S6 Ep26: Minibuses, major gains: Rethinking urban transit
In the second of our special episodes recorded at the 5th annual STEG conference, Lucas Conwell of UCL talks to Tim Phillips about how the private minibus networks, such a distinctive feature of urban transit in developing country cities, can improve their service when there is little room for public investment or regulation.
If you have ever tried them, they can seem chaotic, but would require large or small policy tweaks to make them work efficiently, and what would those tweaks be? Lucas has mapped both the service and the opinions of passengers for Cape Town’s public transit minibuses, and discovered that minimal intervention could improve services, increase security, and decrease wait times.
Read the full show notes: https://voxdev.org/topic/infrastructure/minibuses-major-gains-rethinking-urban-transit-developing-countries
Find out more about STEG at https://steg.cepr.org
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S6 Ep25: Gas flaring threatens agriculture and livelihoods in Nigeria
This week on VoxDev talks we have two special episodes recorded at the 5th annual STEG conference. STEG is a research initiative that aims to provide a better understanding of structural change, productivity, and growth in low- and middle-income countries.
For many economies in the Global South, fossil fuel extraction has been both a blessing
and a curse. Nowhere more so than Nigeria, where oil production generates huge
revenues, but also creates an environmental and social burden for the people who live in oil producing regions.
Arinze Nwokolo of Lagos Business School has investigated one aspect of this burden: how gas flaring that occurs as part of the oil production process affects local agriculture. He talks to Tim Phillips about the dramatic impact it has on agricultural productivity, and how the policy alternatives can change those outcomes.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/gas-flaring-threatens-agriculture-and-livelihoods-nigeria
Find out more about STEG at https://steg.cepr.org
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S6 Ep24: Going for economic growth: Lessons from Indonesia
In October 2024, Prabowo Subianto became president of Indonesia. He inherits the “Golden Indonesia” vision: By the time the country celebrates 100 years of independence in 2045, it aims to be one of the five largest economies in the world. But if Indonesia remains dependent on commodity exports like palm oil, coal, natural gas, and rubber, does it risk getting stuck in the “middle income trap” – too wealthy to compete with low-wage nations, but without the human capital or technology to become a HIC?
Chatib Basri is an economist and former finance minister of Indonesia. He tells Tim Phillips about the industrial policies needed to accelerate Indonesia’s economy and diversify its exports, and the challenges if Indonesia does not accelerate its growth.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/macroeconomics-growth/going-economic-growth-lessons-indonesia
Also on VoxDev: Is improving tax administration more effective than raising tax rates?
https://voxdev.org/topic/public-economics/improving-tax-administration-more-effective-raising-tax-rates-evidence
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S5 Ep6: Development Dialogues: What is the role of small farms in the future of agriculture?
In the latest episode of the collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center and VoxDev, host Catherine Cheney discusses one of Africa’s most persistent development challenges: the low productivity of smallholder farmers. Despite decades of investment, innovation, and policy reform, yields on African small farms remain significantly below those in high-income countries. While the limitations of smallholder models, that doesn’t mean that the problem is easy to solve, not least because the way that land is owned my make consolidation impossible. The result: fewer opportunities for structural transformation and rural development.
Catherine is joined by Gérardine Mukeshimana, former Minister of Agriculture in Rwanda, Christopher Udry of Northwestern University and Mark Rosenzweig of Yale University.
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S6 Ep23: Why we need to invest in foundational learning
It was almost business as usual at the Education World Forum in London last month. At the world’s largest annual gathering of education and skills ministers, this year’s theme was & "Building stronger, bolder, better education together." But the context was far from routine. The conference took place against a backdrop of global funding cuts to education programmes—the Institute for Economics and Peace estimates that more than 35 million children around the world depend on foreign aid for their basic education. How can policy be strong, bold, or better in the face of these cuts?
Ben Piper, Director of Global Education at the Gates Foundation and a panellist on the
Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP), was at the conference, meeting
education ministers and discussing these problems with them. He tells Tim Phillips that, at a time when funding is scarce, foundational learning projects deliver cost-effective results for policymakers, and huge benefits for children.
Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/education/why-we-need-invest-foundational-learning
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