In rural India, subsidising family planning services gets women to the clinic, but pairing subsidies with a ‘Bring-a-Friend’ voucher changes who accompanies them, reduces stigma, and delivers meaningful gains in contraceptive use.
Read today's article to learn more:
Expanding paid maternity leave in India from 12 to 26 weeks led employers to cut women's employment by up to 10% and favour men for promotions, while leaving wages unchanged.
🆕 Peer support boosts reproductive agency where vouchers fall short
Today on VoxDev, S Anukriti (World Bank), Catalina Herrera-Almanza (UIUC) & Mahesh Karra (Columbia) discuss pairing subsidies for family planning services with a 'Bring-a-Friend' voucher in India: voxdev.org/topic/health...
🆕 Women in India valued longer maternity leave, but it cost them jobs
Today on VoxDev w/ Pulak Ghosh (IIM Bangalore), Stephanie Hao (Revelio Labs), Lisa Ho (Columbia), Garima Sharma (Northwestern) & Shreya Tandon (Harvard): https://ow.ly/vKf250YNm4N
🆕 Peer support boosts reproductive agency where vouchers fall short
Today on VoxDev, S Anukriti (World Bank), Catalina Herrera-Almanza (UIUC) & Mahesh Karra (Columbia) discuss pairing subsidies for family planning services with a 'Bring-a-Friend' voucher in India: voxdev.org/topic/health...
🆕 Women in India valued longer maternity leave, but it cost them jobs
Today on VoxDev w/ Pulak Ghosh (IIM Bangalore), Stephanie Hao (Revelio Labs), Lisa Ho (Columbia), Garima Sharma (Northwestern) & Shreya Tandon (Harvard): https://ow.ly/vKf250YNm4N
🆕 Why was Rwanda’s land reform so successful?
Broken land markets are holding back cities across Africa. But not in Rwanda.
In this episode of Ideas in Development, Kurtis Lockhart & I are joined by Thierry Hoza Ngoga to discuss all things land reform.
This week we featured research on entrepreneurs, mental health, inflation and more!
Read a summary of this work here: voxdev.org/topic/week-development-e...
Among women in rural Ghana, depression and anxiety reduce take-up for jobs outside the home, but have no effect on productivity or earnings when the same job is offered at home – suggesting that work environment is a key barrier to labour market participation.
🆕 How mental health affects women’s labour force participation in Ghana
Today on VoxDev w/ Leandro Carvalho (USC), Damien de Walque (World Bank), Crick Lund (Kings), Heather Schofield (Cornell), Vincent Somville (NHH) & Jingyao Wei (NHH): https://ow.ly/K79R50YKNt1
🆕 How mental health affects women’s labour force participation in Ghana
Today on VoxDev w/ Leandro Carvalho (USC), Damien de Walque (World Bank), Crick Lund (Kings), Heather Schofield (Cornell), Vincent Somville (NHH) & Jingyao Wei (NHH): https://ow.ly/K79R50YKNt1
In Mexico, reducing tariffs on imported inputs helped workers move from informal to formal employment, particularly benefiting skilled workers who are most complementary to foreign technology.
Read today's article to learn more:
🆕 How does cheap access to foreign technology impact the informal sector?
Today on VoxDev, Pamela Bombarda (CY Cergy Paris Université) & Maria Bas (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) discuss how reducing tariffs helped workers move to formal employment in Mexico: https://ow.ly/tmwk50YKivK
🆕 How does cheap access to foreign technology impact the informal sector?
Today on VoxDev, Pamela Bombarda (CY Cergy Paris Université) & Maria Bas (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) discuss how reducing tariffs helped workers move to formal employment in Mexico: https://ow.ly/tmwk50YKivK
"Digital credit is not a silver bullet. Complementarities definitely matter, especially given that farmers face multiple constraints simultaneously." Monica Lambon-Quayefio on VoxDevTalks today:
🆕 Can digital credit unlock investment in smallholder farms? 📢
Today on VoxDevTalks, Monica Lambon-Quayefio (University of Ghana) discusses the potential of digital input loans for smallholder cocoa farmers in Ghana: voxdev.org/topic/agricu...
