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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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Project
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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Project
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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Project
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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Project
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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Project
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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Project
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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Project
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...
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Project
Decentralisation and candidate selection
The recent local elections and decentralisation in Nepal pose an unprecedented opportunity to understand the impact of decentralisation on governance and service delivery. Nepal’s is one of the world’s most ambitious decentralisation processes, as it includes both political and fiscal decentralisation over a very short period of time. A key goal of decentralisation...
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Project
Property tax policy and administration in Tanzania
In July of 2016, the government of the United Republic of Tanzania shifted responsibility for property tax administration and collection from the Local Government Authorities(LGAs) to the Tanzanian Revenue Authority (TRA). The TRA is in a process of planning and strategizing for how it will manage property taxation, expand the number of municipalities to collect property...
Project
Female politicians and economic growth: Evidence from state elections in India
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 estimate the growth premium for constituencies from having a...