Tag: Development Economics

Making the case for LMIC to be partners in the global solution for COVID-19

qmulcgr4 Comments
By Kaouthar Lbiati

The growing success of efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, may present yet another hurdle – How to end lockdown without causing a second wave? There is no modern analog for the shutdown of economic activity. Ending the lockdown needs unparalleled capabilities in testing, tracing and most importantly it needs researchers to deliver a new vaccine!

Lockdown
Source: https://wendyedavis.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/lockdown.jpg

This paper makes the case for low and middle-income countries (LMIC) to be part of the clinical evaluation of the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 future vaccine, the ramping up of regional manufacturing capabilities for local immunization and underscores the critical importance of reaching an advanced purchase agreement with manufacturers and suppliers as well as building up multilateral financial partnerships with key institutions before even a vaccine is made available in either North America, Asia and/or Europe.

Read More »

Industrial Revolution: factor prices and innovations

qmulcgr1 Comment
BY DR. RAVSHONBEK (ROSH) OTOJANOV

A previous post outlined a number of major inventions (or macro-inventions) of the eighteenth century that were the basis for the inventions of the nineteenth century that propelled productivity growth. These innovations, according to Robert Allen, would not have taken place in Britain in the absence of cheap coal deposits. Another unique factor driving the innovations was Britain’s expensive labour. Labour was expensive in Britain, and economic historians have traced the origins of the high wages back to the Black Death plague (in the 14th century) that reduced the working age population significantly. Moreover, Britain’s commercial success in the international economy played a role in the growth of wages.

Rosh01_02
Figure 1. Average nominal wages and the cost of wood and coal, 1600-1914. Panel (a): Average weekly wages. Panel (b): The price of wood (1600-1870) and coal in GBP per Toe. Data sources: Thomas and Dimsdale (2017) and Fouquet (2011)

Read More »

CFP| Workshop on Development Economics

qmulcgrLeave a comment

Professor Almudena Sevilla is organising a workshop on development on June 8th as part of CGR research activities. Confirmed speakers are Kaivan Munshi (Professor of Economics at Cambridge University) and Adrienne Lucas (Associate Professor at Delaware University) .

World map by income 2017
Downloaded from http://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/site-content/wdi/maps/2017/world-by-income-wdi-2017.pdf

Read More »