Seventh International Conference on Applied Development Economics
18-20 August 2025
Read more »Labels: Applied Development Economics, CDPR, CREB, IGC Pakistan, Images, Lahore School, Pakistan, Pakistan Economy, Research
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 8/18/2025 02:58:00 PM,
Call for Papers
Deadline: April 20, 2025
Read more »Labels: ADE2025, Applied Development Economics, CREB, IGC, Pakistan, Pakistan Economy, Research
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/12/2025 02:28:00 PM,
Thursday, 15 August 2024
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; and (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 organizing 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 Center (IGC).
Read more »Labels: Applied Development Economics, CDPR, CREB, IGC Pakistan, Lahore School, Pakistan, Pakistan Economy, Research
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 8/15/2024 04:43:00 PM,
Session 1: Labour Markets
Do entrepreneurial skills unlock opportunities for online freelancing? Experimental evidence from El Salvador
Richard Freund (University of Cape Town)
Discussant: Lena Hassani-Nezhad (City, University of London)
This paper reports on a randomized experiment in El Salvador that aimed to improve online labor market outcomes by teaching the entrepreneurial skills required to engage with online marketplaces. Despite low completion rates, 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 translates into positive effects on receiving at least one job offer, securing at least one online freelancing contract, and improved socio-emotional skills. However, no significant effects are observed on the number of online job offers, contracts, or broader labor market outcomes.
Read more »Labels: ADE2024, Applied Development Economics, CREB, IGC, Pakistan, Pakistan Economy, Research
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 8/15/2024 09:25:00 AM,
Centre for Research in Economics and Business (CREB) at Lahore School of Economics and the International Growth Centre (IGC) are hoisting 6th International Conference on Applied Development Economics (ADE2024) from 15 - 17 August 2024.
ADE2024 will include presentations from international and local researchers working on development issues in low and middle-income countries. This conference offers a unique opportunity to engage with experts and scholars in the field of development economics.
The conference agenda is
here
Register to attend the conference
here
Labels: ADE2024, Applied Development Economics, CREB, IGC, Pakistan, Pakistan Economy, Research
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 8/13/2024 10:44:00 AM,
23-25 August 2023
Centre for Research in Economics and Business (CREB) and the Innovation and Technology Centre (ITC) at Lahore School of Economics opened its 5th International Conference on Applied Development Economics (ADE), as an in-person event in Lahore in collaboration with the International Growth Center and Consortium for Development Policy Research. The conference is spread over three days from 23 – 25 August 2023 and includes presentations from international and local researchers working on issues related to economic development and sustainable growth in the developing world. It broadly focuses on the following thematic areas: Labour Markets, Industry and Trade, Political Economy and Institutions, Education and Health, and Climate Change with a crosscutting emphasis on gender.
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; and (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 the peculiarity of Pakistan’s current situation in terms of losing macroeconomic sovereignty in order to induce the rollover of external debt. This debt is 85 billion dollars which is small compared to the size of Pakistan’s trillion-dollar economy (in Purchasing Power Parity terms). Lastly, Dr. Shahid thanked the international community gathered in the conference for helping the Lahore School of Economics push forward its vision of sustainable and equitable solutions to common challenges facing the world.
The first day of the conference opened with a plenary address by Dr. David K. Evans (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School) on getting the best teachers and helping teachers be their best. Dr. Evans stated that teachers’ salary makes up 80% of public sector budgets in education and human capital development and improvement in the quality of teachers has more impact on students’ learning outcomes compared to school-based management, computer-assisted learning and community-based monitoring interventions. He also added that it is possible to improve the quality of these teachers dramatically through better preparation, selection, and motivation.
The plenary address was followed by a session on trade policy and skills, chaired by Dr. David K. Evans. The first speaker of the session Anri Sakakibara (DPhil candidate, Department of Political Economy, King’s College London) discussed how the disproportionate expansion of the female-intensive-wearing apparel sector can trigger the structural transformation of the female labor force in a way that promotes gender equality at the household level. She finds that women residing in provinces that are more exposed to the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) are more likely to work in the wearing apparel sector and increase their income relative to their husbands. The second paper by Dr. Hamna Ahmad (Assistant Professor, Lahore School of Economics; Research Fellow, Centre for Research in Economics and Business (CREB)) aimed at studying household decisions to invest in young women’s digital skills through a short-term online training program in urban Pakistan. While rejecting the unitary model of household decision-making between parents and young adult daughters in Pakistan, the authors find that inefficiencies in household negotiation on incentive payments come through information asymmetry and not through payment targeting.
