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Blog Post
February 19, 2024
One of the few silver linings from Brexit for the UK has been the increase in non-EU migration. But this has led to renewed concerns about a “brain drain”, the notion that the exodus of skilled workers from poorer countries will leave them unable to meet their own development goals. Yet these concer...
Blog Post
October 17, 2023
There’s not a lot of low-hanging fruit in global development. On the issues that matter most, from preventing the next pandemic to expanding migration opportunities, and financing climate adaptation, even minor progress tends to require big financial commitments and often faces deep political resist...
Blog Post
July 30, 2023
In a new paper, we examine the connection between exposure to lead—a dangerous but prevalent neurotoxicant—and children’s learning outcomes. We find that lead poisoning alone could account for more than 20 percent of the learning gap between rich and poor countries. Given the comparative ease of, sa...
Blog Post
May 16, 2022
You’ve seen the headline; indeed, you’ve probably seen it from us. According to widely cited estimates, about one in three children around the world are lead-poisoned, or about 800 million total. This means that they have blood-lead levels exceeding 5 micrograms per deciliter, a common reference lev...
Blog Post
August 16, 2021
The recent $5 billion overnight cut in UK foreign aid highlights the importance of understanding the politics of aid spending. This blog explores the role of international travel by rich country citizens to poorer countries in determining attitudes towards aid, and the potential value of volunteer t...