The World Bank’s ‘Learning Poverty’ crisis presents a staggering challenge: the majority of ten-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries cannot read a simple text.[1] This is not simply an access problem. Even children who are in school are not receiving teaching adapted to their needs. For too long, development agencies have wrestled with a seemingly…
How do we scale impact when the path forward isn’t straightforward? Hosted by the Social Impact Club at London Business School with the support of the Wheeler Institute for Business and Development, the annual summit will take place on April 16, 2026 and will bring together a diverse community of founders, business practitioners, students, researchers…
On Friday, March 20, 2026, the Wheeler Institute is pleased to welcome Stefanie Stantcheva, Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University and Founder and Director of the Social Economics Lab, for the second event of the series Public Policy in the Age of Innovation. Stefanie Stantcheva is a leading scholar in political economy…
Communities on the outskirts of León, Nicaragua have faced a dire environmental and public health challenge that has intensified over the past decade. Large-scale deforestation and intensive peanut farming have removed natural windbreaks, leaving soils exposed to strong seasonal winds. The result is tolvaneras, or dust storms, that darken the sky, disrupt daily life, and…
Ghana has a significant political history, as it was the first Sub-Saharan African country to achieve independence from colonial rule in 1957. Despite its role as a forerunner for economic freedom, the country continues to face significant challenges at the core of its development, including but not limited to frequent global economic shocks, fluctuating inflation…
Artificial intelligence, technological disruption, and geopolitical instability are reshaping the policy landscape. In an era defined by overlapping economic and technological transitions, governments face renewed questions about prioritisation: how should states balance immediate social pressures (“butter”) with longer-term strategic and security demands (“guns”)? The Wheeler Institute for Business and Development was delighted to host Philippe…
Across emerging markets, the pursuit of shared prosperity increasingly points to a quiet and often overlooked engine of progress: foundational learning. The ability to read, write, and reason by the early years of primary school shapes every subsequent stage of a student’s educational journey and a country’s economic trajectory. Yet, in many parts of Africa,…
When heavy rains once again pushed parts of Porto Alegre in Brazil underwater last year, it underscored a pattern across many emerging markets: climate shocks are arriving faster than cities can rebuild. For emerging economies, climate-related disasters can cost approximately 0.3% of GDP annually, yet nearly 70% of those economic losses remain uninsured [1]. Floods…
For decades, the U.S. dollar has served as the undisputed anchor of the global financial system – the primary currency for international trade, global assets, and central bank reserves. But as the world enters an era of increasing fragmentation, is that dominance under threat? At a recent Wheeler Institute event, Kenneth Rogoff, Maurits C. Boas…
For over half a century, the doctrine of shareholder primacy has offered a simple moral compass for corporate executives: make as much money as possible. Popularised by Milton Friedman in his seminal 1970 New York Times article, the theory posits that by maximising profits within the bounds of law and custom, companies maximise social welfare.…
