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Women as agents of change: How has women’s political mobilisation restructured political networks and changed local governance?
The structure of political networks and relationships have consequences for how communities are governed; for the quality of public schools, the construction of infrastructure, and the fairness of access to public benefits. Political networks in Bihar, India vary across the state and are in transition from traditional clientelist relationships and caste-based identities...
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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
Fostering adoption and productive use of electricity in rural Rwanda
More than 700 million people worldwide lack access to electricity, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, which hosts more than 70% of the world’s non-electrified population. To reach the United Nations’ SDG 7 (Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all) by 2030, a big electrification push in Africa is needed. Rural electrification programs,...
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Economic impacts of COVID-19 on workers and firms in Bangladesh's garment sector
The COVID-19 pandemic is striking the global apparel value chain extremely hard from multiple directions. Apparel sectors in developing countries, which play critical roles in these countries’ industrialisation and economic growth, are arguably most vulnerable to this shock. In Bangladesh, where the apparel sector constitutes more than 80% of exports, the Bangladesh...
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Gauging the impact of land-use regulation in developing countries
Cities in all countries of the world engage in the regulation of land-use. There is evidence that many cities restrict building heights. In doing so, they constrain office and housing supply, thus raising office and housing costs, and reducing productivity and welfare. While such regulations may have major consequences for urban poverty, there is little data on how they...
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Project
Land governance and urban development in India
The structure of urban governance in cities is arguably a central determinant of the modality of urban growth in developing countries. Urban governance determines whether cities will be dense or sprawling, what kinds of firms they will attract, the cost of living, and whether they will produce an adequate supply of housing or leave huge populations living in urban slums....
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Improving the effectiveness of formal housing delivery in Tanzania
A key policy instrument to improve Africa's stock of urban housing is the provision of surveyed, titled, and serviced de-novo plots in greenfield areas, on which residents build houses. These plots, known as "de novo" are advocated to solve coordination problems in contexts with weak institutions and rapid, haphazard, and unorganized growth (Romer 2012; Angel 2012; Bryan et...
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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,...
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...