This week we featured research on global poverty, carbon offsets, corruption, patents and more...
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Carbon offset programmes allow polluters to pay others to reduce emissions on their behalf. In theory, this can achieve the same emissions reductions at a lower cost, but only if the payment actually incentivises the recipient to cut emissions. Raphael Calel, Jonathan Colmer, Antoine Dechezleprêtre and Matthieu Glachant conducted research on India’s wind sector, highlighting significant misallocation in the world’s largest offset programme.
In yesterday’s article, Elliott Ash, Sergio Galletta and Tommaso Giommoni examined how machine learning predictions can improve corruption detection and prevention in Brazil.
In this week’s episode of VoxDevTalks, Tom Vogl discusses his research with Vincent Armentano and Paul Niehaus on how global poverty has fallen in the last 40 years. Evidence from China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa sheds light on how this unfolded.
Geographic patent pools boost drug licensing and commercialisation, expanding access to life-saving drugs in developing countries. Alberto Galasso and Mark Schankerman provide evidence using the UN Medicines Patent Pool.
While digital credit broadens market access and reduces frictions in developing countries, default rates are often high. Alfredo Burlando, Michael A. Kuhn, and Silvia Prina find that reducing loan speed—by doubling delivery time—decreased the likelihood of default significantly in Mexico.
While wealthier countries have historically contributed the most to climate change, the Global South is now under pressure to take costly action. In the latest episode of Development Dialogues, Max Bearak, Anant Sudarshan and Jessica Seddon consider the balance between emissions reductions and economic growth in developing countries.
Unregulated markets for second-hand goods fuel crime worldwide. André Mancha finds that strengthening oversight of the second-hand market for automotive parts helped reduce car theft in Brazil.
On Monday, Sherine El Taraboulsi-McCarthy, David Burt, Natasha Gue and Kia Howson discuss how the humanitarian sector can better communicate and demonstrate impact.
In her first VoxDev blog, Deputy Managing Editor Emaan Siddique explores the consequences of aid withdrawal, drawing on seven years of VoxDev featured research on effective aid efforts.
Elsewhere in development:
- Registration is now open for STEG's Special Lecture by Oded Galor - Roots of Growth and Inequality in the Wealth of Nations.
- David McKenzie writes - How matters as much as What: Why policy doesn’t get enough good things done and Goldilocks state capacity.
- Shahrukh Wani writes about the critical minerals opportunity on IGC.
- A useful explainer on Our World in Data - What is foreign aid? How “Official Development Assistance” is measured
- Lee Crawfurd: UK Aid is Ten Times More Scrutinised than Other Government Spending.
- On the FT - How India’s middle-class debt crisis is threatening growth.
- The Triple Dividend: Investing in resilience to boost growth and job creation - Jun Rentschler, Paolo Avner and Stéphane Hallegatte.
- Interesting CGDEV event next week - Industrial Policies for the Developing World: What Can Developing Countries Do Themselves?
- Ken Opalo writes America’s tariff wars present no upside opportunities for African economies.