News
The Doctoral Workshop 2022 of the Research Group on Development Economics of the German Economic Association will be organized by Professor Tilman Brück (IGZ, HU Berlin & ISDC) and will take place in-person on September 22nd and 23rd, 2022 in Berlin, Germany. The workshop’s aim is to enable doctoral students to improve their ongoing research, advise them on the preparation of a refereed journal article, practice academic discussions and build informal networks.
The two-day seminar will be conducted entirely in English.
The submission of extended abstracts or full papers as well as a short CV is possible until August 12th, 2022. Selection will be restricted to a maximum of ten doctoral students.
For further details on the event and the submission of papers, please see the Call for Papers.
The annual conference on 9-10 June 2022 hosted by the University of Hohenheim brought together international scholars and researchers of development economics and neighboring fields. Plenary sessions with keynote speakers, parallel sessions with contributed papers, and poster sessions reflected the current state of research in development economics and provided a forum for exchange for researchers and practitioners. The conference took place as a physical meeting.
Keynote Speakers
Christopher B. Barrett (Cornell University)
Christopher Udry (Northwestern University)
Local Organizers
Regina Birner and Manfred Zeller (University of Hohenheim).
Selection Committee
Axel Dreher (Heidelberg University), Andreas Fuchs (University of Göttingen), Michael Grimm (University of Passau), Isabel Günther (ETH Zürich), Krisztina Kis-Katos (University of Göttingen) and Matthias Schündeln (Goethe University Frankfurt).
Program
An overview of the program is available on the conference’s page.
Please find the full program (including details on sessions, presenters, rooms and links to papers) here.
Research of Members
China is commonly depicted as a "rogue" donor, using aid to further its own interests abroad and secure access to natural resources. Especially China’s involvement in African countries has been criticized for being guided by self-interest rather than recipient need or merit. For the period 2000-2012, we compare China’s aid allocation behaviour to that of the five largest donor countries globally: France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the USA. We use regression analysis and a rigorous variance decomposition method to measure the importance of various factors in predicting aid commitments. We find that donors differ markedly in how they allocate aid. While Germany, Japan, the USA, and the UK assign high importance to recipient need, France’s and China’s allocation models are, for a large part, driven by variables that relate to self-interest: trade in the case of France, and the adherence to the "One-China policy" in the case of China. However, China is not a purely selfish donor. As most Western donors, China commits more aid to poorer countries. Furthermore, we find no evidence that commercial interests, such as trade or access to natural resources, determine Chinese aid allocation. This latter result contrasts with Western donors, which allocate more aid to their trade partners. France and the UK also commit significantly more aid to their former colonies. In conclusion, the claim that China’s aid allocation is different must be qualified.
The study made use of a dataset published by Axel Dreher and Andreas Fuchs - also members of the Research Group on Development Economics - together with Brad Parks, Austin M. Strange and Michael J. Tierney in the article "Apples and Dragon Fruits: The Determinants of Aid and Other Forms of State Financing from China to Africa".
Günther, Isabel, Harttgen, Kenneth, Seiler, Johannes and Utzinger, Jürg. An index of access to essential infrastructure to identify where physical distancing is impossible. Nature Communications 13, 3355 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30812-8.
To identify areas at highest risk of infectious disease transmission in Africa, we develop a physical distancing index (PDI) based on the share of households without access to private toilets, water, space, transportation, and communication technology and weight it with population density. Our results highlight that in addition to improving health systems, countries across Africa, especially in the western part of Africa, need to address the lack of essential domestic infrastructure. Missing infrastructure prevents societies from limiting the spread of communicable diseases by undermining the effectiveness of governmental regulations on physical distancing. We also provide high-resolution risk maps that show which regions are most limited in protecting themselves. We find considerable spatial heterogeneity of the PDI within countries and show that it is highly correlated with detected COVID-19 cases. Governments could pay specific attention to these areas to target limited resources more precisely to prevent disease transmission.
Vacancies
The Chair of Development Economics at Heidelberg University’s South Asia Institute seeks to fill a PhD Position in Development Economics, initially fixed for two years and renewable for another three years.
The Department of Development Economics takes particular interest in microeconomic aspects of development as well as poverty and inequality. Therefore, excellent skills in microeconomics and econometrics are required. The position includes research as well as teaching and mentoring activities and provides the opportunity to participate in a top-class structured PhD program in economics in cooperation with the University of Mannheim. Also, there are numerous possibilities for connecting with related disciplines such as public health, geography, political science and sociology
The preferred starting date is September 1st, 2022. Applications have to be sent before July 31st, 2022 and are considered until the position is filled.
For further details, please see the vacancy.
In a joint appointment with the RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, the Faculty of Economics at Ruhr University Bochum is seeking to fill a W2 professorship in „Empirical Development Economics“ with a microeconomic orientation. The position will be tenured as civil servant („Jülich Model“).
The main focus of the position will be at RWI’s newly established Policy Lab „Climate Change, Development and Migration“. The Policy Lab conducts research on environmental policy, labor markets and migration in the Global South as well as on the economics of migration in the Global North and seeks to improve the effectiveness of pro-poor climate, development, and migration policies. Within the Policy Lab, the professorship will contribute in particular to the development of the research area on migration in the Global South.
Applications can be submitted until June 22nd, 2022.
For more information, please see the full vacancy.
Event Information
The Doctoral Workshop 2022 of the Research Group on Development Economics of the German Economic Association will be organized by Professor Tilman Brück (IGZ, HU Berlin & ISDC) and will take place in-person on September 22nd and 23rd, 2022 in Berlin, Germany. The workshop’s aim is to enable doctoral students to improve their ongoing research, advise them on the preparation of a refereed journal article, practice academic discussions and build informal networks.
The two-day seminar will be conducted entirely in English.
The submission of extended abstracts or full papers as well as a short CV is possible until August 12th, 2022. Selection will be restricted to a maximum of ten doctoral students.
For further details on the event and the submission of papers, please see the Call for Papers.
The Thailand-Vietnam Socio-Economic Panel (TVSEP) Team invites submissions to the international conference on “Shocks and resilience in rural Southeast Asia” to be held in Göttingen (as a hybrid event) on May 23rd and 24th, 2022.
The submission deadline is January 31st, 2022 (midnight CET).
For further information on the event and the Call for Papers, please click here.