Driving Change: Remarkable Researchers

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Driving Change: Remarkable Researchers

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Bibliographic details

• Authors: BRUCE EDWARDS, Rhoda Metcalfe
• Published: March 3, 2025

Overview

• Purpose: Showcase women economists from developing countries whose local empirical research informs policy domestically and internationally.
• Initiative: The IMF’s Driving Change collaboration with the International Economic Association’s Women in Leadership in Economics (IEA-WE).
• Contextual findings:
  • "More than 90 percent of articles in the top 10 economic journals come from Western institutions, and most of those are written by men."
  • Women economists in developing countries are rarer than women economists generally.

Ipek Ilkkaracan — Purple Gain

• Concept:
  • Introduced the term "purple economy" to emphasize making economies more sustainable through increased gender equality and investment in social care infrastructure, complementing the "green economy."
• Research focus: labor, development, and feminist economics.
• Key empirical findings:
  • In the Turkish context, public spending on early childhood care services and preschool education can create "three times more jobs than the same magnitude of public funds being allocated to the construction sector."
  • "There are sixteen and a half billion hours of unpaid work performed every day around the globe" in caregiving and household production.
  • Shifting "only half of that to the paid sphere" would "amount to hundreds of millions of new jobs."
• Policy implications:
  • Invest in care services (early childhood care, preschool education) as a job-creation strategy.
  • Recognize and formalize caregiving to expand paid employment opportunities and counter technological job losses.

Rose Ngugi — Getting an Edge from Data

• Background: Economics training at the University of Nairobi and Birmingham University; six years at the IMF; executive director of the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA).
• Method and tools:
  • Developed Kenya-centric sectoral indices used by county governments to gauge impact and effectiveness of policies.
• Key empirical points:
  • The informal sector employs "80 percent of the population" in Kenya.
  • The indices are "helping 47 counties countrywide build stronger local economies."
• Policy recommendations:
  • Use localized, relevant data to identify underperforming areas and guide county-level policy interventions.
  • Treat micro and small enterprises as the bedrock of growth by supporting productivity and decent job creation at the local level.

Marcela Eslava — Rethinking Social Protection

• Background: PhD from the University of Maryland; teaches at Universidad de Los Andes; heads LACEA.
• Analytical framing:
  • Identifies "low income and high inequality" as the core Latin American development problem.
  • Highlights large shares of workers operating in informal jobs who do not contribute to social security.
• Key empirical observations:
  • Survival entrepreneurs account for "half of Latin America’s workers" and are often excluded from formal social security coverage.
• Policy prescriptions:
  • Redesign social protection systems to protect people based on risks faced rather than employment formality.
  • Ensure health care coverage "when you get sick, not when you get sick and you’re formally employed."
  • "Rethink the way in which we finance social protection" with "a whole new vision on taxes and contributions that governments raise."

Rumana Huque — Coughers and Coffers

• Background: Trained in health economics; PhD work at the University of Leeds; teaches at the University of Dhaka.
• Country context:
  • "Tobacco use is really high in Bangladesh."
  • Global Adult Tobacco Surveys (2017) show "35.3 percent of people 15 years of age or older use tobacco products."
  • National Board of Revenue reports "between 9 and 11 percent of all tax revenue comes from the tobacco industry."
  • Tobacco kills "more than 160,000 Bangladeshis every year."
• Empirical studies:
  • A study of "1,300 school-age children" found that "95 percent had nicotine in their saliva," indicating exposure to secondhand smoke.
• Policy conclusions:
  • Taxes on tobacco are the "most cost-effective way to discourage the use of tobacco products."
  • Governments reliant on tobacco taxation should "find alternate sources of tax revenue" and prioritize public health gains over revenue dependence.
  • Address interagency trade-offs between revenue authorities and health ministries to make decisions "for the bigger interest of the population."

BRUCE EDWARDS, Rhoda Metcalfe; F&D Magazine; March 2025.

Content in this bundle

• Women in Economics
  • Women in Economics (Markdown version)
  • Women in Economics (PDF)