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How cold weather increases domestic violence in Peru

Cold snaps increase domestic violence in the Peruvian Highlands by reducing agricultural income. Policies that improve households’ resilience to agricultural income losses can help mitigate this effect.

Agriculture

Katie Bollman Judhajit Chakraborty Leah Lakdawala Eduardo Nakasone

Published

24.03.26

Can cash transfers improve well-being across generations?

A large-scale conditional cash transfer programme in Chile increased earnings, reduced ethnic inequality, and improved children’s learning outcomes across two generations.

Education

Adrienne Lucas Patrick McEwan David Torres Irribarra

Published

12.03.26

Ray of hope? The rise of solar energy in China

China’s solar subsidies triggered innovation and learning-by-doing that dramatically lowered global solar costs while generating domestic economic gains large enough to outweigh the subsidy costs, showing that green industrial policy can simultaneous...

Energy & Environment

Ignacio Banares-Sanchez Robin Burgess Dávid László Pol Simpson John Van Reenen Yifan Wang

Published

05.03.26

When rising food prices fuel state violence

Rising crop prices usually quiet conflict, as labourers choose farming over fighting. In Myanmar, rising rice prices instead fuelled state-led violence against civilians. Our findings challenge narratives that frame such atrocities as a reaction to i...

Institutions & Political Economy

C. Austin Davis Paula López-Peña Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak Jaya Wen

Published

03.03.26

The ABCs of electricity theft: Can anti-theft cables improve electricity service?

Upgrading Karachi’s electricity network from bare low-voltage wires to aerial bundled cables significantly reduced theft and feeder losses, leading to improved revenue recovery and fewer power outages. However, while the intervention strengthened the...

Energy & Environment

Husnain Fateh Ahmad Ayesha Ali Robyn Meeks Zhenxuan Wang Javed Younas

Published

09.03.26

The hidden cost of China's bureaucratic promotion system: Fragmented domestic markets

China’s bureaucratic promotion system unintentionally incentivises local leaders to restrict trade and underinvest in cross-jurisdictional infrastructure with provincial peers, fragmenting the world’s largest domestic markets and undermining long-ter...

Trade

Jingcheng Jiang

Published

27.02.26

How new export opportunities created manufacturing jobs in Vietnam

Bilateral trade agreements create opportunities beyond signatories. The US-Vietnam trade agreement led to large, persistent increases in formal manufacturing employment in Vietnam through the entry and expansion of multinationals from East Asia.

Trade

Brian McCaig Nina Pavcnik Woan Foong Wong

Published

26.02.26

Is quality upgrading in agriculture a path to poverty reduction?

Under standard conditions in the Colombian coffee sector, the benefits of producing better coffee are not passed on to farmers, weakening their incentives to invest in higher-quality production. However, when a large international buyer required inte...

Agriculture

Rocco Macchiavello Josepa Miquel-Florensa Nicolás de Roux Eric Verhoogen Mario Bernasconi Patrick Farrell

Published

25.02.26

Can restricting mining reduce violent conflict?

Myanmar’s 2016 mining moratorium substantially reduced violent conflict by cutting off armed groups’ access to resource rents and pushing workers into alternative livelihoods, demonstrating that deliberately restricting poorly governed extractive act...

Institutions & Political Economy

Nan Sandi

Published

24.02.26