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Firm-level technology adoption and investment in training
In developing countries, firms produce using technologies farther away from the frontier, and workers have lower education and formal training. It has long been argued that skills and technology are complementary (see, for example, Foster and Rosenzweig 1996). As a result, the lower skill endowment of workers may reduce the incentives of firms to invest in technology, and...
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Project
State support for the agricultural sector in the EAC
As the members of the East African Community (EAC) negotiate the harmonisation of their domestic and border tax policies, agriculture and food security remain among the prioritised key areas of cooperation. Given the vital role of the agricultural sector and the importance of improving food security in EAC countries, policymakers face strong political incentives to consider...
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Monitoring emerging small towns in Tanzania: A ‘proof of concept’
Tanzania’s President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG) worries that many Emerging Small Towns (ESTs) in the country are still officially recognised as rural locations. Estimates indicate that there may be as many as 800 ESTs. PO-RALG has identified the lack of accurate and timely information on ESTs as a major obstacle to sound policy...
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Demand-driven, private sector enforcement of labour law in Bangladesh
Global supply chains often extend into weak states with limited social and environmental regulations and with little formal enforcement of existing regulations. Integration into global supply chains provides benefits to firms and workers in these countries (Tanaka, 2016; Atkin et al., 2016). But lack of regulation and lack of enforcement of existing regulation also carry...
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Job portals and labour market frictions
The constraints to the growth of medium-sized firms is a question of great policy relevance given their large role in the economies of developing countries. Academic research holds that the dearth of adequately skilled workers is an important factor limiting firm growth (IGC 2014). More recent empirical work (Hardy and McCasland, 2015) suggests that labour market frictions...
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Cost effective panel data collection
Context and primary motivation for the study The urban literature on developing country cities is still growing. One of the major constraints, however, is access to good quality data. Existing data sources are often costly or difficult to get, frequently do not measure prices, are not individual specific, do not allow for tracking of individuals, and are available...
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Supplement to training for productivity: Reform ideas and mechanisms
The Training for Productivity (TFP) project aims to improve the Ghanaian Civil Service’s capacity by designing, implementing and evaluating novel training methods for bureaucrats. The training programme will be experimentally implemented as part of broader package of training sessions coordinated by the Office of the Head of Civil Service and the Civil Service Training...
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How to increase the adoption of civil service reform? The role of training and incentives
Many developing countries suffer from ineffective public service delivery. A growing literature sheds light on reforms which can improve public service quality. For instance, existing studies focus on showing how performance‐based incentives can improve the performance of frontline civil servants working in health facilities, schools, or collecting taxes. Also, a large...
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Maternal Mortality in Urban and Rural Tanzania
Maternal mortality in Tanzania has risen and is now increasingly urban. This project will explore in greater depth the reasons for the persistence and deterioration of maternal mortality outcomes, as well as the geographic inequities observed despite the introduction of several interventions at the community and at the facility levels. If cities are argued to be hubs of...
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Government demand and firm performance: New evidence for sub-Saharan African Countries
This project seeks to analyse the role of public procurement as a determinant of firm performance in developing countries. Public procurement is increasingly being employed as an industrial policy tool by East African countries (and developing countries more generally) searching to upgrade domestic industrial capabilities and spur innovation while promoting sustainable...
Project
The social and economic impacts of electrification: Evidence from Kenya
In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 600 million people live without electricity. This study analyses the economics of rural electrification through a randomised field experiment that connected hundreds of rural households to the national electrical grid in Kenya. The experiment reveals low demand for grid connections, high costs of construction, and limited economic...