Governance, Institutions, and Political Economy Research
Book: Entrepreneurial Economics: Bright Ideas for the Dismal Science
This book by Alex Tabarrok of the quirky and insightful blog Marginal Revolution brings together some of the great insights of economics research of the recent decades, from governments buying out patents and putting them in the public domain to how to think about the market for organ donation.
Read MoreExecutive Summary: “Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India”
This executive summary on JPAL describes an article exploring the effect of a change in gender quotas for village leadership in India.
Read MoreBlog: “Two Bright Ideas to Reduce Drug Prices”
In this commentary, Alex Tabarrok of George Mason responds to an idea to introduce innovation and reduce the cost of drugs: patent buyouts.
Read MoreFull Article: “Powerful Women: Does Exposure Reduce Bias?”
In this study, a group of female researchers explores what happens to norms around women when women take on leadership positions in their communities.
Read MoreFull Article: “Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India”
In this study, Esther Duflo and Raghabendra Chattopadhyay compare how women spend and how men spend when they’re in positions of leadership in India.
Read MoreFull Article: “Missing in Action: Teacher and Health Worker Absence in Developing Countries”
This article investigates absenteeism among teachers and healthcare workers in many developing countries, and finds it to be a considerable problem.
Read MoreFull Article: “Patent Buyouts: A Mechanism for Encouraging Innovation”
In this article, 2019 Nobel laureate Michael Kremer looks back to history for an example of a patent buyout: a situation in which the government buys the patent for a technology which would be beneficial to the public, and then places it in the public domain.
Read MorePodcast: Vietnam’s Economic Revolution
In this episode of Dollar and Sense from Brookings, David Dollar interviews “one of the heroines of Vietnam’s economic reforms.” Madamae Pham Chi Lan is the former secretary general of Vietnam’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Here, she discusses Vietnam’s development to date and the next steps she sees the country needing to take.
Read MorePodcast: Choosing Community Leaders in Uganda
Choosing Better Community Leaders This podcast from VoxDev discusses how different methods of choosing leaders can lead to different outcomes. If leaders in this experiment in Uganda were chosen in an open discussion, the researchers found that the most influential people tended to be chosen. However, these influential and loud people weren’t exactly the best…
Read MoreProf. Caprio Recommends: Taxation and State Capacity
Taxation and State Capacity In this VoxDev talks, Tim Besley of LSE talks about how some states, like the Nordics, can enjoy higher rates of taxation and still get compliance, whereas others might not be able to attain either. He attributes the ability to tax as a cultural phenomenon that can be changed over time:…
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