Episodios

  • S6 Ep18: Improving sanitation: What works and what doesn’t

    S6 Ep18: Improving sanitation: What works and what doesn’t
    May 8 2025
    Millions of people around the world have no access to sanitation. They defecate in the open, or in facilities where it’s hard to avoid human contact, unavoidably spreading disease. One of the Sustainable Development Goals that you don’t hear about so much is the call to end open defecation by 2030. What progress are we making, and what health improvements are we seeing so far? In the latest of our episodes based on J-Pal’s policy insights, Karen Macours of the Paris School of Economics, also co-chair of J PAL's Health Sector, tells Tim Phillips about how we can achieve this development goal, why it’s not a quick fix, and the surprising results of research into the health benefits of improving sanitation.
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    19 m
  • S6 Ep17: Improving worker well-being

    S6 Ep17: Improving worker well-being
    May 1 2025
    We often talk about providing not just jobs, but decent jobs, in developing countries. But in many parts of the world, workers still have incredibly harsh working conditions.
    There have been interventions at the firm level to create safer workplaces, better health,
    higher job satisfaction. But have they succeeded? And, if these policies succeed in raising worker well-being, is there a cost or a benefit for the employer?

    In the latest in our collaborations with J-PAL to discuss their policy insights, Achyuta
    Adhvaryu, UC San Diego about their review of the research into worker well-being, the
    policies that encourage firms to improve it, and the outcomes for employees and employers alike.

    Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/labour-markets/improving-worker-well-being-good-workers-good-business

    You can find the review here https://www.povertyactionlab.org/
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    31 m
  • S6 Ep16: What have we learned about the informal sector?

    S6 Ep16: What have we learned about the informal sector?
    Apr 24 2025
    A large proportion of economic activity takes place in the informal sector in every country, particularly in LMICs. Informality, and the lack of rights and protection that goes with it, affects the families who live in slums, the people who take off-the-books jobs, and the firms that choose to skirt regulations. It also affects the governments who want to increase the size of the formal sector – and the revenue they can collect from it.

    Gabriel Ulyssea of UCL and Mariaflavia Harari of the University of Pennsylvania are two of the editors of new VoxDevLit that examines what we know about the size of the informal sector and how it operates. They talk to Tim Phillips about the grey areas between formal and informal, and the limitations of policies that try to increase the size of the formal economy.

    Read the VoxDevLit here: https://voxdev.org/voxdevlit/informality
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    36 m
  • S6 Ep15: How poverty fell

    S6 Ep15: How poverty fell
    Apr 17 2025
    In 1981, 44% of the world’s population were living in extreme poverty. By 2019, that number had fallen to 9%. This seems like a good news story, but how did it happen?

    Tom Vogl of UC San Diego is one of the authors of a paper called simply, “How Poverty
    Fell”. In it, they use surveys to track the progress out of poverty of individuals and
    generations, to discover whether this progress has been driven by individuals and families becoming less poor over their lives or by successive generations who are less likely to be born into poverty. Has the progress been driven by women in the workplace, by government support, or by the move out of agriculture? And, significantly, do those who move out of poverty stay in that position or, is it, as Tom tells Tim Phillips, “Like climbing a slippery slope”?

    Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/methods-measurement/how-has-global-poverty-fallen

    Read the paper: https://econweb.ucsd.edu/~pniehaus/papers/how_poverty_fell.pdf
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    22 m
  • S5 Ep5: Development Dialogues: Who will pay for the global energy transition?

    S5 Ep5: Development Dialogues: Who will pay for the global energy transition?
    Apr 15 2025
    In the latest episode of the collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center and VoxDev, host Catherine Cheney is asking one of the most complex questions in global development: how can the clean energy transition move forward quickly and equitably, particularly for low- and middle-income countries still grappling with poverty? There is a balance between emissions reductions and economic growth. While wealthy nations historically contributed the most to climate change, LMICs are now under pressure to take costly action to avoid it.

    Catherine is joined by Max Bearak of the New York Times, Jessica Seddon of Yale Jackson School and the Dietz Family Initiative on Environment and Global Affairs, and Anant Sudarshan of the University of Warwick and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.

    Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/climate-capital-and-conscience-who-will-pay-global-energy-transition
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    39 m
  • S6 Ep14: Graduation programmes: BRAC’s approach to targeting the ultra-poor

    S6 Ep14: Graduation programmes: BRAC’s approach to targeting the ultra-poor
    Apr 9 2025
    The Graduation approach to helping people to escape from poverty was pioneered in 2002 by BRAC in Bangladesh. Today the approach is used around the world. In more than 20 years, what have we learned about how it works, when it works best, and how to implement it at scale? Shameran Abed, the Executive Director of BRAC International talks to Tim Phillips about how the Graduation approach reaches people that other programmes miss, why it works, and how it can be scaled up to meet needs around the world.

    Read the full show notes

    The BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative
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    34 m
  • S6 Ep13: Profit shifting hits developing countries hardest

    S6 Ep13: Profit shifting hits developing countries hardest
    Apr 2 2025
    Multinational enterprises in every industry are shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions. These corporate tax havens reduce tax revenues everywhere, but that hits hardest in developing countries where corporate taxes are a larger part of the overall tax take. The International Growth Centre has published a policy toolkit report into corporate tax havens. Ludvig Wier, the author, explains to Tim Phillips how profit shifting works, how a global initiative is reducing the allure of tax havens, and how AI might level the playing field for overstretched developing country tax offices.

    Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/public-economics/profit-shifting-global-challenge-hitting-developing-countries-hardest

    IGC Policy Toolkit: Corporate tax havens and their impact on development
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    24 m
  • S5 Ep4: Development Dialogues: Are vocational training programmes effective?

    S5 Ep4: Development Dialogues: Are vocational training programmes effective?
    Apr 1 2025
    Vocational training is often seen as a silver bullet for unemployment and poverty, but does the evidence support that view? Why do so many training programs fail to lead to real job opportunities, and are we asking too much of these programs – or maybe the wrong questions entirely? In the latest episode of the collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center and VoxDev, host Catherine Cheney is joined by Oriana Bandiera, professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, Stefano Caria, professor of economics at the University of Warwick, and Munshi Sulaiman, Director of Research at the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development and a professor in the Master of Development Studies program at BRAC University, to ask what it takes to make job skills programs work.
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    38 m
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