Development Research Group

As climate shocks intensify, how can people, firms, and governments move beyond coping with disasters to anticipate, prepare for, and reduce the severity of shocks before they occur?

On December 2, World Bank Senior Economist Forhad Shilpi shared insights from the report Rethinking Resilience: Adapting to a Changing Climate, during the last Policy Research Talk of the year.

She presented the report's Five I’s strategy—income, information, insurance, infrastructure, and interventions—which can help countries shift from reactive relief to proactive adaptation, laying the foundation for inclusive growth and long-term prosperity.

In this VoxDev blog, Anja Sautmann, Senior Economist at the Development Research Group, and Mark Dean, Professor at Columbia University, outline how subsidising healthcare for children in Mali substantially increased necessary care-seeking while generating only minimal unnecessary use. A randomized trial found that families receiving subsidies were nearly three times more likely to seek care when needed. While some overuse occurred, underuse remains the bigger challenge: many serious illnesses still go untreated.

The findings highlight cost as a key barrier and call for removing user fees to improve child health.

The latest edition of Trade Watch, jointly developed by the Development Research Group and the Trade, Investment, and Competition Department, shows that global goods trade continued to expand in Q3 2025, despite higher trade-policy uncertainty.

Trade in services also continued to grow in the July-to-September period, albeit at a slower pace, led by digitally enabled services.

Shipping costs remained low, as container fleet expansion continued to restrain shipping costs amid global supply chain pressures.

The Research Institute for Development, Growth and Economics (RIDGE), the LACEA HUMANS MIGRATION Network, and The University of the West Indies invite submissions for the LACEA HUMANS MIGRATION Workshop, to be held in Barbados, May 21-22, 2026, in the framework of the 2026 RIDGE May Forum.

The organizers welcome papers on internal and international migration from all countries, with an emphasis on Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Both theoretical and empirical contributions are welcome too.

Submissions deadline: January 15, 2026