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Economic Development

Can Industrial Policy Help Revive Struggling Regions?

A new paper co-authored by Yale SOM’s Cameron LaPoint looks at an effort in 1980s Japan to narrow economic inequalities between geographic regions, in order to understand the potential impact of the similar U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, enacted in 2022.

President Joe Biden with a quantum computer during a tour of an IBM facility in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 2022.
  • Going the Last Mile (with Evidence)

    A study by Yale’s Mushfiq Mobarak and his colleagues found that nurses on motorbikes with vaccine-stocked coolers could help increase vaccination rates in rural Sierra Leone, showing that it is possible to get health interventions to the most remote and under-resourced areas cost-effectively, in ways that help ensure that the interventions are taken up and used.

    A motorcycle carrying vaccine supplies along a dirt road
  • The Art and Science of Delivering Impact

    To take on the problems associated with poverty in New York City, Emary Aronson ’97, chief knowledge officer of the Robin Hood Foundation, takes a data-driven and heart-led approach. She describes how the organization has focused on outcomes and been able to pivot quickly to lead emergency relief efforts.

    A truck submerged in water with the Manhattan skyline in the background
  • A Fast-Moving Labor Force Doesn’t Always Indicate a Healthy Job Market

    For a new study, Yale SOM’s Kevin Donovan and his co-authors gathered data from 49 countries, including developing economies. They found that rapid job turnover is linked to a lower GDP per capita.

    A blurry photo of people in business clothes
  • Expanding the Pathways from School to a Career

    Washington state’s collective action approach to career-connected learning expands students’ horizons, connects employers to their future workforce, and builds community, says Maud Daudon ’83 of Career Connect Washington.

    A student and instructor working with a piece of equipment
  • How the Tools of Impact Investing Can Undermine Resilience in the Global South

    Impact investing advisor Clint Bartlett ’17 and Professor Todd Cort are working on innovative approaches in which businesses that create positive social outcomes get cheaper capital.

    A coffee farm in Uganda
  • What Turkey Needs for Its Long Recovery

    Even as emergency relief continues, says Rana Kotan ’04, secretary general of Third Sector Foundation of Turkey, it is crucial to expand the capacity of the grassroots organizations that will be rebuilding long after the headlines have faded.

    Collapsed buildings in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, on February 10.
  • Pakistan’s Long, Uncertain Recovery from Devastating Floods

    Unprecedented floods have devastated Pakistan’s agricultural economy. Wasif Khan ’86 describes a human toll that will last for years.

    People wading through water with livestock
  • Building Bridges Can Boost Income for the Rural Poor

    Yale SOM’s Kevin Donovan and Wyatt Brooks of Arizona State University found that building footbridges in rural communities allows residents to access work in nearby towns, with benefits for themselves and their neighbors.

    People walking across a suspension footbridge in a rural area
  • Send Vaccines Where People Want Them: Developing Nations

    COVID-19 vaccine acceptance is significantly higher in low- and middle-income countries than wealthy ones. Prioritizing those countries for vaccine distribution could help save more lives and keep variants at bay.

    A COVID-19 vaccination site in Uganda, one of the countries surveyed in the study, in May 2021. Photo: Nicholas Kajoba/Xinhua via Getty Images.
  • How COVID-19 Is Making Gender Inequality Worse in Low-Income Countries—and What to Do About It

    Gender disparities in social and economic outcomes, already larger in the developing world than in rich countries, have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Policy action is badly needed to address the compounding of existing inequalities and protect the most vulnerable women.

    A Doctors Without Borders healthcare provider with a mother and her child at a mobile clinic in Sierra Leone in July 2020. Photo: Saidu Bah/AFP via Getty Images.