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Publication - Project Report
Densification without contagion? Overcrowding and pandemic risk hotspots in Rwanda
In this paper, we estimate the location of overcrowding hotspots in Kigali and five secondary cities in Rwanda using a variant of the methodology used recently by the World Bank in Mumbai, Kinshasa and Greater Cairo. This is of interest for three key reasons. First, whilst overcrowding is an imperfect proxy for the type of close interpersonal contact that spreads...
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Publication - Miscellaneous
Presentation: Taxing urban land and property
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Publication - Working Paper
Financial intermediation and economic development in the state of Bihar, India: A district-level analysis
This paper analyses the relationship between financial intermediation and economic development in the state of Bihar in India. We find that the standard index of depth of financial intermediation measured by credit deposit (CD) ratio is very low in the state (30%) and has little impact on economic development at the aggregate level. However, the analysis of sectoral CD...
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Publication - Policy paper
Designed to succeed: Building authorising environments for fast-growing cities
Cities are where prosperity is won or lost. They can either be the engines of economic growth, or dysfunctional sites of congestion, crowding, and discontent. One of the main differences is due to the quality and effectiveness of policy decisions: some city governments can take effective, timely decisions that support the productivity-enhancing features of cities, while...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Quantifying the economic benefits of public transportation in Kampala
Traffic congestion is a major issue in cities around the world with potentially negative effects on outcomes ranging from economic activity to health. This brief quantifies the cost of congestion in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area (GKMA) and estimates the economic benefits of a planned Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system. The researcher finds the daily cost of...
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Publication - Policy paper
Urban land use planning for economic growth
Land use planning plays a crucial role in improving the productivity, livability, and sustainability of developing cities. Drawing on successful reforms from developed and developing countries, this paper explores the trade-offs associated with designing and enforcing land use plans and regulations in the context of rapid and often informal urban development
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Publication - Policy Brief
Agro-dealer and farmer COVID-19 survey: April – June 2020
The researchers interviewed 973 crop farmers, 99 dairy farmers, and 483 agro-dealers to help assess the impacts of COVID-19 on smallholder farmers and other actors across the agricultural value chain. The researchers make several findings, including that a majority of farmers report financial distress and agro-dealers were seeing lower footfall traffic. However,...
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Publication - Project Report, Working Paper
Take home rations (THR) and cash transfers for maternal and child nutrition: A synthesis of evidence in India
The futures of young children are often overwhelmingly determined by chance. There is consensus that the 1000 days since conception are critical for a child’s nutritional status and the environment in which children are born often shapes the inputs and investments they get during this formative period (Black, et al. 2013). Failure to secure a child’s wellbeing during...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Terror and tourism: How bad news can harm economic development
Reporting on violence often draws attention to countries which are typically not covered by international news outlets, leading to a bad news bias which can affect the view that people hold on these countries and have serious economic consequences. Tourism offers a unique chance to study the effect of news because tourists from different countries evaluate the same...
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Publication - Project Report
State capacity in Punjab’s local governments: Benchmarking existing deficits
As the developing world urbanises, there is increasing pressure to provide local public goods and local governments are expected to play an important role in their provision. However, there is little work on the nature of capacity deficits faced by local governments and whether these deficits are acting as a constraint on performance. We use financial accounts data from...
Publication - Miscellaneous
Little Book of Growth Ideas
Between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of the world living in extreme poverty more than halved as economic growth lifted millions of people out of poverty. Building on this progress, the UN Global Goals ambitiously aim to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030. The International Growth Centre (IGC) believes that inclusive economic growth is the only route to achieving...