Hi there,
Today on VoxDev, in collaboration with Ideas for India, we featured research by Kunal Mangal who outlines how highly competitive examinations for public service recruitment in India have detrimental economic effects. This article first provides evidence of the unintended costs of the extreme competition for government jobs, before providing suggestions to policymakers seeking to mitigate these negative side effects.
In this week's episode of VoxDevTalks, Deniz Sanin joins us to discuss new research on the gendered effects of the government-induced rapid expansion of coffee mills in Rwanda during the 2000s. Deniz first outlines the data and methodology used to observe how the opening of a mill affects coffee farmers who reside in its catchment area, before delving into her results on how and why domestic violence decreases in areas with a new mill.
Pupil absenteeism is a pervasive issue which hinders educational attainment in both developed- and developing countries. In Tuesday's article, Damien de Walque and Christine Valente consider evidence from Mozambique on two alternatives to the typical model of incentivising parents with cash, which have the potential to increase school attendance at a lower cost. In doing so, they also shed new light on the relative roles of parents and children in making decisions about school attendance in a low-income setting.
Yesterday on VoxDev, Barthélémy Bonadio outlined research in India into which part of the infrastructure network limits international market access, and the regional implications of different types of infrastructure improvements. This exercise shows that port infrastructure improvements may have higher economic returns than road improvements, but also have different regional implications.
For example, this research asks what the estimated wage changes in Indian districts would be when all ports improve to the level of the best vs when all roads are changed to expressways, with results across districts seen in the Figure above.
Stay tuned for more details on our forthcoming VoxDevLits on bureaucracy and climate adaptation, as well as our upcoming columns and podcasts, featuring research on childcare, election design, foreign corruption regulation, bureaucratic nepotism, and port location.
Oliver Hanney, Managing Editor