This week we featured research on designing cities, absenteeism, gender equity & more...
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There is an ever-growing number of resources - newsletters, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos - available to those who want to keep up with the latest research, evidence and thinking related to development economics. So, where can you start? Over the past two years, Managing Editor Oliver Hanney, has built up a bank of free-to-access resources that he regularly reads, listens to, or watches to stay in the loop. In Wednesday's blog he provides a comprehensive list of these resources.
Despite progress in reducing gender gaps in educational attainment and wages, the gender division of work remains strikingly uneven across countries. In today's article, Charles Gottlieb, Cheryl Doss, Doug Gollin and Markus Poschke document the gender division of work across 50 countries, its evolution over time in five countries, and highlight the policy implications of these trends.
Interethnic tensions are a widespread issue with significant implications for social cohesion and economic development. In many developing countries, ethnic minorities face exclusionary and discriminatory practices from dominant majority groups, which limit their access to opportunities and hinder their socioeconomic advancement. Reducing these ethnic frictions is crucial to enabling equitable growth and improving social relations. Abu Siddique, Michael Vlassopoulos and Yves Zenou explore how a documentary film fostered interethnic harmony in Bangladesh.
In yesterday's article, Joseph S. Shapiro proposes an explanation for the vast differences in environmental quality around the world: strong financial, judicial, and labour market institutions make clean industries more productive, and therefore attract clean industries and displace dirty industries. He finds that institutions play an underappreciated role in explaining global patterns of environmental quality.
The cities of developing countries are growing rapidly. How can economists design urban policy to raise the living standards of urban households? In this week's episode of VoxDevTalks, Tim Phillips speaks to Vernon Henderson and Maisy Wong about the pace of land renewal in developing countries and policies to address housing shortages and slum upgrading.
Absenteeism, especially in low-income countries, is a significant issue affecting sectors like education, healthcare, government, and manufacturing. In Tuesday's article, Achyuta Adhvaryu, Diana Sofía Calderón, Anant Nyshadham, Jean-François Gauthier and Jorge Tamayo outline how managers in Indian garment factories use informal worker exchanges to mitigate absenteeism. They discuss how expanding these collaborations could unlock significant productivity gains.
Some exciting opportunities for PhD students:
- You can now sign up for the Young Scholars Matchmaking Workshop 2025 which aims to bring together PhD students and young scholars from institutions in high-income countries with those in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
- The Mawazo Institute is seeking applications for its 2025 Mawazo Fellowship Programme. This non-residential fellowship is aimed at African women pursuing their PhD studies in any field at accredited universities in Africa.
Elsewhere in development economics:
- The World Bank Development Impact blog's annual series of Job Market Posts has begun. I particularly enjoyed Michelle Rao's piece on the relationship between evaluation findings and policy spending.
- Ken Opalo writes “it’s unconscionable that anyone with knowledge of the facts would make it their mission to bully aid-dependent low-income countries to spend scarce resources trying to decarbonize”
- What is the “Value” of a school? A simple question with a not-so-simple answer - Jishnu Das
- David Evans and Amina Mendez Acosta synthesise evidence on the promise and peril of information on the returns to education.
- JPAL are hiring a Senior Evidence To Scale Associate.
- British International Investment have reflected on their decade-long experience managing a capital pool that targets enhanced development impact.
And for those who prefer listening:
- The first episode of CID Voices, out of Harvard's Center for International Development, is here. This podcast unpacks what scaling truly means.
- The latest CSAE Research Podcast discusses the role of international trade in economic development in Turkey.
We will be back on Monday with a full week of content on malaria and forest degradation, credit access for women, immigration and more!