Ideas in Development

How can developing countries catch up with the technology frontier? The standard debate frames it as a choice between adopting technology from abroad and innovating at home. Karthik Tadepalli argues that this dichotomy is false – and that two of the twentieth century's most striking development stories show why.
In this episode of Ideas in Development, Karthik takes us from Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), which licensed chip technology in the 1970s and went on to spin out UMC and TSMC, to Brazil's Embrapa, which unlocked an area three times the size of Texas for farming and helped to turn a food-importing country into the world's largest agricultural exporter.
We discuss why human capital came before results in both stories, how the spin-off model worked at ITRI, the concept of ‘induced innovation’ that shaped Embrapa's research priorities, and why surviving the politics mattered as much as getting the science right.
Karthik's articles on Taiwan (in the Asterisk magazine) and Brazil (on his Substack) are both linked in the show notes on our Substack: https://ideasindevelopment.substack.com/

What does a perfect city look like in a low- or middle-income country – and how do you get there?
In the closing episode of our cities series, Ed Glaeser joins Kurtis Lockhart and Oliver Hanney for a wide-ranging conversation on what makes cities work. He sets out the three foundations every city needs (safety, mobility, education), why infrastructure without the right incentives and institutions fails, what 19th-century New York's cholera outbreaks teach Lusaka about water, why “bus good, train bad” still holds, and what the medieval European city has to offer sub-Saharan Africa's fastest-growing urban regions.
We also discuss the political art of being a great mayor, why "capacity eats policy as a light afternoon snack," and his three priorities for African cities over the next decade.
Read the show notes on our Substack: https://ideasindevelopment.substack.com/
Check out the Africa Urban Lab: https://www.aul.city/

Are African cities a powder keg of restless youth – or the most promising place to build prosperity, peaceful politics and shared civic life?
Leonard Wantchekon joins Ideas in Development to argue that African cities should be seen as a youth opportunity, not a youth problem.
We discuss recent unrest in Kenya and Tanzania, his work showing that clientelism is overwhelmingly a rural phenomenon, and that deliberation and decentralisation are the institutional minimums African cities should be reaching for. Leonard then lays out what deliberation, decentralisation and a renewed urban culture could do for the next generation of African city dwellers.
Read the show notes on our Substack: https://ideasindevelopment.substack.com/
Check out the Africa Urban Lab: https://www.aul.city/

How does organised crime take over a city – and can mayors act before it does?
Chris Blattman, economist and political scientist at the University of Chicago, joins Oliver Hanney and Kurtis Lockhart on the Ideas in Development cities series to explain how street gangs evolve into powerful criminal confederations, why cities like Medellín can have low homicide rates and still be almost completely captured, and what the "terrible trade-off" between violence, criminal power and political corruption means for policymakers.
We then discuss the perils faced by fast-growing African cities, where the conditions for organised crime to take root are quietly assembling.
Read the show notes on our Substack: https://ideasindevelopment.substack.com/
Check out the Africa Urban Lab: https://www.aul.city/

Broken land markets are holding back cities across Africa. But not in Rwanda, which was able to register over 10 million land parcels, and issue over 7 million title deeds, in under five years. How did they do it, and what can other countries learn?
Thierry Hoza Ngoga, one of this monumental programme's leading implementers, joins the Ideas in Development series on cities to walk through Rwanda's land reform journey, from consultation to rollout, and discuss why dysfunctional land markets may be the single biggest bottleneck to urban growth in Africa.
Read the shownotes on our Substack: https://ideasindevelopment.substack.com/
Check out the Africa Urban Lab: https://www.aul.city/