I’m going to be writing a few papers on a particular low-income country which I will soon choose for a global economic development class I’m going to be taking. Here are the topics
I’d like these papers to be relevant to EA, so if anyone is curious about any of these topics with respect to a particular low-income country or policy, let me know.
At the Against Malaria Foundation, bednet distributions will soon start in regions where AMF has not worked before: Nigeria, various DRC provinces, and one other country to be announced. If you can choose the country for your papers, probably you could help AMF by focusing on one of these?
I think AMF would be particularly interested in questions about how poverty affects bednet distribution. For example, people might have seasonal jobs, which means they regularly migrate to another part of the country. This might cause them to miss the bednet distributions in their home area, or they might not be able to take their nets with them when moving. Another important aspect is housing: do people have houses with fixed sleeping spaces and solid walls where they can hang a net?
Lula da Silva’s Bolsa Familia program in Brazil may be of interest to you. I believe it involved direct cash transfers to low-income families.
Also, maybe check “what the hell happened to Brazil” after 2013...
or, if you want a more positive story, I’d be interested in knowing more about Botswana
He’s back ?
https://www.vox.com/videos/2022/10/25/23422828/brazil-lula-bolsanaro-presidential-election
I really hope so. But the problem is less “Brazil has changed” and more ’people are framing this election as either a struggle between “barbarism v. civilization” or “evil godless commies v. good liberal christians”
I think most foreigners have no idea on how bad is the current situation. Here’s a small sample of what is at stake.
Btw, now I notice my comment above on “what happened to Brazil...” might be in need of an explanation: it was not intended as a criticism on any particular government, but as a general statement on the problem in dev eco about how politics (and social trends in general) interfere with economics.