This week we featured research on poverty, discrimination, industrial cities and more!
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This week we released our VoxDevLit on Political Polarisation. In this VoxDevLit, Senior Editors Cesi Cruz and Horacio Larreguy review economic research on the causes and consequences of polarisation. Watch the launch event and download the VoxDevLit here.
Emily Beam, Lasse Brune, Stefan Dercon, Dean Karlan, Ashley Pople, Christopher Udry, and Rocco Zizzamia find that group coaching in multi-faceted poverty alleviation programmes delivers the same results as individual coaching – at much lower cost.
In Japan, Atsushi Yamagishi and Yasuhiro Sato observe that the land prices of the former outcaste neighbourhoods remain substantially lower, suggesting persistent stigma despite the legal abolition of discrimination more than a century ago.
Industrial clusters can fuel economic booms today, but can also trap cities into tomorrow's decline. Evidence from two centuries of British cities reveals the lasting costs of specialisation. Stephan Heblich, Dávid Krisztián Nagy, Alex Trew, and Yanos Zylberberg explain.
In this episode of VoxDevTalks, Sara Lowes, Eduardo Montero, and Benjamin Marx explore how religion and economic development interact in emerging and developing regions.
In Ghana, Elena Cettolin, Kym Cole, and Patricio Dalton find that a simple, low-cost intervention – helping informal workers set daily goals – significantly improved workers’ and firms’ performance, suggesting that non-binding incentives may be an effective means to foster the growth of small firms in developing contexts.
Over a thousand years, China’s political hierarchy reshaped regional prosperity – provincial capitals flourished through bureaucracy and market access, but these benefits faded once they lost administrative status. Ying Bai and Ruixue Jia discuss.
In Burkina Faso, Salimata Traoré demonstrates how input diversion from cotton to maize ultimately lowers maize productivity, highlighting the need for broader input credit access and better resource allocation policies.
Elsewhere in development:
- Hannah Ritchie has a great blog on AI and weather forecasting.
- In Pursuit of Development is back to a weekly schedule, check out this episode by Dan Banik and Naomi Hossain on development in Bangladesh.
- TED-Ed's video: "What's the best way to lift people out of poverty?"
And check out the following opportunities:
- IGC are hiring a Head of Communications (Maternity Cover).
- J-PAL Global are hiring a Communications Manager.
- Asterisk Magazine are hiring a new Managing Editor.