A randomised evaluation of a cash and psychological intervention in Ethiopia shows that the joint intervention is needed to improve both mental health and economic outcomes, but the effectiveness of the combined intervention is attenuated by active conflict.
🆕 Can cash and therapy work in conflict settings?
Melissa Hidrobo (International Food Policy Research Institute), Harold Alderman, Negussie Deyessa, Daniel Gilligan, Parthu Kalv, Jessica Leight, Michael Mulford (Global Poverty Research Lab) & Heleene Tambet: https://ow.ly/O37k50YJBJ1
🆕 Can cash and therapy work in conflict settings?
Melissa Hidrobo (International Food Policy Research Institute), Harold Alderman, Negussie Deyessa, Daniel Gilligan, Parthu Kalv, Jessica Leight, Michael Mulford (Global Poverty Research Lab) & Heleene Tambet: https://ow.ly/O37k50YJBJ1
🆕 Can digital credit unlock investment in smallholder farms? 📢
Today on VoxDevTalks, Monica Lambon-Quayefio (University of Ghana) discusses the potential of digital input loans for smallholder cocoa farmers in Ghana: voxdev.org/topic/agricu...
New research on China shows that entrepreneurs who start multiple firms are more productive on average – but this conceals a troubling pattern: some succeed not because of skill, but because of preferential access to finance.
Read today's article to learn more:
🆕 Why some entrepreneurs start more firms
Today on VoxDev, Loren Brandt (The Department of Economics, University of Toronto), Ruochen Dai (CUFE), Gueorgui Kambourov, Kjetil Storesletten (UMN) & Xiaobo Zhang (Peking University) discuss serial entrepreneurship in China: https://ow.ly/i3E350YIKS4
Central banks can lose credibility quickly when policy decisions are seen as politically driven. Evidence from Brazil shows that even a single ungrounded policy shift can unanchor inflation expectations and deteriorate inflation dynamics.
🆕 How central banks lose credibility – and why it matters
Marco Bonomo (Insper), Carlos Carvalho (PUC-Rio), Stefano Eusepi (University of Texas Austin), Marina Perrupato (UCSD), Daniel Abib (Western University), João Ayres (IDB) & Silvia Matos (FGV IBRE): https://ow.ly/Wn7b50YIIwa
🆕 Why some entrepreneurs start more firms
Today on VoxDev, Loren Brandt (The Department of Economics, University of Toronto), Ruochen Dai (CUFE), Gueorgui Kambourov, Kjetil Storesletten (UMN) & Xiaobo Zhang (Peking University) discuss serial entrepreneurship in China: https://ow.ly/i3E350YIKS4
🆕 How central banks lose credibility – and why it matters
Marco Bonomo (Insper), Carlos Carvalho (PUC-Rio), Stefano Eusepi (University of Texas Austin), Marina Perrupato (UCSD), Daniel Abib (Western University), João Ayres (IDB) & Silvia Matos (FGV IBRE): https://ow.ly/Wn7b50YIIwa
🆕 YIMBY goes global? How to build more housing in Africa
This week on Ideas in Development, Kurtis Lockhart (Africa Urban Lab) & I are joined by Kecia Rust (CAHF Africa) to discuss the full housing chain in Africa – from land & finance to construction & rental markets.
Links ⤵️
Equal land distribution in pre-industrial East Asia paradoxically drove poverty by enabling higher fertility among landowning households, creating population pressure that depressed wages.
🆕 Why was Japan so poor before industrialisation?
Today on VoxDev, Yuzuru Kumon (The University of Manchester) discusses how equal land distribution in pre-industrial Japan, paradoxically, drove poverty: voxdev.org/topic/macroeconomics-gro...
🆕 Why was Japan so poor before industrialisation?
Today on VoxDev, Yuzuru Kumon (The University of Manchester) discusses how equal land distribution in pre-industrial Japan, paradoxically, drove poverty: voxdev.org/topic/macroeconomics-gro...