The second session on economic behavior was chaired by Dr. Farah Said (Assistant Professor, Lahore University of Management Sciences). The first speaker of the session Dr. Christian Johannes Meyer (Director, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Development, University of Oxford) investigated the effectiveness of a psychological program designed to build “positive imagery” among a sample of Eritrean refugees in Addis Ababa. The authors' preliminary results indicate that the intervention led to significantly more optimistic views of economic lives in the host economy. In the short run, they find that treated participants work more hours, have higher food security, and report improved well-being. The most likely mechanism seems to be a change in expectations about the future. The second paper by Dr. Uzma Afzal ((Assistant Professor, Lahore University of Management and Sciences (LUMS); Associate Fellow, Institute of Development Alternatives (IDEAs), and Fellow (Center for Behavioral Institutional Design (CBID), NYUAD)) explored the systematic heterogeneity in cooperative decision-making across spouses in arranged and love matched marriages in Pakistan through a lab-in-the-field experiment. The authors find that in villages close to the city self-selected marriages are significantly more likely to be unconditionally cooperative and as the distance from the city increases, the love-matched effect declines.
The session after lunch was chaired by Dr. David K. Evans and it focused on the theme of poverty and social protection. The first speaker of the session Rocco Zizzamia (DPhil candidate at Oxford Department of International Development) presented her work on the role that coaching plays within ultra-poor graduation programs- specifically, how sensitive the welfare benefits of graduation interventions are to the intensity and the type of coaching inputs in Bangladesh. Timothy Köhler (Junior Research Fellow, Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU); DPhil Candidate, University of Cape Town (UCT)) closed the session with a talk on how a COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant (cash transfers) to the unemployed can support economic activity in South Africa. The authors find that the grant increased average employment probabilities by approximately 3 percentage points, an effect largely driven by wage and formal sector employment. Employment effects varied by duration of receipt, with larger effects estimated for the short-term which reduced to zero with additional periods of receipt.
Dr. Theresa Thompson Chaudhry (Professor, Lahore School of Economics; Research Affiliate, International Growth Centre; Co-Director; Lahore School of Economics Innovation and Technology Center) chaired the final session of the day on household behavior and also discussed the two papers. The first speaker of the session Muhammad Bin Khalid (Predoctoral Fellow, National University of Singapore) examined the effect of government support in the form of village-level cash transfers (Pakistan's flood relief program) on adaptation behaviors. He finds that while cash transfer recipients are 20 percent more likely to invest in personal adaptation, they are 22 percent less likely to work with other villagers to invest in community adaptation. The last paper of the session by Abdullah Mehta (Institute of Business Administration) examined the impact of female bargaining power on household expenditure patterns. He finds that using Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement data, in lower-income households, female bargaining power positively affects the expenditure shares of education and transport, and negatively affects those of tobacco, food, and health.
Read more »Labels: Applied Development Economics, CDPR, CREB, IGC Pakistan, Lahore School, Pakistan, Pakistan Economy, Research
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 8/24/2023 08:41:00 AM,
(8-10 September 2021)
The Lahore School of Economics in partnership with International Growth Centre hosted its Third International Conference on Applied Development Economics, on 8-10th September 2021. Similar to the first two editions of the conference in
2018 and
2019 which were a great success, the three-day event this year, was once again devoted to bringing together policy makers, renowned researchers, academics and practitioners from within Pakistan and abroad to discuss relevant themes for developing countries such as, firm & entrepreneurship, labor, gender, poverty and social protection, health, education, and governance and institutional capacity. The thought-provoking research presented at the conference was hoped to disseminate and invite interesting feedback, stimulate further research in this domain and be instrumental in improving research capabilities of young researchers within the country.
