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Project
Electricity as a growth constraint for small and medium enterprises in Bihar state, India
The reliability and access to electricity remain a challenge across much of rural India despite rapidly growing grid electrification rates. Small and medium-sized firms represent one-third of businesses in low-income countries but are also the most vulnerable to bad electric supply. A study conducted in four rural Indian states found that only 65% of firms are connected to...
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Project
Do bureaucrats acculturate? Evidence from a long-running natural experiment in India
This project explores the extent cultural norms around corruption and inaction are adopted over time by bureaucrats. By utilising the random assignment of elite bureaucrats to states with varying cultures of corruption and inaction, the team studies how the bureaucrat’s environment influences their preferences, values, and behaviour. Inaction and corruption of...
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Project
The impact of COVID-19 on Ethiopia’s industrial parks: A rapid review
Over the past decade, the government of Ethiopia has pursued a strategy of labour-intensive industrialisation through export-oriented light manufacturing. The strategy is predicated on the use of low-cost labour as a source of competitive advantage within global value chains. For this purpose, the government has encouraged large-scale foreign direct investment (FDI) in the...
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Project
Policy options for Government of Myanmar to provide economic support to households in response to COVID-19
Myanmar has already experienced significant economic impacts as a result of COVID-19, due to both domestic and international effects. Some areas of the economy have been particularly badly affected, such as tourism, manufacturing, and remittances. Going forward, there remains a high level of uncertainty about the development of the pandemic in Myanmar and around the world,...
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Project
Improving state capacity to target extreme poverty: An evaluation of a randomised intervention in Bangladesh
Scarce resources for social transfers and public services tend to be misallocated where they are needed the most – in developing countries. To improve the allocation, most existing impact evaluations have focused on monitoring, incentives and accountability; and they have largely ignored that local government representatives responsible for selecting beneficiaries of...
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Project
Herself and her children: How worse off are they? Impact of COVID-19 in rural Bihar
COVID-19 has created a perfect storm for global malnutrition. The crisis is expected to adversely affect the nutritional status of households—particularly vulnerable groups like women, children and aged—through livelihood and income losses related to government-mandated shutdowns and de-globalisation, freezing of food transfer schemes such as school feeding programs,...
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Project
Mapping urban pandemic risk hotspots and overcrowding in Rwanda
As Rwanda's COVID-19 count enters a period of relative stability due to a highly effective public health response, policymakers are turning their attention to the best way to lift social-distancing restrictions in a manner that allows businesses and social engagements to resume while simultaneously ensuring adequate public health. Key questions for the government in...
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Project
Networks, livelihoods and well-being in a pandemic: A panel study using matched husband-wife-friends data in urban India
Nearly 80% of all workers in India are daily wage earners or self-employed in the informal sector (ILO, 2018), a challenge in the path to inclusive development in the country. These workers constitute a large and particularly vulnerable section of India's population, especially in urban areas, that has no access to public safety nets and is highly susceptible to loss of...
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Project
The impacts of COVID-19 in the Amhara National Regional State
Since Ethiopia’s first case of COVID-19 on 13 March 2020, the number of confirmed cases displayed a steady but manageable increase until the end of June 2020. Nevertheless, the country has witnessed a sharp spike in the number of confirmed cases and deaths in July 2020, and it is difficult to determine which side of the peak Ethiopia is on. However, there is enough...
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Project
Harnessing the power of electronic fiscal devices
Low tax compliance is a major challenge in most developing countries, including Zambia. Many governments have adopted a Value Added Tax (VAT) to increase tax revenues and VAT is now responsible for up to a quarter of total revenues in developing countries (Keen, 2016). The key benefit of VAT is that it is self-enforcing along the supply chain. Firms have a financial...
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...