A randomised controlled trial of push vs. pull marketing strategies in rural India For millions of rural consumers in developing countries, the means used for everyday tasks such as cooking, drinking water, and lighting are potentially lethal acts, even though less harmful alternatives are widely used by their urban contemporaries. The quality, availability and affordability…
Investigating ways to cure disease, reduce mortality rates and improve life expectancy The challenge Research and development (R&D) expenditure in the pharmaceutical industry is extremely high. However, developing countries face severe resource constraints and weak institutions, and their urgent need for medicines can only be met by profit-driven, big pharmaceutical firms. Why do (some) firms…
Helping parents make better child nutrition and immunisation decisions The challenge Undernutrition contributes to more than half of all deaths of children under the age of five and is directly linked with economic development (Unicef, 2018a). Lack of immunisation is also a widespread problem in poor communities. Liquidity constraints can make food products unaffordable, resulting…
Understanding the effects of regulation on start-up activity and wage inequality The Challenge Reduced entrepreneurial activity and wage inequality is one of the world’s most pressing challenges and a cause of friction between large and small firms. Increased regulatory burden, especially on smaller firms, can explain the 50% decline in start-up activity in the US…
Establishing an interdisciplinary community of practice The Challenge Cyber attacks have the capacity to cause great financial and physical harm to individuals and households, disrupt business operations, and destabilise entire communities. These threats are particularly acute for institutionally-fragile environments with poor penetration of training and education. A first-order concern are large-scale, state-sponsored cyber attacks that…
Helping workers from poorer backgrounds fulfil their potential The Challenge There is great focus today on providing equal-education opportunities for individuals from poorer backgrounds to help them attain socioeconomic mobility, thereby reducing the attainment gap and inequality. Organisations are the primary source of economic value-generation but, while some studies suggest that large organisations mitigate inequality,…
“To realise the full potential of this promising technology, we need one critical ingredient. That critical ingredient is trust. And to build trust we need human-centred artificial intelligence that fosters sustainable development and inclusive human progress – and I stress the word inclusive,” he said. Artificial Intelligence has the potential to transform our lives –…
The Balkans are used to disruption, and Serbia is no exception. But the huge upheavals that the current state of Serbia has seen over decades – and indeed centuries – could actually be to the country’s advantage, said Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić at a gathering hosted by the Wheeler Institute for Business and Development…
This three-day course organised by the Wheeler Institute for Business and Development introduced researchers in Economics and related disciplines to Geographic Information System (GIS) methods. The masterclass was delivered from 13-15 May 2019 at Sammy Ofer Centre / London Business School. The course placed emphasis on “doing GIS” for economics – i.e., turning geographic data,…
India holds the largest share of the global out-of-school girl population. In the last ten years, Educate Girls has designed a sustainable and scalable approach to finding and enrolling girls, and then ensuring they stay in school and learn. To date, with deep community engagement and advanced analytics, they have enabled 380,000 girls to enter…