The conference started off with welcome remarks by Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhry (Rector, Lahore School of Economics). He extended a warm welcome to a distinguished and impressive galaxy of academics, researchers, and other honorable guests. He highlighted that that this international conference will shed light on the state of economic stability in developing countries especially under the circumstances of COVID, poverty, underdevelopment, and civil war which is ending in Afghanistan. He also mentioned that Pakistan’s economy is fundamentally strong due to its agricultural sector however, it still has to work hard for macroeconomic growth as for 2021 the macroeconomic growth rate was 3.8%. Currently, the EHSAS project in Pakistan provides 2000 Rs or roughly $15 monthly to about 6million families, which is around 15% of its population. The health sector in Pakistan, largely private and public sector provides its services to around 35% of the population which is going to jump to 65% in a time span of two months. These two projects will help to ease the poverty condition in Pakistan.
Read more »Labels: Applied Development Economics, CREB, IGC, Lahore School, Pakistan, Pakistan Economy, Research
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 9/11/2021 01:33:00 PM,
4-5 September 2019
The Lahore School of Economics in partnership with
International Growth Centre hosted its Second International Conference on Applied Development Economics, at its Burki Campus on 4-5th September 2019. Similar to the
first edition of the conference last year which was a great success, the two-day event this year, was once again devoted to bringing together policy makers, renowned researchers, academics and practitioners from within Pakistan and abroad to discuss relevant themes for developing countries such as, poverty, social protection, gender, public finance, firms and political economy. The thought-provoking research presented at the conference was hoped to disseminate and invite interesting feedback, stimulate further research in this domain and be instrumental in improving research capabilities of young researchers within the country.
The conference started off with welcome remarks by Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhry (Rector, Lahore School of Economics). He extended a warm welcome to a distinguished and impressive galaxy of academics, researchers and other honorable guests. He highlighted that it is a sensitive time for Pakistan with the brunt being borne by the poor and vulnerable segments of society especially with regards to food poverty. He emphasized the dire need for researchers to collaborate globally, so as to understand and address the complexities of the developing world. He highlighted on how this conference sets the stage for further deliberation on core developmental issues. The plenary address was delivered by Dr. Ghazala Mansuri (Lead Economist, World Bank) who took on a more policy-oriented approach towards issues in her insightful research focusing on water, sanitation and child health. She pondered over that it is puzzling that even though poverty has been on a declining trend in Pakistan, improvement in sanitation and access to safe drinking water - focal areas of MDGs - have been limited. She stressed on how stunting and wastage in children caused due to poor sanitation facilities, has an adverse impact on their motor skills and immunity, regardless of the household’s income level. She highlighted that these effects were more strongly felt in Sindh, and more so in rural than urban areas, due to inefficient human fecal waste management relative to Punjab, KP and Baluchistan. She also noted that only urban areas have access to piped water whereas hand and mechanized pumps are more commonly found in rural areas, with sporadic testing for water quality and contamination. This contamination, she explained, arises from effluent seeping into water ways and ground water used for drinking and irrigation of agricultural production which is highly detrimental to health. She concluded her address by proposing that there is a need to strengthen regulatory guidelines and enforcement mechanisms in this sphere as well as provision safe water and sanitation by the public sector.
Read more »Labels: Applied Development Economics, CREB, Lahore School, Pakistan, Pakistan Economy, Research
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 9/06/2019 09:21:00 AM,
Lahore School of Economics hosted its first International Conference on Applied Development Economics on 12-13 September 2018 at the Lahore School’s Burki Campus. The aim of the conference was to expose researchers and policy makers in Pakistan to on-going research on key issues of relevance to economic development and poverty alleviation in Pakistan and contribute to improving research capabilities of young researchers in the country. The conference highlighted frontier research that is being conducted in Pakistan with the aim of economic development and poverty alleviation.
The first day of the conference started with welcome remarks by Dr Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, rector of Lahore School of Economics.
Professor Imran Rasul, Professor of Economics at the University College London delivered the Plenary Address was focused on new research on Bangladesh and Pakistan that aims to broaden the agenda on understanding how to optimally design social protection programs for the poor and whether such programs should entail providing transfers in kind or in cash. He showed that asset transfers reduced engagement in casual wage labour, increased work in capital-intensive sectors as well as labour supply hours.
Labels: Applied Development Economics, CREB, Pakistan, Pakistan Economy, Research
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 9/14/2018 03:55:00 PM,
City Campus
104 - C, Gulberg III,
Lahore, Pakistan.
Phones: 92-42-35714936, 38474385
Fax: 92-42-36560905
Main Campus
Intersection Main Boulevard Phase VI
Burki Road
Lahore, Pakistan.
Phones: 37254099, 37254311
