VoxDev: About us
Development economics from research to practice
VoxDev is a platform for economists, policymakers, practitioners, donors, the private sector and others interested in development to discuss key policy issues. Expert contributors provide insightful commentary, analysis, and evidence on a wide range of policy challenges in formats that we hope are accessible to a wide audience interested in development. We aim to put evidence from decades of academic research into the hands of decision-makers and civil society in developing countries in a way that they can be easily accessed and actually put to use, ultimately encouraging the design and implementation of more evidence-based policy.
VoxDev, launched in June 2017, is a collaboration between the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the International Growth Centre, and the Private Enterprise Development in Low Income Countries programme. The Editor-in-Chief is Tavneet Suri, supported by the Editorial Board, Robin Burgess, and Chris Woodruff, and a great group of Founding Contributors.
About the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board
Tavneet Suri
Tavneet Suri is an Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She is a development economist, with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Most recently, she has worked on the impacts of mobile money and digital finance in East Africa. Her other areas of interest are agriculture and political economy.
Her vision for VoxDev: ‘I want VoxDev to be the premier platform providing evidence for anything and everything development related.’
Read Tavneet's introduction to VoxDev here
Robin Burgess
Robin Burgess is a Professor of Economics and Director of the International Growth Centre at the London School of Economics. His areas of research interest include development economics, environmental economics, political economy, public economics and labor economics.
His thoughts on VoxDev: 'VoxDev creates a direct link that did not exist before — between the ideas produced by frontier researchers in development and the policy makers and practitioners who can put them to use.'
Christopher Woodruff
Christopher Woodruff is Professor of Development Economics at the University of Oxford and Scientific Coordinator for PEDL. He is a leading expert on enterprises in developing countries, and a pioneer in the use of field experiments in understanding enterprise dynamics in developing countries.
His thoughts on VoxDev: 'VoxDev aims to distill the practical lessons of research to make the research more relevant for practitioners and policymakers.'
Founding Contributers
Read about our Founding Contributors here.
Staff
Oliver Hanney, Managing Editor. Contact: [email protected]; [email protected]
Anil Shamdasani, Chief Copy-editor.
About the partners
The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) was founded in 1983 to enhance the quality of economic policy-making within Europe and beyond, by fostering high quality, policy-relevant economic research, and disseminating it widely to decision-makers in the public and private sectors. Drawing together the expertise of its more than 1,300 Research Fellows and Affiliates, CEPR initiates, funds and coordinates research activities and communicates the results quickly and effectively to decision makers around the world. These researchers are organized in ten Programme Areas which span most areas of economics, each led by Programme Directors who provide intellectual leadership and quality control. CEPR is led by its President, Beatrice Weder di Mauro, and four Vice Presidents..
The International Growth Centre (IGC) aims to promote sustainable growth in developing countries by promoting demand-led policy advice based on frontier research. IGC funds a wide range of top researchers, has economists based in 15 partner countries across Africa and South Asia, and over 200 active projects covering state effectiveness, firm capabilities, cities, and energy. IGC is majority funded by FCDO.
The Private Enterprise Development in Low Income Countries (PEDL) programme pursues a research agenda focusing on private-sector development in low-income countries (LICs) and is motivated by the need to better understand what determines the strength of market forces driving efficiency in these countries. It offers a competitive research grants scheme for projects related to the behaviour of firms in LICs. PEDL is funded by FCDO.