This week we featured research on health aid, taxes, ecosystems and more...
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On Wednesday, we released our new VoxDevLit on Foreign Direct Investment and Development and hosted a launch event by Senior Editors Stefania Garetto, Nina Pavcnik and Natalia Ramondo. Catch up on the launch event and download the VoxDevLit here.
In yesterday’s article, Kartini Shastry and Daniel Tortorice discussed how coordinated health aid for vaccination saved the lives of children worldwide by increasing coverage rates. Specifically, their research assesses the effectiveness of Gavi’s vaccine programme, which has reduced child mortality from related causes by one in 1,000 live births over the past 20 years.
Many lower-income countries struggle to collect adequate tax revenues because they know very little about their citizens. On Tuesday, Oyebola Okunogbe examined how a combination of legibility and enforcement led to greater tax compliance in Liberia.
How does the loss of biodiversity impact economies and human well-being? In this week’s episode of VoxDevTalks, Eyal Frank outlines his research which seeks to quantify the real-world impacts of biodiversity loss using causal inference.
Research on immigration to developing countries has largely focused on the effects of refugee flows, leaving policymakers with limited evidence on the impact of voluntary migration. In today’s article, David Escamilla-Guerrero, Andrea Papadia, and Ariell Zimran demonstrate how immigration supported agricultural development and structural transformation in Brazil.
Do agricultural subsidies attract farmers with low returns to use new technologies? Mai Mahmoud shows that, without subsidies, the price of agricultural inputs is a barrier to technology adoption in Bangladesh.
Elsewhere in development economics, here is what we have been reading:
- Oliver Kim writes about A World Without Aid?
- Exploring the Science of the Brazil G20: Building a just world and a sustainable planet on CEPR.
- On the FT, Martin Wolf outlines the case for persisting with foreign aid.
Plus lots or listening & watching:
- In this great video, Max Roser showcases Our World In Data's work transforming data into global impact.
- The World Bank Group has an AI generated audio explainer - Can migration be a powerful force for development?
- Trade Talks is back. And so is President Trump.
- A conversation on Global Value Chains with Oliver Harman and Tobi Lawson on Ideas Untrapped.
And the following opportunities:
- The World Bank are hiring a consultant for a Systematic Literature Review on Nimble Studies/ A/B Testing in the Private Sector.
- The Association for Comparative Economic Studies have a dissertation research fellowship.
- Applications open for MSc/PhD in Economics (IDEA) - Barcelona.
- CORE Econ are hiring a Communications & Outreach Officer.