LAHORE   -   Centre for Research in Economics and Business (CREB) and the Innovation and Technology Centre (ITC) at Lahore School of Economics opened its 6th International Conference on Applied Development Economics (ADE), as an in-person event in Lahore in collaboration with International Growth Center and Consortium for Development Policy Research. The conference is spread over three days from 15 – 17 August 2024 and includes presentations from international and local researchers working on development issues in low and middle-income countries. It broadly focuses on the following thematic areas: Labour Markets, Technology, Health and Gender, Trade, Institutions, Poverty and Social Protection, Climate and Environment and a roundtable on Governance, Productivity and Growth. The aim of the conference is to (i) highlight recent research that can have lasting policy impact for sustainable growth in the developing world; (ii) provide early career researchers the opportunity to obtain feedback on their ongoing work; (iii) to start a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas and discussions among researchers on potential collaborations.

Dr Shahid Chaudhry, Rector of the Lahore School of Economics, in his inaugural remarks, talked about Pakistan’s ability to revert back despite facing several challenges such as large population which create hindrances in the provision of education, availability of jobs, etc Dr Shahid also highlighted that these challenges are most pertinent in the case of women. In the end, Dr Shahid extended his gratitude towards CREB for organising the applied development economics conference every year and also thanked the sponsors: Innovation Technology Center (ITC), Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR), and International Growth Centre (IGC). The first day of the conference opened with a plenary address by Dr Adrienne Lucas (Professor and Department Chair, Department of Economics, Lerner College of Business and Economics, University of Delaware) aimed at increasing learning in existing systems keeping in consideration the low productivity in education sector. Dr Adrienne stated that the problem is not what to do but how to do it in existing systems. Through an RCT in Ghana, she found that learning can indeed be improved in existing systems with existing personnel with persistent gains through refresher training and encouraging teachers to adopt differentiated learning practices.

The plenary address was followed by a session on labor markets, chaired by Dr Adrienne Lucas. The first speaker of the session Richard Freund (PhD candidate, University of Cape Town) aimed at improving online labor market outcomes by teaching the entrepreneurial skills required to engage with online marketplaces. The authors find that the training significantly increases the probability of having an online freelancing profile, being contacted by at least one client, and the number of proposals sent. This translated into positive effects on receiving at least one job offer, securing at least one online freelancing contract, and improved socio-emotional skills. The second paper by Dr Hamna Ahmad (Associate Professor, Lahore School of Economics; Research Fellow, Centre for Research in Economics and Business (CREB)) aimed at studying the role of intermediaries (within a seemingly decentralised market) for improving worker productivity and in mitigating workers’ skill constraints in the context of Pakistan.

The authors find that intermediation by freelancers is highly prevalent on online platforms, constituting a significant share of the market. Intermediaries provide soft skills (e.g. English communication) and reputation that their workers lack in order to access the online demand. The third paper by Dr Lena Hassani-Nezhad (Assistant Professor, University of London) analysed the effects of childcare subsidies on labour supply, fertility, marriage, and childcare decisions in a collective setting. She shows that offering a child care subsidy expands the labour supply of single women while married women respond much less.

Additionally, there are large increases in childcare take-up associated with childcare subsidies, which improves the quality of children as a household good and this increases gains from marriage and results in an increase in the married fraction of the sample.

The second session on technology, health and gender was chaired by Dr Hamna Ahmad (Associate Professor, Lahore School of Economics; Research Fellow, Centre for Research in Economics and Business (CREB)). The first speaker of the session Dr. Fareena Malhi (Lecturer, University of Bath) investigated the impact of providing information on a digital app (Women Safety App) on female mobility and autonomy. The authors find large and significant increases in the duration of each trip, a change in participants’ patterns of travel: information about the app increases the number of walked trips and an increase in the number of unaccompanied trips overall, consistent with increased autonomy of our participants. These increases in autonomy and mobility are concentrated among households that report trust in the serving institution (i.e. the police), and among households with limited female agency at baseline. The second paper by Dr Muhammad Salman Khalid (Faculty, Institute of Business Administration) estimated the impact of E-VACCS (an Electronic Vaccine Registration System) on early childhood vaccination rates in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. The authors find that the intervention led to an increase in the proportion of children having received at least 1 dose of vaccination; however, the increase in vaccination coverage across urban mid-high income households came at the expense of a significant decrease in coverage across low-income rural households, signaling redirection of critical resources. The third paper by Syeda Warda Riaz (PhD candidate, University of California, Davis) explored the intra-household spillover effects of South Africa’s Older Person’s Grant—a large unconditional cash transfer—on the mental health of women who are pregnant or who recently gave birth.

The authors find that women show higher levels of depression risk across all wealth deciles than men and among women, depression risk spikes during pregnancy and only slowly declines in the months following childbirth.

Dr Theresa Thompson Chaudhry chaired the final session of the day and it focused on the theme of gender. The first speaker of the session Dr Sidra Ishfaq (Senior Research Officer, Health Services Academy) investigated the relationship between women’s empowerment and out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditures. The authors find a tangible reduction in OOP health expenditures and impoverishment levels with an increase in women’s empowerment. The last paper of the session by Dr Sadia Batool (Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Development, Karakoram International University) developed an effective blended learning model with MOOC support, and found out its impact on self-efficacy of 45 six-semester preservice teachers specialising in elementary teacher education. She finds a significant shift in preferences, with a mentored blended learning MOOC model emerging as the preferred method for teaching selected preschool education content. Preservice teachers expressed a strong interest in using MOOCs to gain a deeper understanding of training material and favoured this new model over traditional teaching methods.