in Ghana
To better inform policy decisions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, this project collected high-frequency data and produced economic indicators in real-time during the crisis. We focused on two economic indicators: weekly urban employment statistics and monthly electricity usage. Employment statistics are calculated based on weekly online surveys and electricity...
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Blog post
Women's employment during the pandemic in Ghana: A tale of vulnerability and resilience
Women have traditionally been more vulnerable in the labour market, more underrepresented and the nature of their employment less secure. While the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to contain it hit women's employment the hardest, they were also the more resilient and rebounded much faster than men. Editor’s note: This article is part of our International Women’s...
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Project
Measuring the economic situation in Ghana in real time during COVID-19
In response to the worldwide spread of COVID-19, the government of Ghana had to take unprecedented policy measures. Because of the rapid spread of the virus, policymakers are required to adjust their goals frequently, reflecting changing circumstances and private sector's responses to policies. This project aimed at providing real-time information to policymakers in Ghana...
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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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Publication - Policy Brief
Protecting lives and livelihoods during the COVID-19 pandemic by shielding elderly populations
Blanket lockdowns have proven to be unsustainable, particularly in developing countries. This brief examines how age-targeted policy measures could keep economies largely open while shielding the elderly and others with underlying health conditions. We find that in the presence of large informal sectors, limited fiscal space, and large numbers of households living...
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Publication - Working Paper
How should policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic differ in the developing world?
The COVID-19 pandemic has already led to dramatic policy responses in most advanced economies, and in particular sustained lockdowns matched with sizeable transfers to much of the workforce. This paper provides a preliminary quantitative analysis of how aggregate policy responses should differ in developing countries. To do so we build an incomplete-markets...
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Project
Building tax capacity at scale: Evidence from technology investments in Ghana
Increased capacity to collect taxes leads to the funding of public goods which have high returns and contributes to the wider state-development process (Schumpeter, 1918; Besley and Persson, 2010). At the heart of any strong tax system lies the ability to accurately observe economic activities and use this information as inputs into an efficient billing, collection, and...
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Publication - Project Report
Harnessing technology to exorcise ghosts
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Project
Harnessing technology to exorcise ghosts
Ghana, as a developing country, has always been strapped of resources to promote growth and development. Revenue mobilised has never been sufficient for taking care of recurrent expenditure, and therefore the country has had to rely heavily on external grants and loans to support development projects. A closer look at the budget of the Government of Ghana shows that much...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Improving local government tax collection capacity: Evidence from Ghana
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Data Item
Data: The agricultural productivity gap in developing countries
According to national accounts data for developing countries, value added per worker is on average four times higher in the non-agriculture sector than in agriculture. Taken at face value this “agricultural productivity gap” suggests that labor is greatly misallocated across sectors in the developing world. In this paper we draw on new micro evidence to ask to what...
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Publication - Project Report
Survey of local government revenue mobilisation capacity in Ghana, 2017: Summary and policy implications
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Project
Guidance on 'One-District, One Factory'
Ghana has begun an ambitious policy of building one new factory in each of its 216 districts. This study provides guidance on which types of factories would be most viable in each district. The study concludes that several unexploited primary resources exist in almost each district, and highlights the challenges districts are likely to face when trying to process...
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Publication - Project Report
Manufacturing capabilities in Ghana’s districts: A guidebook for “One District One Factory”
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Blog post
The macroeconomic benefits of increasing tax enforcement in Pakistan
In Pakistan, increased tax enforcement may be a more effective way to raise revenues than increased tax rates, given the large share of informal employment. This could in turn increase GDP due to increased government investment capacity. Goods and taxes Like most developing countries, Pakistan has a comprehensive set of statutory taxes that firms are required to pay on a...
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Publication - Project Report
The macroeconomic benefits of tax enforcement in Pakistan
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Publication - Project Report
The role of energy capital in accounting for Africa’s recent growth resurgence
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Publication - Working Paper
Rural electrification, migration, and structural transformation: Evidence from Ethiopia
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Project
Improving tax collection capacity in the developing world: Evidence from local government in Ghana
In most developing countries, tax collection capacity remains inadequately low. Nowhere is the lack of tax collection capacity more apparent than in local governments, which collect a negligible fraction of local income in taxes (Gordon, 2010). As a result, local governments provide inadequately low levels of public goods - such as roads, schools and electricity - which are...
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Project
Taxation, misallocation and development
Why are there so few large, productive firms in the developing world? To what extent is weak fiscal capacity a constraint on firm productivity and economic growth? This project seeks to answer these questions using a mix of new micro evidence and quantitative theory.
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Project
Rural electrification, migration and structural transformation: Evidence from Ethiopia
Electrification and industrialisation of developing economies are closely linked. This study assessed whether electrification of rural areas can help to induce structural economic transformation, and whether it has an effect on in-country migration patterns. We found that Ethiopia’s rural electrification policies led to structural transformation of village...
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Publication - Working Paper
The Agricultural Productivity Gap in Developing Countries (Working Paper)
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Publication - Policy Brief
The Agricultural Productivity Gap in Developing Countries (Policy Brief)
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Project
The Agricultural Productivity Gap in Developing Countries
This study seeks to understand why, in most developing countries, measured value added per worker is so much lower in agriculture than in other sectors of the economy. Simple two-sector models predict that value added per worker should be equal in agriculture and “non-agriculture,” and yet in the average developing country, national accounts data show that value added...