VoxDev Development Economics - S1 Ep48: The false promises of agricultural trials

S1 Ep48: The false promises of agricultural trials

08/30/21 • 23 min

Often we hear exciting news of crop yields from experimental trials, but then the gains don't show up in the real world. Rachid Laajaj tells Tim Phillips how a group of researchers solved this puzzle, and what this means for how we conduct trials in future.

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S1 Ep47: Public disclosure as a political incentive: Evidence from municipal elections in India

Councilors who thought performance reports would be published before an election invested more in infrastructure, with positive impacts on re-election
Read “Public Information is an Incentive for Politicians: Experimental Evidence from Delhi Elections” by Abhijit Banerjee, Nils Enevoldsen, Rohini Pande, and Michael Walton here.

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S1 Ep49: Letting managers manage

If you want to succeed as a boss, business books tell you, you have to delegate. But we know less than you think about the impact of delegation on productivity and profitability. Namrata Kala of MIT tells Tim Phillips how some Indian SOEs decided to let managers manage, giving us a new insight into the impact of managerial autonomy.