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Improving labour market efficiency in Ghana: A field experiment
The labour market in Ghana is largely characterised by informal recruitment practices. While these practices are not inherently bad, the scale at which they occur reduces the information flow and competitiveness in the recruitment process, obstructing the efficiency of the labour market in matching vacancies to more suitable candidates. According to the World Economic...
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Project
Neighbourhoods of opportunity? Moving to public housing in Addis Ababa
Governments all over the world use housing assistance programmes to improve the living standards of the poor. In Ethiopia, like many developing countries today, these programmes take the form of large-scale household estates built in new neighbourhoods by the government and then given away either at subsidised prices or for free. These programmes may directly improve the...
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Tracking multi-sectoral firm performance and responses through the COVID-19 pandemic
COVID-19 is estimated to cut Ghana’s GDP growth by at least 5.3% in 2020 bringing the country’s expected GDP growth to about 1.5%. The Ghanaian economy is highly exposed to global shocks with trade accounting for over 71% of the country’s GDP in 2018. However, very little is known about exactly how the pandemic and the measures to contain the spread of the virus...
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Transforming agriculture through innovations in output markets in Ghana
This research project seeks to understand how improved markets for commodities can transform the agricultural value chain from farmers and farming systems to firms and purchasing and planning systems. Firms operating in environments with erratic supplies of agricultural commodities face high implicit transaction costs in operations. Firms that use commodities as inputs also...
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Cash and compliance with social distancing: Experimental evidence from Ghana
Due to high population density, difficulty in enforcing compliance with social distancing and self-isolation, and economic vulnerability, the COVID-19 pandemic may be especially devastating for households in African countries. This project aims to understand the role that cash transfers can play as a policy tool both to increase household resilience during the pandemic...
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Do endorsements by traditional leaders affect voter attitudes?
Traditional leaders or chiefs are believed to wield significant influence on their subjects' civic engagement, political participation, and vote choice. Scholars argue that the source of their legitimacy – historical socio-cultural customs – and subjects' trust and reverence enable them to help elected officials mobilise citizens to contribute their labour to community...
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Network measure of bottlenecks in Ugandan firms markets
In Uganda, several supply-chains are characterised by a structure of a few very large firms and a large fringe of small firms (Spray and Wolf, 2017). These large firms anchor the economy together by providing a focal point for supply-chains to operate around. Without these anchor firms, output would drop substantially. On the other hand, these firms could exploit their...
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The impact of early-stage resource acquisition: a randomised field experiment in Morocco
In many places, entrepreneurship is a vital process for job creation, economic growth, and the development of novel solutions to pressing social and environmental problems. Most of the research into entrepreneurship has examined the United States and European settings, along with select Asian countries (China and India). We understand very little about entrepreneurship in...
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Responsive policymaking in Pakistan: Decision-making around infrastructure in Balochistan
IGC Pakistan is supporting the Government of Balochistan (GoB) in developing the contours of a spatial strategy to guide the province's budgetary allocations and development priorities while reflecting Balochistan’s needs and strengths. A previous IGC study has helped set the context for a new framework for growth in Balochistan based on a spatial and data-driven approach...
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Project
Gender discrimination in access to capital: Experimental evidence from Ethiopian SGBs
Access to capital is widely considered a key accelerator for business productivity and growth. Gender discrimination against entrepreneurs, who form the largest sector of the labor force in sub-Saharan Africa, may drive gender gaps in access to capital and subsequently reduce the performance of female-owned businesses. This raises concerns about both gender equity and...
Project
Female politicians and economic growth: Evidence from state elections in India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS7YtrR2yjU&feature=emb_logo The project studies close elections between men and women for election to India's state legislative assemblies. It finds significantly higher growth in economic activity in constituencies that elect women. Given average GDP growth in India of about 7% per year (during the study period), the researchers...