Stefan Dercon
Stefan Dercon is Professor of Economic Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and the Economics Department, and a Fellow of Jesus College, at the University of Oxford. He is also Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies.
Between 2011 and 2017, he was Chief Economist of the Department of International Development (DFID), the government department in charge with the UK’s aid policy and spending. In this position, he provided strategic advice, and was responsible for ensuring the use of evidence in decision making.
Before joining the University of Oxford, he held positions at the University of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), the Catholic University of Leuven, and WIDER (Helsinki), part of the United Nations University.
Content by Stefan Dercon
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Publication - Working Paper
The determinants and implications of worker turnover in a nascent industry
In this paper we analyse the determinants of turnover in the Ethiopian garment industry. We find suggestive evidence that turnover is costly for both workers and firms. To increase turnover we conduct a pilot field experiment. We compare the effect of a retention bonus schemes and an unconditional bonus payment on worker retention. Surprisingly, we find no statistically...
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Publication - Working Paper
The rental market in an industrialising city: Working paper
In this paper we present new descriptive evidence from a unique survey of landlords carried out in the industrialising city of Hawassa, Ethiopia. In 2017, Hawassa saw the creation of a large industrial park employing today over 20,000 workers. We show that the rental market appears to be fairly competitive: most of the rental housing is offered by private landlords who own...
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Publication - Policy Brief
The rental market in an industrialising city
A key policy objective of the Ethiopian government is to accelerate industrialisation through the creation of several industrial parks across the country. An ongoing IGC project in Hawassa Industrial Park shows the role of housing shortages and rental prices in triggering worker absenteeism and turnover. We conduct quantitative surveys to explore the housing market...
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Publication - Policy Brief
R&D, Manufacturing and Delivery of Vaccines: A Global Deal in the Fight Against COVID-19
Given the massive uncertainty surrounding how COVID-19 will play out in terms of health outcomes as well as economic and social outcomes, policymaking is as hard as it can possibly be. Measures that are sensible at the time they are taken may prove highly costly and ineffective in retrospect. No-regret policies are those that are worth doing now regardless of which...
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Project
Industrialisation and urbanisation
Ethiopia is a fast-growing low-income country with an expanding manufacturing sector. A key policy objective of the government of Ethiopia is to accelerate industrialisation through the creation of several industrial parks across the country. The parks are designed to offer high-quality government services and infrastructure (including a reliable energy supply), access to a...
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Publication - Policy paper
Can Africa learn from the Chinese urbanisation story?
This paper provides a framework to understand the similarities and differences between Africa’s current urbanisation pathway and the path China has taken over the last 30 years. A major difference is that Africa’s urbanisation to date has not been associated with anywhere near the same gains in productivity and poverty reduction that have been seen in China. Instead,...
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Data Item
Data: Economic impact of urban property rights in Tanzania: The role of infrastructure
While multiple studies have shown that a woman’s control over land is positively associated with bargaining power outcomes, few have succeeded in highlighting successful methods for increasing this control. We report on a policy experiment in an unplanned settlement in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that provided access to formal land titles to informal settlers at randomized...
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Project
Understanding Industrial Parks
Ethiopia has recently launched an ambitious programme of industrialisation. The government of this fast-growing, densely populated country hopes to attract foreign investment in its brand-new industrial parks by offering a large workforce, competitive wages, cheap electricity and good infrastructure. Several garment factories have already started production in the...
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Project
A study of the constraints to civil servant productivity in Ethiopia
Our understanding of the drivers of productivity in the public sector is limited, despite a high proportion of national income being spent through the state in many developing countries. Researchers surveyed civil servants across different levels of government in Ethiopia to assess the link between incentives and productivity in the country’s public sector. They...
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Project
Impact of property rights in urban Tanzania: the role of infrastructure
Formalising land rights is one market-based tool to alleviate poverty, thought to reduce expropriation risk, encourage investment and, by enabling the collateral value of land, giving property owners increased access to credit. Despite these assumptions, few studies have examined the impact of property rights interventions in urban areas, particularly in Sub-Saharan...
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Project
Economic Impact of Urban Property Rights in Tanzania: The Role of Infrastructure
Formalising land rights is thought to reduce expropriation risk, encourage investment and, by enabling the collateral value of land, giving property owners increased access to credit. Despite these assumptions, few studies have examined the impact of property rights interventions in urban areas, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, while formal land titling is...
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Project
Drought and informal insurance groups: A randomised intervention of index-based rainfall insurance in rural Ethiopia
The Ethiopian economy is still predominantly dependent on rain-fed agriculture. Drought is a common occurrence, and financial markets, especially those offering insurance, are underdeveloped. The costs of such uninsured risk are high, from immediate welfare losses for farmers to the discouragement of innovation and investment in modern technologies. Crop insurance is one...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Is land titling feasible in Tanzania's low-income urban areas? (Policy Brief)
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Publication - Working Paper
Slum-Upgrading in Tanzania: Public Infrastructure and Private Property Rights (Working Paper)
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Publication - Working Paper
The price of empowerment (Working Paper)
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Publication - Policy Brief
The price of empowerment: can land titling programmes be gender-inclusive? (Policy Brief)
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Project
An experimental study of pro-poor growth: factories and wage work versus self-employment
Industrial development is clearly growth-promoting, but is this growth “pro-poor”? Given the absence of industrial development from the aid and policy agenda (namely achievement of the Millennium Development Goals), many governments and aid agencies seem to implicitly believe that industrial work is not pro-poor. This belief constrains policy innovation in industrial...
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Project
Agricultural Productivity Trends in Tanzania: A View from National Household and Farm Survey Data
The role of agriculture in economic growth and the wider structural transformation of Tanzania is a key concern for policy-makers. This paper tries to understand time trends in agricultural productivity. The main finding is that the most important source of consumption growth in Tanzania between 1991 and 2007 has been structural change, i.e. people moving out of...
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Project
Agricultural Productivity and Rural-Urban Migration in Tanzania
The role of agriculture in economic growth and the wider structural transformation of Tanzania is a key concern for policy makers. Understanding whether the main driver of rural income growth lies in productivity growth within agriculture itself or through the growth of off-farm activities is particularly important in countries like Tanzania, where 80% of its residents...