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Exploring interactions between national and local government taxes in Uganda
One key concern reported by taxpayers and tax authorities in Uganda is ‘double taxation’ on different sources of income from local and national revenue authorities. One example is rental income in Kampala city, which is taxed both by the Uganda Revenue Authority through rental income tax, and by the Kampala Capital City Authority in the form of property rates. Not only...
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Electrifying growth in Sierra Leone: Energy access for productive use
In Sierra Leone, just 26% of the total population and only 6% of the rural population have access to electricity. Without electricity, 83% of rural households cook mainly using wood, resulting in deforestation, and health centres and schools not functioning effectively and efficiently. Researchers are working with the United Nations Office for Project Service and...
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Women's mobility, job search, and employment: Follow-up evidence from a randomised control trial
Unemployment and economically inactive people are one of the biggest challenges facing urban labour markets in low-income countries. In South Asian cities, this pattern is more pronounced across gender lines with women less likely than men to participate in the labour market, even at relatively high levels of education. This project investigates the constraints on women’s...
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Countering Islamic radicalisation in northern Mozambique: Radio campaigning and adolescent sensitisation in religious schools
In recent years, major global violent conflicts have happened in Muslim-majority countries. Of these conflicts, a substantial and increasing share has been related to Islamist insurgents. However, the process of radicalisation and the effectiveness of measures to counteract it are widely understudied. Northern Mozambique is where a substantial discovery of natural gas took...
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Countering COVID-19: Real-time data from Pakistan
The on-going pandemic put a strain on the developed economy with a sharp collapse of GDP and mounting unemployment. Simultaneously, the fragile socio-economic structure of low and middle-income countries are extremely vulnerable to the pandemic's effects. Amongst the many constraints that local authorities face in responding to the pandemic, these countries have few...
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COVID-19 and the value of relationships in informal economies
Governments in many developing countries have put in place restrictions to economic activity and mobility to curb the spread of the coronavirus. This is true also in Uganda, where public transport and non-essential businesses were closed from early April to June. While firms were closed, there were reports of workers leaving cities and traveling back to their home villages....
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Spatial analysis of firm productivity in Ghana: Misallocation versus market power
There is mounting evidence, especially for developing countries, that resources are often not allocated to their optimal use. This manifests itself in a failure of first-order conditions to hold, such that the marginal (social) benefit of a production factor is not equated to its marginal cost. Such misallocation is often interpreted as resulting from frictions or market...
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Estimating income losses and consequences of the COVID-19 crisis in Uganda
COVID-19 continues to take its toll on the world and more recently, the African continent. While the continent still accounts for fewer cases or deaths, in cities such as Uganda the incidence of the disease has risen sharply. Uganda is not new to infectious diseases and has successfully battled outbreaks of Ebola, Marburg and even HIV/AIDS. Whilst COVID-19 has relatively...
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Charting Pakistan’s air quality policy landscape
An IGC Evidence Paper on Energy & Environment (Dec 2019) states that human productivity drops by 6% on average on polluted days. It further lists Pakistanis among those severely exposed to PM2.5, one of the most harmful air pollutants. Moreover, the IGC's work on air pollution indicates that developing countries struggle to enforce environmental regulations, leading to...
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Project
Salience and accessibility of disaster risk information in Mozambique
Mozambique's coast is vulnerable to natural disasters and climate change. Quelimane, a city located by the mouth of the Rio dos Bons Sinais, is particularly exposed. Rapid population growth, due to a continuous influx of rural migrants, has resulted in an increase of informal settlements in flood-prone parts of the city. This introduced further vulnerability with poor...
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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...