S6 Ep36: Culture and economic development

How does culture affect development policy, and how does development policy affect culture? If we don’t take account of cultural norms or fail to learn about how they interact with well-intentioned polices, then this gap in our knowledge may be undermining development projects. Can better measurement and collaboration with other social sciences fill these gaps? A new paper investigates what we know about the culture, policy, and economic development, and Natalie Bau of UCLA, Sara Lowes of UC San Diego, and Eduardo Montero of the University of Chicago tell Tim Phillips about the potential, and pitfalls, of research into culture.

With record levels of armed conflict around the world in recent years, the study of conflict has gone from being a niche corner of economics into a thriving discipline that learns from, and interacts with, development economics. Rigorous empirical research on conflict is, however, relatively recent.  The Reducing Conflict and Improving Performance in the Economy (ReCIPE) programme aims to provide a better understanding of the links between conflicts, economic growth, and public policies. this week we speak to Dominic Rohner (Geneva Graduate Institute), the Research Director of the programme, and Oliver Vanden Eynde (Paris School of Economics), the Head of Engagement about their new research that attempts to link the attributes of countries to the types of conflict they experience, how economic methods can advance our knowledge of conflict and the policies to reduce it, and what the work of ReCIPE can do to influence policy around conflict and development. 

In 2025, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is 50 years old. “Lessons and Priorities for a Changing World”, its 2025 Global Food Policy Report, runs to just under 600 pages and covers the last five decades of progress in improving the world’s food systems – but also the challenges that remain, and the need for policy to keep evolving if we are going to build sustainable, healthy food systems.  Johan Swinnen and Purnima Menon of IFPRI talk to Tim Phillips about the importance of agrifood resilience. With changes in the global economy, the equity and effectiveness of these food value chains will affect the livelihoods of billions of people. But has the progress in the last 50 years stalled? Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/health/food-policy-lessons-and-priorities-changing-world Download the report: https://www.ifpri.org/global-food-policy-report/

What happens from the moment goods are manufactured or harvested, until they are bought by consumers? As we know from experience, most of the things we consume reach us having been bought and sold, sometimes many times, by intermediaries – most of us don’t order a phone from the factory. Many interventions designed to increase the welfare of consumers in developing economies are designed to shorten these supply chains by cutting out those traders in the middle. But what happens when you do that in the real world?  Meredith Startz of Dartmouth College tells Tim Phillips why the story of what intermediaries deliver, and even their effect on the prices consumers pay, is more nuanced than our economic models often suggest. 

Like all of us, healthcare providers bring their biases to work. But if those biases result in a reduced level of care for their patients, how can we correct them?  An innovative experiment in three very different countries attempted to reduce bias in contraceptive care for women. Zachary Wagner of USC and Manisha Shah of UC Berkeley were two of a multidisciplinary team that implemented program and evaluated the results. They talk to Tim Phillips about how biases shape contraceptive care, the methods that can help us to understand why they arise, and the challenges of creating a program that can work in different cultural and religious settings. 

In the second of our two podcasts with Francis Annan of UC Berkeley on his research on mobile money first in Ghana, then beyond, Tim Phillips discusses how he worked with commercial providers, not just to set up the RCTs designed to investigate the extent and reduce financial fraud, but to ensure that the insights could be scaled up.  While contacting sceptical commercial providers can often meet with little or no response, he says, the ability to frame research in a way that makes them realise the commercial value as well as the social value can get, and keep, their attention – and lead to a long-run partnership that achieves more than working independently or through regulators. 

How can we design digital financial inclusion that minimizes fraud and maximises the benefit to the community in rural, low-trust, or cash-heavy economies? That’s the question posed by three studies of how mobile money works, or sometimes does not work, in Ghana’s villages. The author of those three studies: Francis Annan of Berkeley. In part one of a two-part VoxDev Talks special, Tim Phillips talks to Francis about this research, which has been a big part of his working life since he was a graduate student, the  innovative interventions to minimise fraud and misconduct from the agents who supply mobile money, and what this tells us about how to protect consumers in remote locations. Read the full show notes: https://voxdev.org/topic/finance/mobile-money-ghana-lessons-boosting-financial-inclusion

Stigma, shame and social norms around menstruation can prevent women and girls managing their periods with dignity and hygiene in low-income settings. So how can we provide information, influence those norms, and change behaviour to improve women’s health and well-being? Silvia Castro of LMU Munich and Kristina Czura of University of Groningen have conducted extensive field research in Bangladesh and other countries.  They tell Tim Phillips how we can reduce the stigma and taboo around menstruation and give women and girls the information they need at home, at school, and at work.  Read about Silvia’s work on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/health/breaking-silence-advancing-health-technology-adoption-through-open-discourse

There is a long history of using “edutainment” – mass media storytelling, to pass on information about important social issues, and even to try to change behaviour. But does this work, and in what circumstances can it help?  Amber Peterman of UNICEF has just published a review of what we know about edutainment’s power to reduce violence against women and children. She talks to Tim Phillips about its track record in changing attitudes to problems such as FGM and child marriage, and the potential of edutainment in social media and even graphic novels. 

Many developed countries are creating immigration policies designed specifically to attract the most talented migrants. We often assume that when those skilled and educated citizens migrate from low-income countries in search of high-paying opportunities, it causes a “brain drain” in their home countries, delaying or hobbling development. A new article in the journal Science puts that assumption to the test and finds that there is also the possibility of a brain gain at home, as investments in education, remittances, and the contribution of the diaspora to investment and changing norms can more the compensate for the loss of skills.  Cátia Batista of Nova School of Business and Economics and Caroline Theoharides of Amherst College are two of the authors of the article, and they tell Tim Phillips about what the potential for brain gains, but also the policies that are needed to make sure this happens. Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/migration-urbanisation/why-brain-drain-incomplete-story-migration